In August, the 16 so-called swing states received more campaign coverage than the rest of the 50 states combined. But with a disproportional amount of the news coverage focusing on Ohio, Florida and other swings states, voters in the rest of the country are easily discouraged and the value of their votes is understated.

This is one of the conclusions presented last Tuesday, September 28, at a forum entitled "Media Coverage and the U.S. Presidential Campaign: Can Democracy Survive the Media?"

Promoted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the forum discussed the role of the media in the political process of the ongoing U.S. presidential campaign. Roland Schatz presented data from the Media Tenor Institute.

Among the commentators were Robert Lichter from the Center for Media and Public Affairs, Scott Keeter from The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Marvin Kalb from Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harriet Fulbright from Fulbright Association, Edward Luttwak from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Holli Semetko from the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning.

Other key findings from Media Tenor discussed in the forum:

Women absent in political and business reports
In August, the audiences of the networks' evening news and Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume were ill-informed about the roles women play in American society: On TV networks, only 16.5% of all protagonists of news stories were women; on Fox News their share was only 9.4%.

Networks fail to report on public's top concern
Since the beginning of the election year, the media have been ignoring the public's major concern: The economy. Throughout the entire year, reports on the economy never received a share greater than 4.3% of all news stories on the presidential campaigns during the year.

Portrayal of economy does not correspond to facts
Since the beginning of the year, the networks have painted a dim picture of the economy. April and June were the only months during which the share of overall positive reports was greater than the share of negative reports. Improvements in economic growth and on the labor market were consistently underreported.

Congress under media attack: Hardly visible, with negative ratings
Of all reports on Congress between July 2001 and July 2004, approximately 50% were negative in tone.

The graphics illustrating this release can be downloaded at: www.mediatenor.com/democ04.pdf

Ms.
Isadora Badi
Media Tenor Institute