News Coverage of Campaigns

Accuracy of News Coverage of Debates
Some research has examined the accuracy of campaign coverage by comparing what candidates said in primary and general debates with the news coverage of those debates.

Primary debates. Benoit, Hansen, and Stein (2003b) investigated newspaper coverage of several presidential primary debates from each campaign from 1980 through 2004. Newspaper articles systematically over-represent attacks and under-represent acclaims. Newspaper stories discussed attacks in 52% of statements about the debates, but attacks comprised only 30% of the statements made by candidates. In contrast, positive statements or acclaims constituted 66% of the comments in debates, but newspaper stories discussed acclaims in only 43% of remarks in the article. They also investigated the topics of newspaper coverage of primary debates. Overall, both candidates and the news emphasized policy, but policy was discussed even more frequently in debates (65%) than in stories. On the other hand, newspaper reports emphasized character (40%) more than the candidates (35%).

General debates. Benoit, Hansen, and Stein (2003a) also investigated newspaper coverage of general presidential debates from 1980-2000. Once again they found that newspapers dwell on the negative. Newspaper articles reported attacks 50% of the time whereas the candidates attacked in only 31% of their debate utterances. Candidates acclaimed in 61% of their statements, but acclaims constituted only 41% of newspaper stories. Again, they also examined topics covered. Newspaper articles on debates focused on character more (31% to 26%) and policy less (69% to 74%) than the debates.

So, it is clear that newspaper stories have a tendency to accentuate the negative, over-representing attacks made by candidates in debates and under-reporting their positive statements. Furthermore, there is a tendency for newspaper stories on debates to focus more on character, and less on policy, than the candidates themselves. So, if voters think campaigns are negative and focused on image rather than issue, news coverage may be to blame for these misperceptions.

News Coverage

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Coverage of 2004
Democratic Primary

Accuracy of News
Coverage of Debates

Bias in News Coverage
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Understanding
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News Coverage References