2008 Election Coverage Focuses on Horse Race

Oct. 29, 2007 — -- A new study finds the news media has focused more on campaign strategy, polls and fundraising than on the individual public policy positions of the 2008 presidential candidates.

The study, released Monday, found that news coverage in the first five months of the campaign has painted a picture of a small field of only five candidates jockeying for position.

Almost 63 percent of all stories from print, television, radio and the Internet combined focused on the political aspects of the campaign, while only 15 percent concentrated on the candidates' ideas and policy proposals, the study found.

The study was conducted jointly by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is part of the Pew Research Center, and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

"More than three-quarters of the American public said in recent surveys that they want more coverage of the candidates' positions on the issues... and that's exactly what they're not getting from the coverage in the press," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center examined 1,742 stories that appeared from January through May 2007 in 48 different news outlets, including The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News and PBS.

Mitchell said the authors of the study wondered whether the media would take advantage of the early start to the 2008 campaign and focus more on policy issues than they had in the past.

"If anything, they are focusing even more so on the horse race now," she said, noting that similar analysis of 2000 and 2004 campaign coverage found a tendency for the media to focus on who's up, who's down and who made the latest gaffe.

But, with such a large field of candidates this time around -- the race began with 19 candidates and is now down to 16 -- most news organizations do not have the resources to cover every candidate for the duration of the campaign.

"In these nominating contests with large fields, journalists are in a tough position of figuring out who the front-runners are," said Harvard professor Thomas Patterson, author of "The Vanishing Voter" and "Out of Order."

Patterson, who did not participate in conducting the study, said with such a large field questions about the horse race rather than substantive policy are natural tendencies.

"That begins to orient journalists to emphasize the horse race, and voters need much more information about the substance of the campaign," he said.

Patterson said people could begin to "tune out" of the campaign if all the information is about who's got the most support in the polls, and who's raising the most money.

The Harvard professor also said that by portraying the campaign as a game of one-upmanship, and the candidates as manipulators who will say anything to gain advantage in the primaries and caucuses, some voters could be given a jaded view of politics.

"If jaded enough, that could be a disincentive to participation," Patterson said.