June 15, 2004
As Economy Improves, Bush's Economic Policy Ignored; Kerry Absent from Media in Wake of Reagan's Death
New York - June 14, 2004. Coverage of the state of the economy, education, healthcare and domestic security have been declining in the U.S. TV evening news since January. The latest report from Media Tenor, an independent media analysis institute, shows that the big three networks have neglected topics that are crucial influences on voters’ decisions in national elections.
At the beginning of the year, Bush's economic policies overshadowed all other issues in news coverage. However, since April, the networks have practically abandoned coverage of his economic policy - even as the economy and labor market have shown signs of significant improvement.
ABC focused heavily on the state of the economy in its news coverage at the beginning of the year, and in January, issues such as domestic security, healthcare and education still played a role on World News Tonight, albeit a small one. Since April, however, these four issues have practically vanished from news coverage. The same trend also occurred at the other two networks, and all four issues have ceased to be consistently presented since April. As a consequence, the public does not have a clear picture of either of the candidates' stances on these issues.
For the first time in more than five weeks, George W. Bush received more positive (8.4%) than negative (7.6%) news coverage*. John Kerry, by contrast, has faced a dearth of positive news coverage since the second week of June. Kerry's campaign paused in the week following Reagan's death, and in that time the evening news didn't feature a single direct quote from him. When he was mentioned 13.3% of Kerry's coverage was negative.
*The remaining share of coverage corresponds to neutral or ambivalent coverage.
Download complete report at: http://www.mediatenor.com/US-Election_040611.htm
Media follows ad money and ad money follows sensationalism and the sensationalist news of late has all be foreign affairs.
NPR and C-Span and other non-traditional media outlets have been covering the economic situation, but, to a far lesser degree than Iraq and other foreign news pertaining to U.S. involvement.
Posted by: David R. Remer at June 15, 2004 03:14 PMThat’s because there is nothing more important than getting a family members head blown off in Iraq, or whether we will have to reinstate the draft.
Survival is always more important than the ability to buy a new toy.
Heck, if it weren’t for the Patriot Acts, Iraq, the deficient and a screwed up Medicare reform I might even have voted for W.
Bob, could it also be the public can only entertain itself on one story at a time?
Posted by: David R. Remer at June 15, 2004 11:23 PMIsadora,
I’m not sure if you’re trying to prove a media bias in not covering the recovering economy, is the reason Bush is not seeing more support.
In addition, I’d consider any scrutiny of broadcast news to be flawed (or partisan), if the sole analysis includes the 3 major networks, and excludes Fox, MSNBC and CNN.
It will be interesting to see, if the rollout of Bush TV ads touting the economy in the 18 battleground states, will have an impact.
The reason it has not helped so far, is simple. Kinda like what Tip O’Neil said, ‘All politics is local’.
Americans with large stock portfolios are feeling the recovery, those still unemployed in Ohio who recently lost their manufacturing jobs, are not.
TimeWarner CEO Richard Parsons, who sold off a number of its subsidiaries (after laying off about 12,000 employees beforehand), got an $8 million dollar bonus for turning the stock around, and now resides in the company’s new behemoth in Manhattan. While one 16 year employee is cashing out his 401K after being out of a job, for more than a year now.
Posted by: Bert M. Caradine at June 16, 2004 01:29 AMDavid:
I can’t speak for the rest of the public, but my cousin is currently over there, my nephew is approaching draft age and we just buried a couple of National Guard members from my hometown. Nothing trumps media spin like a coffin.
The liberal media can continue to ignore it and dems and commies can continue to try to paint a different picture without the luxary of using facts, but some facts you can’t ignore.
Good news from the surging Bush, supply-side economy is that personal after tax annual wages for American workers have increased 11%. This from increases in productivity and from Bush’s tax cuts. Socialist Canadians can only sulk in envy as Liberals continue to raise taxes, particularly in Ontario, and follow zero-sum economic policies.
But in the U.S. productivity growth continues its spectacular climb while inflation remains in check. That is very remarkable when contrasted to previous booms. Inflation always increased
dramatically requiring interest rate hikes. But that is not happening this time because of
impressive productivity growth and foreign import competition resulting from the global free-market, capitalist economy.
The lion’s share of the credit for this goes to W and his administration. Adam Smith would be pleased. Very pleased. Karl Marx is probably rolling over in his grave.
Posted by: Fisk at June 16, 2004 12:58 PMMore positive Bush news than negative? What happened to the “liberal-controlled media” out there? And aren’t commie pinko liberal journalists supposed to savage someone like Reagan rather than eulogize him?
I’m being facetious of course. The media’s reportage panders to the audience more than anything else, so if there’s a liberal media—blame a liberal audience. If there’s a conservative media—blame the conservative audience.
If they’re showing Reagan in a respectful light, well, that’s what they anticipate the viewers want to see.
Posted by: Ciggy at June 17, 2004 11:37 PM
