MediaWatch: August 1992
Table of Contents:
Convention Reporting Usually Favors Democrats
HISTORY OF UNEVEN COVERAGE
Political bias in convention coverage is not a baseless concern. Studies comparing coverage of the Democratic versus Republican conventions in 1984 and 1988 found significant differences. In short, Republican convention delegates and party activists were identified with ideological labels much more often than Democrats; controversies dogging the GOP nominee received much more emphasis than those involving the Democratic nominee; reporters frequently forced Republicans to respond to Democratic campaign issues, but reporters rarely posed Republican agenda questions to Democrats.
After the 1984 conventions, a team headed by Professor William Adams of George Washington University reviewed tapes of CBS and NBC. Among his findings:
CBS and NBC reporters and anchors called the Democratic Party, its platform and leaders by liberal labels just 21 times, despite the liberal domination of the convention. Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were the nominees, and Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart were key players. In contrast, the same two networks used various conservative labels to describe the Republicans 113 times, more than five times as often. "On the average," Adams discovered, "about once every six minutes from Dallas, viewers were told that the Republican Party was in the hands of `very strong conservatives,' or `the hard right,' with enormous power exercised by, in Walter Cronkite's words, the `fundamentalist religious conservative right wing.'"
Questions posed by reporters at both conventions came overwhelmingly from the Democratic agenda. In total, reporters posed Democratic agenda questions to Republicans 84 times, but Republican questions were put to Democrats only eleven times. On 18 occasions Democrats, for instance, were asked whether Ronald Reagan was too conservative. Republicans were asked whether the Democratic ticket was too liberal on just five occasions. On another 27 occasions, reporters asked Republicans how they expected to garner women's support given their opposition to the ERA and abortion. Democrats were never asked whether their liberal views might turn off some women.
Four years later, in 1988, the Media Research Center (MRC) completed a similar analysis following the study parameters established by Adams. The MRC studied the three broadcast networks, plus CNN and found that the 1988 coverage was almost a mirror image of 1984:
Republicans were tagged as "conservative" two and a half times more often than Democrats were described as "liberal." The 86 labels attached to Democrats were split about evenly between liberal and moderate. At the Republican gathering, however, 85 percent of the 214 labels were conservative.
Republican controversies, from Iran/Contra to the "sleaze factor," were raised 32 times. (Questions about Dan Quayle's background were raised another 471 times.) At the Democratic convention, however, reporters were silent about controversies, such as then-House Speaker Jim Wright's growing ethical problems and Michael Dukakis' furlough policy.
Republicans had to respond to Democratic agenda issues on 128 occasions, more than twice as often as the 49 times Democrats were challenged by GOP themes.
As an example of a Democratic question, take Lesley Stahl of CBS News, who asked unsuccessful presidential candidate Pete du Pont: "Is there any concern on your part that this ticket might just be a little too conservative? It's to the right of most Americans in the country right now." CNN's Frank Sesno asked a black delegate: "Bush and Quayle opposed the extension of the Voting Rights Act -- balked on it. And opposed Grove City. Two very large, important civil rights bills. How do they overcome that stigma within the minority community?"
