A new journalism study entitled "Government: In and Out of the News," was released by the Washington-based Council for Excellence in Government, a non-partisan think tank. The report reveals news coverage about the federal government has plummeted in the last two decades, and the amount provided tends to favor Democrats over Republicans.
The study examined more than 400 hours of airtime from the broadcast television networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) as well as some 13,000 front-page newspaper articles from national publications (the New York Times and Washington Post), and four regional papers: the Austin American-Statesman, Des Moines Register, San Jose Mercury News, and St. Petersburg Times.
The report focused on news during the first year of the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and found coverage of all three combined was nearly two to one negative in tone, with Republicans the recipients of more negative reports.
News stories most often focused on the executive branch, comprising 70 percent of content in newspapers and 80 percent of network news.
According to the study:
The proportion of favorable comments toward the executive branch ranged from a high of only 40 percent positive (i.e., 60 percent negative) toward the Clinton administration on network news, to a low of 25 percent positive (vs. 75 percent negative) toward the Reagan administration in the New York Times.
Similarly, congressional Democrats received "only" 2-to-1 margins of criticism over praise, compared to an even worse three-to-one negative margin of opinions about Republicans. This was less a question of which party was praised more than of which party was criticized less.
Coverage of Congress at times had more than a 10-to-1 negative margin, irrespective of party affiliation.
The analysis noted a dramatic increase in the amount of opinion that's embedded with news reports, "as the emphasis of political news shifts from factual description to analysis and judgment."
It found an overall 20 percent hike in the amount of opinionated evaluations in stories, with television news a "startling" force for change, more than doubling the amount of evaluations with an increase of 138 percent.
"The surge in opinions expressed in the network newscasts is a powerful indicator of a shift toward a more analytical and judgmental style of presenting government news on television," the summary noted.
Overall, the study shows the Clinton administration receiving more favorable coverage than its Republican counterparts, but the difference was clearest between the Clinton and Reagan terms.
http://www.excelgov.org/usermedia/images/uploads/PDFs/EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY_FINAL_PDF.pdf http://www.excelgov.org/usermedia/images/uploads/PDFs/PEW_FINAL_REPORT_PDF.pdf