July 15, 2004
Kerry less visible in news than Gore in 2000
Senator John Kerry’s media presence during the first half of the presidential election year has fallen significantly short of the coverage Al Gore received during the 2000 campaign.
The latest report from Media Tenor, an independent media institute, shows that while Gore's media coverage doubled from January to June in 2000, Kerry's presence in leading national media outlets decreased to only one third of the total political coverage during the corresponding period in 2004. In June, Kerry reiceved only 28.9% of the total political coverage in these outlets. Four years ago, Gore's share of the coverage was 50.1%.
While media presence during an election campaign does not necessarily indicate candidate popularity with voters, Bush has easily beat Kerry (especially when compared with Gore in 2000) in media visibility during the campaign season thus far. Media Tenor's analysis of leading media shows that in June 2000 Bush slightly trailed Gore in media visibility, while in June 2004, Bush's media visibility is at more than twice that of Kerry's.
You can find the complete report with graphics at
http://www.mediatenor.com/USElect071504.htm
This belongs in the Democrats/Liberals column. You could have at least acknowledged that 3rd party media coverage is virtually non-existent.
Posted by: Stephen VanDyke at July 15, 2004 02:39 PMWhat are the chances it’s simply the difference between being the incumbent and being the challenger?
Posted by: LawnBoy at July 15, 2004 03:11 PMIsadora:
I’d suspect there is a variable in there that is connected to that difference—-that being the Iraq war. There was no war during 2000 when Gore and Bush were campaigning.
I’s suspect that Bush is mentioned more in media relating to the war than Kerry would be, and this could make up part of the difference.
Earlier in the year, before the Democratic primary, the other 8 Democratic challengers would have diluted the number of references to Kerry, making that another variable. Remember that Gore was the only viable Dem candidate in 2000.
Stephen, this article is non-partisan, so it goes here, I guess. The chart does show coverage of Nader.
Interestingly the chart shows that Bush had 80% coverage in February 2000 and slowly evened out by May. So the incumbent theory might not hold. And I don’t know about the dilution of coverage from the primaries either since Kerry’s been de facto for a while now and his coverage has gone down.
Posted by: Joseph Briggs at July 15, 2004 06:15 PMI think most people would agree that this election is very different from most in the recent past, so those numbers and the conclusions apperantly drawn from them seem way off. Bush has gotten more media coverage, but the overwhelming majority of it has been negative.
I don’t think it’s a partisan statement to say that a very high percentage of those voting for Kerry will do so NOT because they personally like Kerry but because they loathe Bush, so it doesn’t matter how much coverage Kerry gets. In fact, the less coverage the better as far as Kerry is concerned.
I also agree that this election is unlike any before it and that Bush has more mentions in the press thanks to the debacle the Iraq war has become. I also think the fact that Gore was the Vice President in 2000 and that Bush is the incumbent in ‘04 would also skew coverage quite a bit.
Posted by: ivan jurado at July 16, 2004 02:53 AMWhy is John Kerry always pretending he’s Irish?
He’s not, he’s from a Jewish background. In fact, he even had relatives die in the Holocaust.
But why is it every time there is an Irish occasion or holiday in Boston, he puts on a leprechaun hat or “kiss me, I’m Irish” button trying to pretend he’s Irish? He never shows up
at the Jewish celebrations and Holidays with a
yarmulka. His grandfather’s name was Kohn, but
changed it to Kerry to try to pass the family off
as Irish. What dishonesty!
