According to a new study by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, the rise of Donald Trump is, in fact, the media’s fault — at least in part. The study tracked how much media coverage each candidate got, and estimated how much “free advertising” that was worth.

Unsurprisingly, Trump came out on top, with a whopping $55 million in free coverage. According to the study’s authors:

“When his news coverage began to shoot up, [Trump] was not high in the trial-heat polls and had raised almost no money. Upon entering the race, he stood much taller in the news than he stood in the polls. By the end of the invisible primary, he was high enough in the polls to get the coverage expected of a frontrunner. But he was lifted to that height by an unprecedented amount of free media.”

And what’s worse, the media did not cover Trump critically — the coverage was overwhelmingly positive or neutral. Says The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza:

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“All eight of the major news outlets that the Shorenstein Center studied gave Trump a majority of neutral or positive coverage. That’s remarkable. The chart above also calls into question the long-standing argument that cable news might have ‘gone easy’ on Trump but digital outlets were far tougher on him. (Worth noting: The way this study defines ‘neutral’ coverage is, by its very nature, somewhat subjective. It’s possible then that the numbers above could be moved around somewhat. But the general thrust seems clear.)”