This is interesting. Can you reduce it to numbers?
Every week Media Tenor issues its Slant-o-meter, comparing the tone of coverage of George W. Bush and John F. Kerry in TV networks and other media in the past week. Presented in a single chart, it shows the difference between the share of positive and negative statements on Bush and Kerry. The Slant-o-meter allows the public to differentiate how each media presented the candidates in a more positive or negative way according to very precise criteria.
Media Tenor is monitoring and analyzing the media coverage of the presidential elections. The aim of the research is to highlight trends and tendencies of reporting in U.S. media, particularly broadcast news programs.
NBC sides with Kerry; Fox News more anti-Kerry than pro-Bush
The Fox News Channel's coverage of the presidential candidates differed from their presentation on ABC's and CBS's evening news programs, with an overall more positive tone in statements on or by George W. Bush. NBC, conversely, featured the least negative portrayal of John Kerry in last week's coverage.
From August 16 to 19, Media Tenor compared the coverage of the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC with Special Report with Brit Hume on the Fox News Channel. Both Bush and Kerry received overall negative coverage in all analyzed media.
On network news, negative reports on Bush exceeded negative reports by a 25% to 35% share of the overall coverage. In the same period, coverage of Bush on Fox was overall neutral in tone, without a predominance of negative or positive reports.
In the coverage of Kerry, ABC, CBS and FOX reported with a 22% to 17% excess of more negative than positive reports. NBC featured the most positive coverage of Kerry, with only an approximate 4% share of more negative than positive reports, at the same time portraying Bush in the most negative tone, with 35% more negative than positive reports.
The Special Report with Brit Hume was chosen for this study for featuring more political coverage than other shows with a similar time frame.
CHART AT mediatenor.com |
