Partisan and Structural Balance in Local Television Election Coverage

Abstract

Much of what voters learn about candidates for state office comes from local television news programs. Coverage of the 1998 governor's race in Michigan, however, averaged less than 4 percent of hard-news stories. Moreover, about a quarter of those stories focused on the “horse race” and lacked information from the candidates or supporters about substantive issue stands. Individual stories tended to be one sided and imbalanced in the attention paid to candidates. Stories packaged by reporters, however, were more likely to include both candidates than stories read by anchors. Further, balanced coverage was achieved by some stations by using packages focusing on one candidate in conjunction with packages focusing on the other. Because most stations produced only one story on a given day, viewers not following all the stories may have gotten a more negative impression of coverage balance than was merited.