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Objectivity and Conglomeration:
A Test of Media Ownership Theory
By
Xinkun Wang, M.A.
And
Renita Coleman, Ph.D.
Louisiana State University
Address inquiries to:
Renita Coleman
Assistant Professor
Manship School of Mass Communication
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
[log in to unmask]
225-578-2045
Submitted to the Newspaper Division, Association of Educators in Journalism
and Mass Communication Annual Conference, 2004. Toronto, CA
Objectivity and Conglomeration:
A Test of Media Ownership Theory
Abstract
This study tests the theory of media ownership by comparing the publicly
owned Boston Globe with the privately owned Boston Herald on bias in
coverage of the 2000 presidential election. As the theory predicts, the
publicly owned newspaper was more objective than the privately owned paper,
showing more favoritism toward the candidate it endorsed.. Corporate
ownership, which has generally been criticized, may not be all bad since
the corporate-owned newspaper did a better job of fair and balanced coverage.
Objectivity and Conglomeration:
A Test of Media Ownership Theory
The media play a powerful role as intermediaries between political leaders
and the public (Graber, 1989; Davis, 1992). This role becomes especially
important in influencing voters' judgments in elections because most people
have no other way of becoming informed about the candidates (Joslyn, 1984).
What's more, political knowledge is particularly essential to citizens'
ability to self-govern and shape the course of the country. According to
one theory, one of the important variables that influences election
coverage is media ownership (Altschull, 1984; Shoemaker & Reese, 1991),
with publicly owned media outlets exhibiting more objective coverage than
privately held companies. This subject takes on added importance as
ownership of news organizations is increasingly held by a handful of media
conglomerates (Bagdikian, 1997). The purpose of this study is to test this
media ownership theory using a partial replication of a study (Kenney &
Simpson, 1993) that compared the publicly owned Washington Post and the
privately owned Washington Times in the 1988 presidential election. The
present study examines two different daily newspapers competing in a
different market but with the same types two of ownership as in the first
study. This work extends the previous study by examining the relationship
between ownership and objectivity in news coverage by the publicly owned
Boston Globe and privately owned Boston Herald to see if the same
conclusions can be drawn. The hypothesis of this study is that the type of
ownership of a media outlet will affect its degree of objectivity in
covering an election. Specifically, this study hypothesizes that the
publicly owned news organization will be more objective than the privately
held entity.
Theoretical Framework
The theory of media ownership first developed by Altschull (1984) contends
that "the content of the press is directly correlated with the interests of
those who finance the press" (Altschull, 1984, p. 254). The autonomy of
media outlets is given within the boundaries of owners' profits. When the
media outlet is commercially owned, the content will reflect the point of
view of the news organization's owners and advertisers. When the media
outlet fits into what Altschull calls an "interest pattern," the content
mirrors the concerns and objectives of whomever is providing the financing.
Shoemaker and Reese (1991) extended Altschull's work, pointing out that the
owners of a media organization have ultimate power over content. They
contend that the primary focus of a news organization owned by a publicly
held corporation is to make a profit; objectivity is seen as a way of
attracting the readers desired by advertisers. The content of the news is
built into the economic objective of the company. Though in some rare cases
the owner may choose to make profits secondary to an ideological goal, such
as promoting a particular agenda, the organization can't indefinitely
ignore the economic goal. Especially when media firms are owned by
stockholders, public service is usually sacrificed for profit.
Shoemaker and Reese (1991) say that news organizations funded primarily by
commercial sources are more likely to use objectivity and newsworthiness as
their principal standards in making news judgments because a commercial
media outlet is more responsive to its audience and advertisers, both of
whom desire these qualities. They further say that news organizations
financed primarily by "interest" sources are far less likely to place great
emphasis on objectivity and newsworthiness. Instead, their content is more
likely to reflect the thinking of the special interest group or groups that
control them. Shoemaker and Reese (1991) also point out the importance that
ownership plays, arguing that, "although news departments may be
organizationally buffered from the larger firm, content is still controlled
indirectly through hiring and promotion practices" (p. 144). For example,
newspapers usually endorse political candidates who echo the owner or
publisher's political attitude. In fact, ownership has become such a
powerful force behind media organizations that not only editorials and
columns but also the coverage of news should reflect the political beliefs
or interest of the owners.
It is important to remember that the media ownership theory outlined here
is not mechanistic. Personal relations between a candidate or an elected
official and the media can be such that they override the goals and
objectives of the owners. For example, King and Schudson (1995)
demonstrated that key members of the Washington, D.C. press corps
significantly overstated President Reagan's popularity and skill as a
communicator during his early years in office. Reagan accomplished this by
cultivating reporters and other key people at publicly-held news
organizations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, Time and Newsweek (King & Schudson, 1995).
This study aims to build on the work of these scholars by testing the
theory of media ownership on a publicly owned and privately owned newspaper
in their coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. Kenney and Simpson
(1993) tested the ownership theory by examining coverage of the 1988
presidential race by the Washington Post and Times. They found the publicly
owned Post was fair and balanced in its news coverage while the privately
owned Times was frequently biased, just as media ownership theory would
predict. This study will extend the previous study (Kenney & Simpson, 1993)
to a more recent election to test media ownership theory by examining two
different newspapers with different owners in the same market. Thus, the
study will provide updated information about the role of media ownership in
influencing news coverage of an important national election by publicly and
privately owned newspapers.
Definitions
This study uses the definition of bias given by Kenney and Simpson as
"more news coverage and more favorable coverage" of one candidate or party
over the other candidate or party, and "a pattern of constant favoritism"
of one candidate over the other (Kenney & Simpson, 1993, p.346).
Objectivity is sometimes defined as the opposite of bias. In this study,
objectivity means news coverage giving candidates equal amounts and the
same kind of attention, and equal coverage, which also fit into Boyer's
first element of objectivity: "balance and even-handedness in presenting
different sides of an issues" (McQuail, 1993, p. 184). Bias and objectivity
are essentially opposites. This study will focus on testing objectivity as
the absence of bias. Different degrees of objectivity in newspaper coverage
will mean different degrees of bias in the coverage.
Literature Review
The media have been studied and critiqued increasingly on how objectively
they perform in presidential campaigns (Johnson, Boudreau & Glowaki, 1996).
Graber points out that "news people try to keep their biases under wraps,
at least most of the time. They seem to succeed well for election coverage"
(Graber, 2000, p.101). Graber's conclusion has been supported in many
studies. Stempel and colleagues analyzed news coverage of presidential
campaigns between 1960 and 1988 by 15 major newspapers and found that the
newspapers consistently gave the major contenders equal space (Stempel,
1961, 1965, 1969; Stempel & Windhauser, 1984, 1989). In a study of the
coverage of the 1988 campaign, they found that six out of 14 newspapers
gave the Democrats more favorable coverage, and eight gave the Republicans
more favorable coverage, but generally speaking, the coverage of the
election was unbiased (Stempel & Windhauser, 1989).
In a study that examined how two leading newspapers, the New York Times and
the Chicago Tribune, covered the 1992 presidential campaign, Johnson and
colleagues (1996) found that media coverage for most themes was
overwhelmingly neutral. Six scholars (Domke et al., 1997) examined news
coverage of the 1996 presidential campaign by more than 40 major newspapers
and found remarkably balanced coverage in terms of positive and negative
information presented, though they did find slight bias in favor of Clinton
toward the end of the election. Some of those same scholars (Watts et al.,
1999) examined news coverage randomly drawn for the 1988, 1992 and 1996
presidential election campaigns. They found a slight bias favoring Democrat
Bill Clinton in 1992, but fair and balanced coverage in the other two
elections. Despite this, these same scholars found that the public
increasingly believes the media have a liberal bias when reporting on the
presidential campaign. Greene and Stevenson reviewed previous studies on
news bias and found barely any evidence of "large scale, systematic
favoring of one political party or candidate over the other in the last two
or three decades" (Greene & Stevenson, 1980, p. 116).
In a meta-analysis that considered 59 bias studies, Allen and D'Alessio
(2000) examined partisan media bias in presidential election campaigns
since 1948. They divided bias into three kinds: gate keeping bias, coverage
bias, and statement bias. "Gate keeping bias" was defined as "the
preference for selecting stories from one party or the other." "Coverage
bias" considers "the relative amounts of coverage each party receives."
"Statement bias" focuses on "the favorability of coverage toward one party
of the other" (p. 133) Their results were that though there is slight bias
in coverage of presidential elections across the newspaper industry, this
was likely due to random error and overall, coverage was balanced. They
found no evidence of huge liberal bias in presidential news coverage as
many people believed (Allen & D'Alessio, 2000). Bagdikian's (1997)
observations may help explain the reasons behind Allen and D'Alessio's
findings. Bagdikian points out that newspapers neutralized their news
coverage because they are afraid that while strong news and views please a
part of the audience, they might also offend another part, thus the
newspaper's circulation will decline.
While many studies on the news coverage of presidential campaigns have not
found bias, it may not mean the media are really objective. Almost as many
scholars have found that the media display a distinct bias in political
news reporting generally and in presidential campaign coverage specifically
as those who have found the media balanced and objective. As early as 1974,
in research on the election in Colorado, Coffey (1975) found that the
Republicans received more space in Republican papers while the Democrats
received more space in independent papers. Stovall (1988) examined 49 daily
newspapers on their coverage of the 1984 presidential campaign and found
that news coverage of Republican candidates was greater in quantity and
better in quality than that of Democratic candidates. Stovall attributed
this to Republican candidates being more newsworthy than Democratic
candidates in 1984. The reporters focused more on the strategies of the
campaign than on the issues (Stovall, 1988). A study by Mantler and
Whiteman (1995) examined six newspapers included in Stempel's definition of
the "prestige press" (Mantler & Whiteman, 1995) and found significant
differences in the newspapers' coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign
on candidates and issues. Part of the reasons for the different findings is
that Mantler and Whiteman focused more on the newspaper coverage of
individual events while Stempel examined the overall objectivity of the
newspaper coverage. Shoemaker and Mayfield (1987) point out an exception to
media ownership theory is that journalists' judgment is driven by the
newsworthiness of the events or people. The coverage of individual events
is usually where bias can be found (Greene & Stevenson, 1980).
Steger examined political coverage of the 1996 campaign for the
presidential nomination in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and
found bias in terms of the amount of coverage and the tone (Steger, 1999).
He attributed the bias to the tendency by many reporters to treat elections
as a horse race with the frontrunner getting consistently more favorable
coverage than the other candidates. A recent study conducted for Pew Center
and the Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 2,400 newspaper,
television and Internet campaign stories between February and June 2000.
Researchers found that three-quarters of the stories included one of two
themes: Al Gore lies or exaggerates and is connected to a scandal, while
George W. Bush is a "different kind of Republican" (Hall, 2000, p.30-31).
The first examination of ownership and objectivity
In 1993, Kenney and Simpson conducted the first study to examine the
relationship between newspapers' ownership and coverage of the presidential
campaign to test the theory of media ownership. Kenney and Simpson analyzed
the news coverage of the publicly owned Washington Post and privately owned
Washington Times. The analysis of these two competing dailies provided a
good natural environment to test this theory because they represent the two
different types of ownership and financing. The study found that the
Washington Times was more biased in its coverage of the 1988 presidential
campaign than the Washington Post. As a privately owned newspaper, the
Washington Times supported conservative values and anti-communist views. On
the other hand, the publicly owned Washington Post presented balanced and
neutral coverage of the presidential campaign, just as media ownership
theory would predict.
Kenney and Simpson's study was the first attempt to test media ownership
theory. It found evidence in support of it; however, it was limited in
examining only two newspapers. Also, the study didn't compare the political
views of the Washington Times with that of New World Communications, the
owner of the newspaper. Thus, the study ignored an important perspective of
media ownership theory: that newspaper content will reflect the political
views of the owner. Since ownership has become an influential force behind
the media organization, this study will fill that gap by examining the
newspapers' endorsements for all political offices as a reflection of
political views of the owner. Newspapers usually endorse political
candidates who echo the owner or publisher's political attitudes (Shoemaker
& Reese, 1991).
The previous study by Kenney and Simpson (1993) showed that the publicly
owned Washington Post was more objective than the privately owned
Washington Times in the 1988 presidential election. This study is a partial
replication of the Kenney and Simpson study using two different newspapers
in a different market, and a different presidential election. Based on the
literature, we test the following four hypotheses:
H1: The privately held Boston Herald will have more pro-Bush paragraphs
than pro-Gore paragraphs, on average, than the publicly owned Boston Globe.
This hypothesis is predicted by media ownership theory (Shoemaker & Reese,
1991), which says different ownership leads to different coverage, and
studies that show bias can be found in differential amounts of coverage
(Allen & D'Alessio, 2000). When it comes to covering an election, the
owner's endorsement of the candidate from a certain party will affect the
objectivity of the news coverage. The Herald endorsed Bush in the 2000
presidential election, and more Republicans than Democrats in the all other
races. Because it is privately owned it is expected to show more favoritism
to Bush than Gore, according to media ownership theory.
H2: The Boston Herald will give more dominance in the leads to Bush than
Gore compared to the Boston Globe.
The lead of a news story is usually where the most important items of a
story lie. Whoever is dominant in the lead of the story is usually
preferred in the coverage of the news story (Stempel & Culbertson, 1984).
H3: The Boston Herald will give prominence to Bush by placing more stories
about Bush in the A section than the Boston Globe.
The A section of a newspaper is like the lead of a news story. The stories
appearing in the A section usually receive the most attention from readers
(Stempel & Culbertson, 1984).
H4: The endorsement of the newspaper will reflect the overall story tone of
the presidential candidates. The Boston Herald will have more stories whose
tone is overall pro-Bush than the Globe.
Media ownership theory holds that the political views of the newspaper
will reflect that of the owners (Shoemaker & Reese, 1991), and that
different types of ownership affect the coverage of a newspaper. The
privately held Herald will show more favoritism in its coverage to its
endorsee, Bush.
Method
In this quantitative content analysis of the news coverage of the 2000
presidential election in the Boston Globe and Herald, objectivity is
operationalized with four measures: number of paragraphs that favored one
candidate or party, candidate or party dominance in the lead, placement of
stories favoring one candidate or party in the A section, and overall story
tone favoring one candidate or party.
This study examined two daily newspapers, the Boston Globe and Boston
Herald. These two newspapers share the same market and one is publicly
owned (the Globe) while the other is privately owned (the Herald); this
represents a good example to examine media ownership theory. The Boston
Globe is owned by the New York Times Company, one of the four largest
chains in the U.S. media industry. The Boston Herald is privately owned by
publisher Patrick Purcell. Purcell purchased the Herald from Rupert
Murdoch's News America Publishing Inc. in 1994. These two newspapers differ
in their ownership while competing against each other. Similar results are
expected as those in the study by Kenney and Simpson of the Washington Post
and Washington Times.
The study unit was the story and the unit of analysis was the paragraph.
The population of stories carried in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald
that focused on electing the president of the United States in 2000
appearing from the reported official opening of the campaign, September 5,
2000, until November 7, 2000, the last full day of the campaign, were
searched in LEXIS/NEXIS database. Stories were included if they contained
the keywords "Bush or Gore" in full text. The 2000 presidential election
was mainly about these two candidates though there were some candidates
from other small parties. Random sampling of 25% of the stories resulted in
a total of 238 stories including 171 from the Boston Globe and 66 from The
Boston Herald.
A clear understanding of the endorsements of these two newspapers is
important to this study because it reflects the political views of the
newspaper's owner. Editorials and articles from op-ed sections are usually
where the opinions of the newspapers are expressed. When a newspaper covers
a presidential election, increasing numbers of editorials, opinion pieces,
and endorsements are published as election day draws near. Editorials and
opinion pieces by newspaper staffers appearing in the last week of the
election (from November 1, 2000 to November 7, 2000) were coded for the
endorsements of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. Going through the
same keyword search, a total of 8 editorials and opinion stories were
found, 5 from Globe and 3 from the Herald.
All editorials and signed columns of opinion by newspaper staffers were
examined to determine ownership preferences of Bush or Gore and whether the
newspaper primarily endorsed Democrats or Republicans in campaigns for
other offices.
Operational definitions
In comparing coverage between Bush and Gore, each paragraph was labeled as
pro-Gore, pro-Bush, or neutral. Pro-Gore referred to paragraphs that
positively described Gore. Pro-Bush referred to paragraphs that favorably
described Bush. Neutral meant paragraphs that objectively stated the facts
and didn't show any favor or disfavor toward Gore or Bush. Conversely,
statements that reflected badly on one candidate without mentioning the
other, were coded as positive for the opponent, who although unmentioned,
received positive coverage by default in comparison to his opponent.
Examples of pro-Gore paragraphs were "Gore received an overwhelming
welcome," or "Gore holds a commanding lead in Massachusetts," etc. Examples
for pro-Bush paragraphs are "Bush is also doing well in his own right
because he has been able to present himself as a moderate," or "Bush still
could take the state," etc. All other paragraphs that stated facts instead
of showing favor to one of the candidates over the other were coded as
neutral; examples were "The nearer the election draws, the less clear it
seems," or " Neither Bush nor Gore can accomplish it by next week," etc.
The prominence of coverage for a candidate was determined by the number
of paragraphs that were pro-Bush, pro-Gore or neutral that were placed in
either the A section or on inside pages.
Lead domination identified which candidate was mentioned in the lead, or
the first paragraph of a story. News is stacked in paragraphs in order of
descending importance. The lead summarizes the principal items of a news
event.
Counting the number of the paragraphs identified as pro-Bush, pro-Gore, or
neutral was used to determine the equality of the news coverage between
Republican and Democrats.
The overall story tone labeled each story as pro-Gore, pro-Bush, or neutral
by determining if the number of positive paragraphs of one candidate
exceeded the number of positive paragraphs of the other candidate. Neutral
referred to stories that neither favored candidate or stories that show
equal support to both candidates.
To code the editorials and opinion stories, all the presidential
endorsements were classified into two categories: Bush or Gore, depending
on which candidate the editorial endorsed. The number of endorsements for
Republican, Democrat or Independent candidates in other campaigns was also
counted and recorded to reveal the support of each newspaper toward
different parties. Neither newspaper supported one presidential candidate
and a majority of candidates for other offices from the opposite party; in
other words, if a newspaper endorsed Bush, it also endorsed more
Republicans in other races.
An independent coder and one of the authors were trained and then coded
approximately 20% of the same stories so that inter-coder reliability could
be calculated (Krippendorff, 1980). Both coders coded all endorsements. The
two coders were both international graduate students so that personal
partisanship would not influence their decisions. Scott's Pi was used to
calculate the reliability of the nominal variables lead dominance (.79) and
overall story tone (.85), Candidate endorsement (1.0) and party endorsement
in other races (1.0). Holsti's Formula was used to calculate the
reliability of the ordinal variables pro-Gore paragraphs (82%), pro-Bush
paragraphs (97%), neutral paragraphs (95%) and story length (93%).
Results
Content analysis of the editorials showed that the Globe endorsed Gore and
the Herald endorsed Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The Herald also
endorsed Republican candidates more often than Democrats in other
campaigns, while the Globe's endorsements were reversed. The Boston Globe
gave 94% of its endorsements to Democratic candidates for other offices,
while the Boston Herald gave 83% of its endorsements to Republican
candidates for other offices.
Table 1
Frequency of Endorsements of the Boston Globe and Herald
Bush
Gore
Republicans
Democrats
Total
Boston Globe
0
5
1
11
17
Boson Herald
3
0
22
5
30
According to media ownership theory (Shoemaker & Reese, 1991), publicly
owned newspapers will be more likely to present balanced and unbiased
coverage despite endorsement of one party or candidate over the other,
while privately owned newspapers are less likely to be unbiased and more
likely to favor the candidate or party that its editorials endorse.
H1: The privately held Boston Herald will have more pro-Bush paragraphs
than pro-Gore on average than the publicly owned Boston Globe.
This hypothesis was supported. The Herald had significantly more pro-Bush
paragraphs than the Globe (t = -3.029, df = 76, p < .01). The Herald had an
average of 1.76 pro-Bush paragraphs per story and the Globe had a mean of .73.
The Globe was comparatively balanced on its pro-Bush and pro-Gore
paragraphs with an average of .57 pro-Gore paragraphs and .73 pro-Bush
paragraphs. The Herald showed significant bias toward Bush with 1.76
pro-Bush paragraphs and .59 pro-Gore paragraphs. There were no significant
differences between the Globe and the Herald on number of pro-Gore
paragraphs (t = - .172, df = 235, p = .402).
When all the neutral paragraphs were tested, there were no significant
differences between the Globe and the Herald (t = 1.86, df = 235, p =
.064). Mean neutral paragraphs for the Globe was 19.6 (sd = 9.26), for the
Herald was 17.2 (sd = 7.88).
Table 2
Mean Scores of pro-Gore, Pro-Bush and Neutral Paragraphs
Newspaper
Pro-Bush
Pro-Gore
Neutral
Boston Globe
.73
.57
19.60
Boston Herald
1.76
059
17.20
H2: The Boston Herald will give more dominance in the leads to Bush than
Gore compared to the Boston Globe.
This hypothesis was partially supported. In this case, the Herald did favor
Bush, but the Globe also exhibited bias for Gore.
There was a significant difference between the two newspapers on number of
pro-Gore leads (X²= 5.58, df=1, p<.05). Of all the non-neutral stories in
the two newspapers, the Globe had 43% favoring Gore while the Herald had
7.5% favoring Gore. Of the pro-Bush, both newspapers had 25%.
But there were also significant differences within the two newspapers,
with the Globe showing bias toward Gore as well as the Herald showing bias
toward Bush. Of its non-neutral leads, the Globe had 63% of its leads that
were pro-Gore and 37% that were pro-Bush. The Herald had 77% of its leads
that were pro-Bush and 23% pro-Gore.
This analysis reflects only the leads that favored a candidate. Two-thirds
of the Globe's leads were balanced (20 out of 30 leads), while only half of
the Herald's leads were balanced (10 out of 20 leads), but that difference
was not significant (X² =.518, df=1, p=.472)
Table 3
Lead Dominance
Newspaper
Pro-Bush
Pro-Gore
Number of Leads
% within newspaper
Number of Leads
% within newspaper
Boston Globe
10
37%
17
77%
Boston Herald
10
63%
3
23%
H3: The Boston Herald will give prominence to Bush by placing more stories
about Bush in the A section than the Boston Globe.
Chi-Square could not be computed because of the low occurrence of
non-neutral stories in the A sections of both newspapers; however, the
hypothesis still received some support because the Herald used no pro-Gore
stories in the A section, but placed 3 pro-Bush stories in section A. The
Globe was more balanced, placing 5 pro-Gore stories and 4 pro-Bush stories
in its A section.
H4: The political views of the owner as reflected in the endorsements of
the newspaper will influence the coverage of the presidential candidates.
The Boston Herald will have more stories whose overall tone is pro-Bush
than the Globe.
This hypothesis was supported. There was a significant difference between
the Globe and the Herald on overall story tone, with the Herald having
significantly more pro-Bush stories than pro-Gore stories (X²= 5.36, df =1,
p<.05). Of its non-neutral stories, the Herald had 85% that were pro-Bush
and only 15% that were pro-Gore. The Globe was more evenly split with 53%
pro-Bush and 47% pro-Gore stories.
Discussion
Differences were found in the objectivity of stories about the 2000
presidential election by the Boston Globe and Herald. When all non-neutral
paragraphs and leads were tested, the Herald showed significant bias toward
Bush by having significantly more pro-Bush paragraphs than pro-Gore
paragraphs on average, giving more dominance in the leads to Bush than
Gore, and having more stories whose tone was overall pro-Bush than
pro-Gore. The Globe, on the other hand, was more objective, giving balanced
coverage to both candidates and parties.
However, when neutral variables were included, data show that both the
Globe and the Herald devoted over half of their stories and paragraphs to
neutral coverage. There were 84% balanced leads in the Globe and 80%
balanced leads in the Herald. Overall, 83% of the stories in the Globe and
70% in the Herald were neutral.
This study shows that, as media ownership theory predicts, the publicly
owned Boston Globe was more objective than the Boston Herald when neutral
variables were excluded. The Herald showed more bias toward Bush, the
candidate it endorsed, than the Globe. The Herald not only had more
pro-Bush paragraphs and leads than pro-Gore paragraphs and leads, but also
had more stories whose overall tone was pro-Bush than pro-Gore. These
differences cannot be explained by strategy bias, or giving more coverage
to the frontrunner (Allen & D'Alessio, 2000), because there was no clear
frontrunner for nearly all of this campaign. Also, the Globe, on the other
hand, maintained balanced coverage for Bush and Gore by giving almost equal
amount of paragraphs, leads and stories to both candidates. It only showed
bias toward its endorsee, Gore, in its lead dominance.
The findings of this study offer some good news and some that is not so
good. On the one hand, not all newspapers are achieving the degree of
objectivity that the goals and values of good journalism require. There is
still work to be done in the area of achieving balance and fairness.
However, this study shows that corporate or conglomerate ownership, which
has generally been criticized, may not be all bad. In this study and a
previous one, newspapers owned by large corporations did a better job of
fair and balanced coverage of presidential candidates. Kenny and Simpson
(1993) pointed out that publicly owned companies were more concerned with
the circulation rate while the interest of privately owned companies lies
more in promoting the idea of anti-communism and the political view of its
owner's. Shoemaker and Mayfield (1987) also pointed out that content is
under the control of those who fund the media. Publicly owned newspapers
are financially supported by readers, advertisers and stockholders, so they
have to provide more objective news to appeal to the large market.
Privately owned newspapers are usually family owned and thus they are
influenced more by the owners.
This study tested media ownership theory again, using a different
population and time frame. Unlike the study by Kenney and Simpson (1993),
where they found the Washington Times was far more biased in its 1988
presidential election coverage than the Washington Post, the Globe and the
Herald were overall balanced in their coverage of the 2000 presidential
election. However, media ownership theory still found support since the
degree of objectivity for the privately owned Boston Herald and publicly
held Boston Globe was different. The Globe not only reported more than 80%
of its articles in a neutral fashion, but also maintained balance between
the Republicans and the Democrats when reporting stories non-neutrally. The
Herald showed significant bias toward its endorsee Bush, using more
pro-Bush paragraphs, leads, and overall tone in stories, even though most
of its articles were neutral.
This study found that not only did ownership influence objectivity, but
political views of the owners as reflected in editorial endorsements also
had some relationship to the coverage. The Boston Globe showed favoritism
to its endorsee, Gore, as well as the Herald showing bias to its endorsee,
Bush, in the story leads. This provides support for another theory of media
ownership theory's tenets, that the political views of a newspaper will
reflect that of the owner's.
This study also extended the previous study done by Kenney and Simpson by
giving new evidence from a different election, in different newspapers, and
by including the owner's political views. This study also included stories
about Bush or Gore throughout the entire presidential election campaign
period.
This study showed that media ownership theory's ideas about influences on
objectivity still apply to today's media. There appears to have been some
improvement in the newspapers' coverage of presidential elections since
1988, which was a pivotal time for the news media to reconsider its
approach to political coverage. It was during the 1988 election that the
civic or public journalism movement was spawned and with it came a new
appreciation for coverage of issues important to citizens instead of the
candidate personality and horserace coverage that had occupied so much of
the press' attention up to that point (Merritt & Rosen, 1994). Whether
civic journalism played a role in these particular newspapers' coverage is
beyond the scope of this study, but the values that civic journalism has
encouraged have spread throughout the industry, whether civic journalism
has been the vehicle or not. These two newspapers tend to be objective more
often than not, even though ownership still influenced the degree of
objectivity. Since these two newspapers are both widely read in Boston, the
results of this study should intrigue researchers who are interested in the
agenda-setting influence of the media.
Although it is hard to report the news without bias entirely, it is still
important to aspire to do so because of the effect it can have on the
public's opinion of the press. When it comes to covering a presidential
campaign, it is especially important to recognize the function of news
media in shaping public opinions. The media play an influential role as
intermediaries between political leaders and the public (Graber, 1989;
Davis, 1992). Media coverage of the presidential candidates may directly or
indirectly affect the outcome of the campaign. Domke and others found a
strong connection between positive and negative media coverage of candidate
Bill Clinton and public opinion polls in their study (Domke et al., 1997,
p.732).
This study showed that these two newspapers tended to be mostly objective
in their coverage of the 2000 presidential election. There may be many
reasons that caused this tendency, which may include among others the rise
of civic journalism, better media rules and regulations, stricter
self-censorship, and concerns about newspaper circulation. This study
raises new questions for future studies, including what are the reasons for
this improvement of newspaper coverage of presidential elections? What
effect does this change have on politics and society? Is the way media
shape public opinion different than before? Are journalists aware of these
changes?
Even though this study only tested two newspapers in Boston, the findings
were consistent with the previous one: the public newspapers are more
objective than private newspapers. Mergers and alliances between media
groups are becoming more common globally. The biggest newspaper companies
in the United States are the New York Times, Knight-Ridder and the Tribune
Co. Many deride conglomeration, saying it stops competition among different
media groups (McManus, 1994). From this study, conglomeration or publicly
owned corporations can be interpreted positively in one respect. Since the
main interest of these big groups is to increase circulation and profits,
covering political news in a neutral fashion helps win over audiences from
all political parties instead of alienating some and losing others.
One of the limitations of this study was that photographs were not
included in the analysis. Since bias was found in leads and number of
paragraphs, it may also be the case that photographs could favor one party
over the other. Future studies should include this as a variable. Also, the
variables used in the study to test objectivity were limited. It only
tested the objectivity in the leads, A section versus inside sections,
number of paragraphs, and story tone. Future studies should include more
kinds of variables to test this topic such as use of sources, headlines,
and topic of the story.
Another limitation, which is more difficult to overcome, was that only two
newspapers were tested. The Globe and the Herald were used because they
share the same market and have different types of ownership and so made a
good pair for comparison and testing of this theory. Since two newspapers
competing in the same market are rare, and it is even more difficult to
find two competing newspapers with different types of ownership in the same
market, it would be fruitful to expand the sample to look at a larger
numbers of newspapers with different types of ownership, but not to limit
it to newspapers competing in the same market.
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