A Study of Political Bias in the National Media.

Research Question:
Does the media provide balanced coverage of both Democrat and Republican news?

Hypothesis:
There will be similar amounts of coverage for Democrat and Republican news

Methodology:
A keyword search, using the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, was conducted on February 20, 2008. Four keywords were chosen as parameters for this search. Those keywords were chosen for their relevance to this particular study and were documented as follows:
1. 'democrat' or 'democrats'
2. 'republican' or 'republicans'
3. 'democrat' or 'democrats' and 'republican' or 'republicans'

Further parameters were set for this keyword search. They are as follows:
· Only those broadcast in the month of January, in the year 2008
· Exclude Commercials

The Archive was searched for ALL NETWORKS, which include; ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, FOX, MSNBC, CSPAN, CNBC, and UNIV. No results were returned from PBS, CSPAN, CNBC, or UNIV during any search. Results were sorted by 'Network' to further investigate coverage patterns; the intent was to determine whether one government party receives more news coverage on certain stations than the other.

Data/Analysis:
1. The search for keywords 'democrat' or 'democrats' returned 68 items (CHART- D1 and D2); where either of these words can be found in the Title or the Abstract for a particular broadcast. The complete list of results for this search fell under 'Evening News.' The search returned broadcasts from four of the ten possible Networks. They were distributed as follows: ABC, 22; CBS, 11; CNN, 28; NBC, 6 (CHART- D1). The percentage of coverage was formulated by the 'Create-A-Graph' program, and returned the following data: ABC, 32.84%; CBS, 16.42%; CNN, 41.79%; and NBC, 8.96% (CHART- D2)

D1











D2












2. The search for keywords 'republican' or 'republicans' returned 130 items (CHART- R1 and R2); where either of these words can be found In the Title or the Abstract for a particular broadcast. The list of results for this search fell under either 'Evening News' or 'Special Program.' 'Evening News' accounted for all but 21 of the broadcasts. The search returned broadcasts from six of the ten possible Networks. They were distributed as follows: ABC, 41; CBS, 15; CNN, 58; NBC, 8; FOX, 3; and MSNBC, 3 (CHART- R1). The percentage of coverage was formulated by the 'Create-A-Graph' program, and returned the following data: ABC, 32.03%; CBS, 11.72%; CNN, 45.31%; NBC, 6.25%; FOX, 2.34%; and MSNBC, 2.34% (CHART- R2).

R1












R2











3. The search for keywords 'democrat' or 'democrats' and 'republican' or 'republicans' returned 153 items (CHART- C1 and C2); where either of these words can be found together in the Title or the Abstract for a particular broadcast. The list of results fell under either 'Evening News' or 'Special Program.' 'Evening News' accounted for all but 21 of the broadcasts. The search returned broadcasts from six of the possible ten Networks. They were distributed as follows: ABC, 50; CBS, 20; CNN, 65; NBC, 9; FOX, 3; and MSNBC, 3 (CHART- C1). The percentage of coverage was formulated by the 'Create-A-Graph' program, and returned the following data: ABC, 33.33%; CBS, 13.33%; CNN, 43.33%; NBC, 6%; FOX, 2%, and MSNBC, 2% (CHART- C2).
C1













C2
Discussion/Conclusion:

When reviewing the collected data, it initially appears that the Republican party receives more television coverage than the Democratic party. The Republican search returned 62 more items that the Democratic search. When broken down into percentages, though, it becomes clear that the amount of coverage per station stays somewhat constant between the two parties; for example, the Democratic search shows ABC accounting for 32.84% of its broadcasts, while the Republican search returned 32.03% for the same station. This perception is further negated when both searches were run simultaneously, returning 153 of the 198 total items gathered from the archive.

This shows that coverage between stations is somewhat balanced; exceptions to these findings are FOX and MSNBC, which failed to return data in the Democratic search, but returned the same items in both the Republican and the Combined searches. These findings also fell into the minority of 'Special Programs.'
Further research should be done into the amount of time devoted to each party to determine if this data can reveal any other patterns in coverage between stations, but at this time, it appears that the national media devotes nearly the same amount of coverage to both Political Parties.