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Released October 29, 2007
THE INVISIBLE PRIMARY—INVISIBLE NO LONGER:
A First Look at Coverage of the 2008 Presidential Campaign
n the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, the media had already winnowed the race to mostly five candidates and offered Americans relatively little information about their records or what they would do if elected, according to a comprehensive new study of the election coverage across the media.
The press also gave some candidates measurably more favorable coverage than others. Democrat Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, enjoyed by far the most positive treatment of the major candidates during the first five months of the year—followed closely by Fred Thompson, the actor who at the time was only considering running. Arizona Senator John McCain received the most negative coverage—much worse than his main GOP rivals.
Meanwhile, the tone of coverage of the two party front runners, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, was virtually identical, and more negative than positive, according to the study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
In all, 63% of the campaign stories focused on political and tactical aspects of the campaign. That is nearly four times the number of stories about the personal backgrounds of the candidates (17%) or the candidates’ ideas and policy proposals (15%). And just 1% of stories examined the candidates’ records or past public performance, the study found.
The press’ focus on fundraising, tactics and polling is even more evident if one looks at how stories were framed rather than the topic of the
Tone of Coverage Percent of All Stories Positive Negative Hillary Clinton 26.9 37. Barack Obama 46.7 15. Rudy Giuliani 27.8 37. John McCain 12.4 47.
Topics of Campaign Stories
story. Just 12% of stories examined were presented in a way that explained how citizens might be affected by the election, while nearly nine-out-of-ten stories (86%) focused on matters that largely impacted only the parties and the candidates. Those numbers, incidentally, match almost exactly the campaign-centric orientation of coverage found on the eve of the primaries eight years ago.
All of these findings seem to be at sharp variance with what the public says it wants from campaign reporting. A new poll by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press conducted for this report finds that about eight-in- ten of Americans say they want more coverage of the candidates’ stances on issues, and majorities want more on the record and personal background, and backing of the candidates, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates. 1
These are just some of the key findings of the study, which examined 1, campaign stories that appeared from January through May in 48 different news outlets in print, online, network TV, cable and radio, including talk shows. The study was designed and produced jointly by PEJ, a non-partisan, non-political institute that is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, which is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Among other findings from the PEJ-Shorenstein study:
- Just five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband.
- Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.) One reason was that major Democratic candidates began announcing their candidacies a month earlier than key Republicans, but that alone does not fully explain the discrepancy.
- Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage
(^1) “Modest Interest in 2008 Campaign News.” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. October 23,
What Topics the Public Wants Covered More Less Candidates’ position on issues 77% 17 Candidate debates 57% 32 Candidates’ personal backgrounds and experiences 55% 36 The candidates who are not front runners 55% 37 Sources of candidates’ campaign money 55% 35 Which candidate in leading in the latest polls 42% 45 Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press September 28 – October 1, 2007
What political scientists used to call the “Invisible Primary” of endorsements, fundraising and organizational work, in other words, is invisible no longer.
That early start, however, has posed something of a challenge for the press. According to survey data from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fewer than a quarter of Americans were closely following the election during the period examined here, January through May
- 2 That is high by historical standards, nearly double the level of interest found at similar periods during the 2004 and 2000 presidential elections. Still, it represents relatively limited public attention and presents a conundrum for journalists.
The question for the press is this: How to cover a campaign so early, when so many candidates are competing in both parties so early, but only a limited number of citizens are paying close attention and there is still a long way to go until voting day?
Does focusing on the game aspects of the campaign—political tactics and strategy—make the coverage more exciting and draw more people in to the news? Or does the “game frame” appeal to a narrower news audience?
Most citizens, whether they are following the campaign closely or not, have some clear ideas of the kind of coverage they prefer. In a new poll produced for this report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, nearly eight-in-ten Americans (77%) say they want more coverage of “the candidates’ positions on issues” than they are getting. Just 17% say they want less coverage of candidates’ positions.
Smaller majorities also said they want to see more stories about second-tier candidates (55%), about debates (57%) and about sources of campaign money (55%). And another 55% was interested in more coverage of the personal backgrounds and experiences of the candidates.
The public is more divided over stories about the where the candidates stand in the polls, the so-called horse race (42% want more stories about this topic, while 45% want less). These figures are similar to those from earlier elections.
Those results, taken together with the findings of the PEJ-Shorenstein study of coverage, suggest the press and the public are not on the same page when it comes to priorities in campaign coverage. This disparity also indicates there is room for the press
(^2) Based on results from the News Interest Index , a weekly survey conducted by the Pew Research Center
for the People & the Press. The News Interest Index has measured public interest in news about candidates for the 2008 presidential election on a weekly basis throughout 2007.
Percentage of People Following Campaign News Very Closely
Fairly Closely September 14-17, 2007 22% 31 May 18-21, 2007 18% 31 January 26-29, 2007 24% 33 Previous Campaigns September, 2003 17% 25 May, 2003 8% 19 January, 2003 14% 28 September, 1999 15% 31 June, 1999 11% 25 January, 1999 N/A N/A Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press September 28 – October 1, 2007
to calibrate its coverage differently to make it more useful and possibly more interesting to citizens.
The public is also not that happy with the press coverage. A majority of Americans (53%) in September said the coverage has been only fair or poor, while 41% rate it as good or excellent, according to another Pew Research Center survey. 3
What the Study Examined
By analyzing the news of the campaign from January to May, we can see what kind of coverage the American media think the public wants and needs. The PEJ- Shorenstein study looked at five basic aspects of the stories.
First, we identified what each story was about, topic. Next, we identified the primary figure the story was focused around. Was it a particular candidate, a group of candidates, or others? Third, we examined who was affected by what the story was about, impact. Was it citizens? Politicians? Interest groups? Or a combination?
In addition to these measurements, the study also noted two other features for each story.
We considered what initiated the story, its trigger: Was it something a candidate said or did? Something from a campaign surrogate? An outsider? Or was the story initiated by journalistic enterprise?
Finally, the study measured the tone of each story. Within its frame, was the story predominantly positive, negative or neutral about the candidates or their electoral prospects? In order to fall into the positive or negative category, two-thirds or more of the assertions in a story had to fall clearly on one side of that line or the other.
Election Topics
From the start, the press has tended to produce stories about one candidate at a time, rather than ones that compare candidates or examine broad themes. Fully eight out of 10 stories in the first five months focused mostly on a single candidate. The other 20% of stories concerned comparisons of candidates, electoral issues, the electorate and the rest.
The majority of all stories (63%) were primarily about the “game” aspects of the campaign—topics such as who is winning, who is losing, their fundraising, and how a candidate is performing on the stump. Of these topics, the lion’s share (50% overall) was
(^3) “Modest Interest in 2008 Campaign News.” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. October 23,
somewhat more oriented to the candidates’ political concerns than those found at later stages in past election cycles.
In the 2000 election, a PEJ study of the pre-primary phase of that race, conducted in December and January 1999-2000, found just over half (54%) of the stories were about political matters, while a quarter (24%) focused on the candidates’ policy and ideas, and 11% related to personal qualities. And similarly in 2004, a PEJ study of campaign themes surrounding the fall debates found that 55% of stories were framed around candidate strategy, fundraising, performance and polls. 4 Even earlier, a year-long study of the 1992 presidential campaign, conducted under the auspices of the Shorenstein Center, found that “issues get shorter shrift in all media when the horse race is most exciting (in the early primaries and the last month of the campaign). 5
Topics by Party
So far in 2007, tactics, polling and fundraising dominated coverage of both parties (Democrats at 59%, Republicans at 65%).
A closer look at the topic breakdowns reveals a marked difference between the coverage of Democrats and Republicans, particularly with regard to personal and policy issues. The coverage of Democrats was more personal. The coverage of Republicans was more about ideas.
Roughly a quarter (24%) of the stories devoted to Democrats focused on personal topics, compared with only 13% of the coverage of Republican candidates.
Policy stories, by contrast, made up much more of the coverage of Republicans (20%) than they did for Democrats (12%).
Heavy coverage of Elizabeth Edwards’ illness accounts for part, but hardly all of the difference between Democratic and Republican candidates’ personal coverage. It also may be that the perceived points of contrast among Democrats in the early phases had
(^4) The 2004 PEJ study examined theme-based stories, rather than all topics of election coverage. Even here,
in a narrowed range of stories, politics accounted for more than half of the coverage. Another study that focused on the primary campaign season was of network evening television coverage in 2004 conducted by Stephen Farnsworth and Robert Lichter. Their work showed an even higher percentage, 77%, of the primary season election stories were focused on horse race issues and only 18% were focused on policy issues. Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter. 2007. The Nightly News Nightmare: Television’s Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2004. 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (^5) Marion R. Just, Ann N. Crigler, Dean E. Alger, Timothy E. Cook, Montague Kern, and Darrell M. West
1996, Crosstalk: Citizens, Candidates and the Media in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996.
Election Topics by Party Percent of All Stories Democrats Republicans Political Topics 58.6 64. Personal Topics 24.3 12. Domestic Policy 5.2 12. Foreign Policy 7.2 7. Public Record 1.3 2. The Electorate 0.9 0. Miscellaneous 2.6 0.
more to do with biography—including the candidates’ gender, race, and marriages— whereas the differences among Republicans may have been sharper over policy— particularly on such issues as immigration and abortion.
Impact
The question of whether voters are well served by coverage is not strictly a matter of what the story is ostensibly about. Any topic may be relevant to helping voters discern differences among candidates. How candidates run their campaigns, for instance, may be a proxy for how they would run the country.
To probe further into this, the PEJ-Shorenstein study tried to isolate whether the information in stories was relevant or not to helping people decide how to vote. One way of doing this is to note who was primarily affected or impacted by the information the story was talking about. We called this measurement impact.
Did the information in the story mostly refer to how candidates might govern, i.e., what they believe in, their values, management style, personality and other similar matters? Or was it about matters that impact the candidates’ or parties’ chances of election? Or did the story deal with both the governance and electoral chances?
A story about tactics and strategy might be produced in such a way that tells a good deal about a candidate, his or her leadership or decision-making style. A story that simply outlines the numbers in a new poll, in contrast, would have to be described as impacting mainly the candidate and his or her campaign. If any useful information for citizens could be inferred concerning substance rather than strategy, the story coding defaulted toward impact on citizens.
The “impact” analysis showed that the coverage was tilted even more toward strategy than analysis of the topic of the stories.
In the end, just 12% of stories primarily impacted ordinary citizens, for instance. by telling potential voters how a candidate might lead if elected.
By contrast, 86% of the stories were produced in a way that largely focused on how the politicians’ chances of election would be affected.
This focus on political matters varied little by media. The most citizen- oriented coverage came from
Who Stories Impact Most Percent of All Stories
election stories, 49%, focused on Democratic candidates, while less than a third, 31%, focused on Republicans. More than half of this difference can be accounted for by the fact that Democrats started announcing their campaigns a month earlier than Republicans. It is worth noting, however, that the gap existed in other months as well, and also was reflected in all the media platforms studied, including some, such as talk radio and Fox News, that argue they are counterbalancing liberal bias in the media. In three of different news sectors—morning network shows, evening network news, and talk radio—the radio of Democratic to Republican was nearly 2 to 1.
That statistic alone does not fully describe the press’ focus. Of the 18 candidates running, even in the early months of the race, the media were concerned with only a handful of contenders.
Five candidates—two Democrats and three Republicans—were the focus of more than half of the coverage (52%). These included New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama among the Democrats and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Senator John McCain, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the Republican field. 8
While Hillary Clinton led in the derby for press exposure (she was the primary subject in 17% of all campaign stories), the largely antagonistic attention of conservative talk radio accounted for most of that edge. Clinton was the focus of nearly a third of all the campaign segments among the conservative talkers studied (the three most popular conservative radio voices, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage). Clinton is not nearly as a popular subject among liberal radio talk show hosts.
The second-most covered candidate, Democratic rival Barack Obama (14% of stories), got a boost in that coverage from being the No. 1 focus of all the candidates from network evening news.
Two Republicans were next in media exposure. Giuliani led among Republicans with 9% of the stories, followed by McCain at 7% and Romney at 5%.
(^8) During our study time, the total number of candidates was 19. Four have since dropped out: Tom Vilsack
left in February and was included in the study. James Gilmore, Tommy Thompson and more recently Sam Brownback dropped out after the span of our study, and Fred Thompson formally joined the race.
They were followed by former Senators John Edwards (4%) and Fred Thompson (3%), whose level of coverage relative to their party rivals probably puts them in what is best considered a second tier. Interestingly, Thompson, the lobbyist, actor and former Tennessee Senator, enjoyed this level of coverage (and name recognition in polling) even though he did not actually enter the race until September. 9
The rest of the candidates would have to be considered not second-tier but third, at least in media attention. None received more than 2% of the coverage.
Put another way, of the more than 1,700 campaign stories examined from January to May, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee each were the focus of fewer than a dozen stories. The second tier Democrats fared only slightly better. There were five stories about Chris Dodd, 28 about Bill Richardson, one about Dennis Kucinich, and 41 about Joe Biden. For most, their coverage peaked the day of their announcement and went downhill from there.
How dominant were Clinton and Obama as newsmakers? Together, these two candidates commanded essentially the same amount of coverage as all the of the GOP hopefuls combined.
And there is some evidence the level coverage does have an impact on public awareness. A Pew Research Center survey from September finds that Clinton and Obama are far better recognized than their Republican counterparts. Fully 78% of Americans could name Hillary Clinton as a candidate, and 62% could name Obama. On the GOP side, 45% could name Giuliani as a candidate, while 30% could name Romney, 27% Thompson and 24% John McCain. Exposure in the press, in other words, may be vital to name recognition, which in turn influences polling and fundraising.
Tone
The volume of coverage is one thing. But in politics, not all coverage is equal, even if they spell your name right. What was the tone of the coverage each candidate received?
While Hillary Clinton may have gotten the most press, she did not get the most favorable. That distinction, among major candidates, went to Barack Obama.
On the other end of the ledger, Republican John McCain, the once possible GOP front runner, generated by a wide margin the most negative coverage of any serious contender.
(^9) The same ranking of candidates, incidentally, holds true if instead of number of stories, we look at the
percent of all time or words devoted to each candidate. Eighteen percent of the total news coverage of the campaign was devoted to Clinton, 14% to Obama, 10% to Giuliani and 7% to McCain.
positive to negative stories of any major candidate. One obvious question is how that might have changed now that he has declared himself as one of the pack.
One argument about press coverage is that it tends to reinforce and therefore magnify any phenomenon it observes. A candidate on a downward spiral may find that pattern harder to change if caught in the media klieg lights. While the coverage of John McCain was not as intense as others, it did stand out for its negative cast. From January through May, close to half (48%) of the stories about McCain were clearly negative in tone—the highest of any major candidate. That was four times the stories with a clearly positive tone (12%). Four-in-ten were neutral. Even Fox News, which treated all the other major Republican candidates to more positive than negative coverage, made an exception of McCain. On Fox, McCain the stories examined were 20% positive, 45% neutral and 35% negative. In the first phase of the campaign, in other words, McCain tended to be the mirror image of Obama.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, had the more evenly balanced and positive coverage than either McCain or Giuliani—34% of stories were positive, 35% were neutral and 31% were negative. John Edwards’ coverage was also pretty evenly split among the three categories.
After these seven—the top five and the two candidates in the middle--the remaining candidates taken as a group tended to get treated more tenderly.
The only candidates in this group to receive decidedly more negative coverage than positive were Joe Biden (46% negative vs. 10% positive and 44% neutral) and Tom Tancredo, who was the subject of just seven stories, none of them was clearly positive in tone.
Tone for Democrats vs. Republicans
Taking all the presidential hopefuls together, the press overall has been more positive about Democratic candidates and more negative about Republicans. In the stories mainly about one of the Democratic candidates, the largest percentage was neutral (39%), but more than a third of stories (35%) were positive, while slightly more than a quarter (26%) carried a clearly negative tone.
For Republicans, the numbers were basically reversed. Again the same number as for Democrats (39%) were neutral, but more than a third (35%) were negative vs. 26% positive.
Tone of Coverage for 3rd^ Tier Candidates Percent of All Stories Positive Neutral Negative (^) of StoriesNumber 3 rd^ Tier Democrats 25.6% 46.2 28.2 78 3 rd^ Tier republicans* 38.9% 48.9 12.2 90
*includes Fred Thompson
In other words, not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking.
Why is this? Does it suggest some not-so-subtle enthusiasm by a liberal press for Democratic candidates? Those critics who see a continuing liberal preference in the media may cite this as evidence of that presumption.
There are, however, other explanations.
The most notable is the fact that, if the coverage of Obama and McCain are eliminated, the distinction in tone of coverage between the two parties’ candidates disappears.
Another factor influencing the tone of coverage for Republican candidates could be the perceived weaknesses in the chances for nomination or election by each of the leading Republican candidates. While Giuliani, for example, has shown strength in opinion polls, many observers inside and outside the Republican Party consider his chances complicated by opposition from religious conservatives. Likewise, McCain was known to have displeased many in his own party for his bi-partisan sponsorship of campaign finance reform and immigration reform. And Mitt Romney’s relative inexperience on the national stage and switch on the abortion issue made observers skeptical of his credibility.
Third, the tone of the coverage may also mirror the fact that Republican voters in polls express greater dissatisfaction with their candidate pool than do Democrats. 10
All that said, the discrepancy in tone between the parties is a factor to be watched as the race continues.
The Candidates
Hillary Clinton – the headline maker
Immediately following her Jan. 20 online announcement of her candidacy, Hillary Clinton embarked on a more conventional media blitz that included a series of network TV interviews. With that, coverage of the 2008 election effectively kicked into high gear at an unprecedented early stage of the campaign. And for the first five months of the year, the former First Lady, now Senator, was the campaign’s leading media attraction.
(^10) The Pew Research Center for People and the Press “Clinton Seen as 'Tough' and 'Smart' -- Giuliani as
'Energetic':Voter Impressions of Leading Candidates,” September 2007. The survey found that 64% of Democratic voters’ impression of Democratic candidates was excellent/good, while 49% of Republican voters’ impression of Republican candidates was excellent/good.
pronounced that both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have on occasional lauded her Democratic rival Barack Obama, with his chief virtue apparently being that he is not Hillary Clinton.
The trajectory of Clinton’s coverage over time followed something of a roller coaster route. Her announcement in January helped make that a largely positive month. Coverage became notably more negative in February. It improved somewhat in March, but it was not until April that the positive again outweighed the negative. Then it slumped again in May.
One factor that remained constant throughout the first five months of the year— and it would help explain the continuing focus on Clinton but not the up and down tone— was her status as front runner in the polls. A track of Gallup polls from January through May shows her as the consistent leader in the national Democratic polls, most often registering in the 30-40% range. As the election season wore on, and Clinton began to build on her lead, some stories even began focusing on the “I-word,” (inevitable).
Rudolph Giuliani – front runner facing doubters
There are a number of striking similarities in the campaign dynamic and coverage of the two New York candidates in this race. (Clinton and Giuliani were ticketed to face each other in the 2000 New York Senate race when prostate cancer forced Giuliani out of the campaign.) Like Clinton, the former New York mayor has been his party’s leader in the polls from the start. He has also been the GOP’s top newsmaker (9% of all stories). And he, too, has received more negative coverage than positive and in much the same proportion as Clinton (37% negative, 28% positive and 35% neutral).
If Clinton has faced questions about her likeability as a general election candidate, Giuliani confronts a continuing issue in his quest during the primaries: Is he too socially liberal for the GOP base? Can toughness on terrorism convince conservatives to overlook other disagreements with him?
In the early phases of the campaign, these issues made up a notable portion of Giuliani coverage. All told, his ideas on domestic policy made up 22% of Giuliani stories, far more than the 7% norm. Almost all of that (19%) was about Giuliani’s perceived biggest electoral weakness in the primaries, abortion.
The tone of coverage of Giuliani fluctuated, but the only month in which he actually enjoyed more positive than negative press (37% to 24%) was in February, when he officially announced his candidacy. After that, the tone steadily dropped, picking up
Topics of Rudy Giuliani’s Coverage Percent of All Stories Giuliani (^) CoverageAll Political Topics 53.7 63. Strategy and Polls 47.5 50. Personal Topics 11.1 17. Personal Finances 1.9 0. Domestic Policy 22.2 7. Abortion 19.1 2. Foreign Policy 7.4 7. War on Terror 6.2 0. Public Record 3.1 1. Electorate 1.9 1. Miscellaneous 0.6 2.
again in May. Throughout the five months, however, the tone remained more negative than not.
But the negative tilt to the coverage differed by medium. Front-page coverage of Giuliani in the newspapers studied tended to be more negative than anything else (six out of 12), thanks in part to rough coverage from his hometown paper, The New York Times. The same was true on network evening newscasts (six negative pieces out of 14).
There was better news for Giuliani on the Fox News Channel where positive stories dominated over negative. (Eight out of 18 were positive, while three were negative). But perhaps indicative of the conservative qualms about Giuliani’s more socially moderate views, on conservative talk radio, nine out of the 16 segments were negative, while just four were positive.
One reason why a non-announced candidate like Fred Thompson attracted significant media attention in the first five months—and why there was also flurry of press interest in a Newt Gingrich candidacy—was a dynamic that emerged in the early phases of this campaign. Many Republicans were uneasy with their choices. Thus, the idea of Giuliani as a shaky front runner has been a consistent story line.
Barack Obama—The Rising and Fading Star?
Barack Obama made his introductory mark on the national political scene with a compelling and original speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Chicago. When he arrived in Washington as a freshman Senator from Illinois, speculation about his running for President struck some observers as an act of impudence and others as an echo of John Kennedy, another young Senator who jumped over his elders to run for the White House. And when he began making trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, journalists marveled at a charisma that some said echoed not only John Kennedy, but even more so his brother Robert.
That star appeal was evident in the press coverage of Obama in the first five months of the year. With 47% of the stories clearly offering a favorable tone about his candidacy, he was the media darling among major contenders. In all, he was three times more likely to get positive coverage as negative, and nearly twice as likely to get
Tone of Giuliani’s Coverage Over Time
some political reporters, is not reputed to be as disciplined or organizationally nimble as Clinton’s.
John McCain –bearing the brunt of bad news
If the senior Senator from Arizona was considered by some observers to be the likely Republican frontrunner when the race began, he quickly ran into difficulties with fundraising, disappointing poll numbers and significant staff turnover. That all helped make McCain a newsworthy candidate. But the tenor of the coverage, particularly in the early months of the campaign, was overwhelmingly negative, far more so than for any other major candidate.
In volume of coverage, McCain (at 7%) trailed the two leading Democrats, Clinton and Obama, by a considerable margin. But for a candidate whose campaign was foundering, he received almost as much coverage as the Republican front runner in the national polls (Giuliani) and more than the leader in Iowa (Romney). McCain as a disappointment was almost as big a story as Giuliani was as a surprise frontrunner.
That may explain the most striking feature of McCain’s coverage, its negative tone. From January through May, stories about McCain were four times more likely to bear bad news than to be flattering. In all, close to half of all stories produced about the Senator and his campaign (48%) were clearly negative. Only 12% registered as positive in tone. (Four in 10 of the McCain stories were neutral.)
Why was McCain on the receiving end of so much unfavorable press? In a campaign dominated by coverage of strategy and tactics, there are some clues. Fully 60% of his coverage, for example, concerned his worse-than-expected standing in the polls, compared with 50% generally. And 51% of those McCain horse race stories were clearly negative in tone.
Typical of this coverage was a March 8page-one story in the Wall Street Journal warning, in the first sentence, that “Sen. John McCain is facing unexpectedly formidable challenges despite courting the party faithful during his seven-year wait on deck for a shot at the White House.”
Tone of McCain’s Coverage Over Time
“A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows the Arizona Senator trailing Rudy Giuliani by more than 20 percentage points—and encountering doubts in the party about his age and steadfast support for the Iraq war,” the story continued.
The only month in which McCain’s coverage got more positive was May, when he was able to showcase some of his strengths in two GOP debates. Then, his favorable coverage jumped from 5% in April to 41% in May. But since early coverage of McCain was quite consistent across most media sectors, the story of a candidate in strategic trouble was a dominant message about him.
What other topics was the press looking at with McCain? His controversial position on Iraq—supportive of a military buildup–got more coverage (15%) than candidates’ generally did for the ideas about the war (6%). But his heroic biography, including his story as a former Vietnam-era prisoner of war and third generation soldier, got less coverage than the overall (4% vs. 17% generally).
The list of topics the press focused on about McCain, in other words, tended toward the controversial and the difficult rather than the flattering.
John Edwards – The Husband and, Oh, Candidate, Too
Now in his second presidential campaign, John Edwards—the Democrats’ 2004 vice-presidential nominee—has had real trouble competing for media attention with the two celebrity candidates who have also been No. 1 and No. 2 in the polls, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The two sitting Senators were presented as locked in a two-way race. In most stories the primary focus was either Clinton or Obama (294 and 240 stories) and the secondary focus was also evenly split between Clinton and Obama (148 to 147). Edwards was way behind with only 71 primary and 49 secondary mentions.
As the major figure in only 4% of the campaign stories in the first five months of the year, Edwards ended up in the middle tier of candidates in terms of coverage. But even that number is in some ways deceptive. Were it not for the month of March, when Edwards’ wife Elizabeth announced that her breast cancer had recurred, the former North Carolina Senator would have been in the third tier of candidate coverage in the outlets studied. That lack of media attention came despite the fact that Edwards had been leading, for much of this time, in the polls in Iowa, and that he has consistently polled in the double digits in the national Gallup surveys.
While the tone of Edwards’ coverage was split (31% positive, 34% neutral, 35% negative), and thus more positive than Clinton’s and less positive than Obama’s, that is only part of the story.
Topics of John McCain’s Coverage Percent of Stories McCain (^) CoverageAll Political Topics 64.5 63. Personal Topics 4.1 17. Domestic Policy 11.6 7. Immigration 4.1 0. Foreign Policy 16.5 7. Iraq War 14.9 6. Public Record 2.5 1. Electorate 0.8 1. Miscellaneous 0 2.
