Newspaper Primary Coverage Nearly All About The Horse Race

NEWSPAPER PRIMARY COVERAGE NEARLY ALL ABOUT THE HORSE RACE
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Mark Fitzgerald]
University of Missouri Communication Professor William Benoit and doctoral candidate Mark Glantz analyzed more than 800 USA Today stories about the 2008 presidential primaries, and found more than half -- 56% -- were devoted to the horse race aspect of the campaign, such as polls, strategies, predictions, and, of course, election results. By contrast, fewer than a third -- 29% -- of the articles concerned a candidate's character -- and just 15% included statements about a candidate's policy. The research into USA Today stories is just the first part of an unfinished study that will include statistics of the primary campaign coverage of The New York Time and The Washington Post as well. But Benoit doesn't expect the results form those papers will be very different from USA Today.
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