Media News - Monday, August 27, 2012

Pew study: different media skew campaign coverage differently; most balanced: newspapers

A new study of news coverage by mainstream media, released by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, confirms what everyone pretty much has assumed for a while regarding campaign coverage of President Barack Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney: “Portrayal in the news media of the character and records of the two presidential contenders in 2012 has been as negative as any campaign in recent times,” the project reports. But then there’s this: “Neither candidate has enjoyed an advantage over the other.” As it has done in the previous three presidential campaigns, the Pew project set out to study news reports on presidential campaigns in a few dozen select media to see how much of the coverage could be characterized as positive and how much negative. The study pored over reports from May 29 through August 5 and also found this non-surprise: whether the candidates are most likely portrayed positively or negatively depends on the news medium. And this: the most balanced of all news media, including on-line media, are newspapers. Overall: Pew found news reports on Obama were 28 percent positive and 72 percent negative. For Romney, the references were 29 percent positive and 71 percent negative. (Orlando Sentinel)

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