Does Network News Coverage of Legislation in Congress Show Signs of Partisan Bias?
Abstract
Television news plays a large role in shaping the general public's opinion of politics. Therefore, coverage tainted by bias can influence how people think and eventually choose the politicians who represent them. Such a great amount of time has been spent by journalists, politicians and scholars on the subject of media bias, that it is easy to cite sources supporting almost any position. Unfortunately, much of this work has relied on anecdotal evidence and subjective content analysis. Studies using more sophisticated statistical techniques often do not properly specify the empirical models that are eventually chosen. This makes the results of such studies questionable. This study measures the effect of party affiliation on the amount of news coverage given to legislation voted on in Congress. By recording the amount of coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC, on the days before, on and after a vote is taken in Congress, this effect can be estimated using several fixed effects regression models. Although empirical results showed no consistent signs of bias, they did suggest that, under certain circumstances, television networks do consider party affiliation when allocating airtime. This is important in showing that television networks are not always objective and viewers need to consider this as they watch the nightly news.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA410553
Entities
People
- Colin A. Knapp
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology