Filling Out the Racing Form: How the Media Covered the Horse Race in the 1988 Primaries

Abstract

How the media covered the horse race changed during the course of the 1988 presidential primaries. A content analysis of newspaper and network coverage revealed that the press initially focused on general indicators of candidate strength, then concentrated on event-specific horse-race measures. After the New Hampshire primary, coverage began to center on the candidates' general momentum in the campaign. Also, different measures of horse-race coverage provided different perceptions of how each candidate was performing in the primaries. Finally, while the newspapers' coverage differed from the networks', there were few differences within each medium.