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Media Ownership and 'Bias'



Media Ownership and 'Bias:'

A Case Study of
News Magazine Coverage of the
2000 Presidential Election Campaign




Prepared by Craig Flournoy,
Danielle Sarver and Nicole Smith

Louisiana State University, 2001



Please direct all question or inquiries about this project to:

Danielle Sarver
Louisiana State University
Journalism Building
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Phone: (225) 578-5106
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Media Ownership and 'Bias:'

A Case Study of
News Magazine Coverage of the
2000 Presidential Election Campaign


Prepared by: Craig Flournoy, Danielle Sarver and Nicole Smith
Louisiana State University, 2001



Abstract
        The hypothesis of this paper is that a publicly held media property-such as Newsweek or Time-will be more likely to display objectivity in its news coverage than a privately held media company such as U.S. News and World Report. To test this, the authors conducted a content analysis of the three major news magazines' coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. The results of the content analysis of the three magazines support the hypothesis.
 Media Ownership and 'Bias'


Introduction
In the modern era of presidential campaigns, candidates are no longer directly accessible to the American voter.  The voter, therefore, relies on the media to provide an accurate analysis of each candidate's character and platform.  In turn, a variety of sources(including print, television, radio and the Internet(bombard voters with news coverage of the candidates.  Through these words and images, voters are expected to formulate their perceptions of and their preferences for the candidates.  Given the pivotal role that the news media play in the formulation of public opinion, the need for objective coverage of the candidates is evident.
The question of objectivity in news coverage of presidential elections is not a new subject.  Throughout the years, Democrats and Republicans alike have made claims of bias.  In 1952, Democrats complained about bias against Adlai Stevenson.  In addition, Republicans George Bush and Bob Dole claimed that the media treated them unfairly.  More recently, questions of objectivity have been raised regarding news coverage of the 2000 presidential election.  A study conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists found that between the months of February and June 2000, 76 percent of the coverage of Al Gore focused on one of two themes: that he lies and exaggerates or is tainted by scandal.[1]  This study(based on 2,400 newspaper, television, radio and Internet stories(left out one crucial mass media, the news magazine.
Our country's three weekly news magazines(Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report(constitute the focus of this research study.  Together, they have a circulation of more than nine million.  Numbers like these suggest that the three publications can play an important role in influencing public opinion.  Ownership of the of these news magazines ranges from some of the nation's most powerful media companies to enterprises that are far more modest and privately held.
AOL Time Warner, the largest media conglomerate in the world, owns Time.[2] Time, the nation's oldest news magazine, has a U.S. circulation of slightly more than four million.[3]  Its parent company, created by the recent $100 billion merger between America Online and Time Warner, is a media colossus.[4]  It combines the world's largest Internet company (AOL) with the country's second-largest cable company (Time Warner).[5]  AOL Time Warner publishes 60 magazines with a total readership of 268 million.[6]  The company's CNN News Group provides news and entertainment via cable television and the Internet for 76 million subscribers in the United States and more than one billion people in 212 countries and territories.[7]  AOL Time Warner is a publicly held corporation.
The Washington Post Company has owned Newsweek since 1961.[8]  Newsweek has a U.S. circulation of 3.2 million.[9]  While not nearly as big as AOL Time Warner, the Washington Post Company is a diversified media organization with interests in newspaper and magazine publishing, broadcasting and cable television systems.  Like AOL Time Warner, the Washington Post Company is publicly held.
U.S. News and World Report, which has a circulation of two million, is privately owned.[10]  The principal owner is Mortimer B. Zuckerman, a billionaire developer who amassed his fortune in real estate and then turned his attention to media properties, buying U.S. News and World Report in 1984 and later the New York Daily News; neither has been financially successful.[11]  Zuckerman has involved himself deeply in the operation of U.S. News and World Report.  He named himself editor-in-chief and is involved in the magazine's daily operations including suggesting stories, reviewing covers and even interviewing subjects.[12]  Zuckerman also brought turmoil to the magazine-he went through four editors in five years-and has never spelled out a clear idea of the direction he wants U.S. News and World Report to pursue.[13]
Given the circulation numbers of these news magazines and their integral role in some of our nation's largest media groups, it is important to examine the news magazine itself.  The news magazine is a unique mass medium in that it operates on a more relaxed time frame than other media.  Although the news magazine does have a weekly time deadline, it is more flexible than the deadlines of the evening news and the morning paper.  The more flexible deadline provides the news magazine the luxury of examining the week's events and rearranging those events into neatly packaged news.  The packaged news is then brought to the homes and workplaces of millions of American voters.  As raised by Ben Bagdikian in 1958, the question is, "How often are the bricks of real events reshaped to build a scene more satisfying to the publisher's taste than the scenery of real life?"[14]  In other words, how objective is the news coverage of the major news magazines?
The theory of media ownership, developed by J. Herbert Altschull, attempts to answer this question.[15]  Altschull contends that the "content of the press is directly correlated with the interests of those who finance the press."[16]  Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese have attempted to refine and extend Altschull's work.[17]  They contend that when a publicly held corporation owns a news organization, the primary focus is to make a profit and objectivity is seen as a way of attracting the readers desired by advertisers. When a privately held company owns the news organization, the owner may choose to make profits secondary to an ideological goal, such as promoting a particular political agenda.
        The intention of this research project is to build on the work of Altschull, Shoemaker and Reese by applying their theory of media ownership to the nation's three major weekly news magazines.  More specifically, this project will address their coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign.  This is an area that deserves far more study than it has previously received.
More than 40 years ago, Bagdikian published a scathing 12-part series on the nation's three major news magazines.[18]  He found that all three were deeply biased.  In his words, "Each of the three magazines has had its particular interests in the news and has tended to fit the presentation of the facts to those interests."[19]  Worse, the three news magazines falsely portray themselves as objective and unbiased.  Bagdikian wrote, "The bias of the American news magazine is not stated.  They all imply they are news."[20]  This bias, according to Bagdikian, was particularly evident in their political coverage.  He analyzed hundreds of articles and found that each magazine consistently sought to promote a conservative political agenda.  Bias also infiltrated the magazines' coverage of political campaigns, according to Bagdikian.  As an example, he cites Time's reporting on the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns.  He found overt bias in the space devoted to various officials, the facts selected for inclusion and the tone of the coverage.  Bagdikian concluded that Time's coverage of the two campaigns represented "the most effective propaganda printed for the benefit of the Republican National Committee."[21]
Bagdikian never suggested why bias appeared to be prevalent in the news magazines in 1958.  It is worth noting that at the time, all three were privately owned.

Literature Review
Scholars who have conducted content analysis reviews of media coverage of previous presidential elections to examine questions regarding balance and fairness have arrived at vastly different conclusions.  Many have found that the media gave the presidential candidates equal coverage that was fair and balanced.  Stempel and Windhauser analyzed news coverage by 15 major newspapers between 1960 and 1988 and found that the newspapers consistently gave the major contenders equal space.[22]
        Six researchers, in fields as divergent as mass communication, genetics and political science, 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.[23]  Four of those scholars-Watts, Domke, Shah and Fan-examined news coverage randomly drawn from the NEXIS electronic database for the 1988, 1992 and 1996 presidential election campaigns.[24]  They found a slight bias favoring Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992, but found fair and balanced coverage in the other two elections.  Despite this, the four researchers found that the public increasingly believes the media have a liberal bias when reporting on the presidential campaign.
        Other researchers have found that the media display a distinct bias in political news reporting generally and in presidential campaign coverage specifically.  For example, a study by Mantler and Whiteman examined coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign by six of the nation's most important newspapers.  It found that four of the six did not provide equal coverage to the major candidates.[25]  As mentioned earlier, the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists examined 2,400 newspaper, television, radio and Internet campaign stories in 2000 and found that three-quarters included one of two themes about Gore: either he lies and exaggerates or is connected to scandal.  The same study found that the dominant theme in the campaign coverage of George W. Bush is that he is a "different kind of Republican."[26]
        There are two terms that are central to this discussion: bias and objectivity.  Hackett defines bias as the reporter or a news organization inserting subjective opinion into what is supposed to be a factual account.[27]  As an example, Bagdikian cited the headlines on two stories-one about President Eisenhower, the other about Adlai Stevenson-that ran in the same issue of Time after the candidates made a joint appearance during the 1956 campaign.  The Eisenhower headline was "Ike's Promise" while the Stevenson headline was "Adlai's Pitch."  This paper will focus on those instances of bias where the reporter inserted his or her personal opinion into the article without any outside attribution.  Objectivity is the opposite of bias.  Westerstahl defines it as factual, impartial and balanced.[28]  This paper will use the terms "fair" and "balanced" interchangeably with "objective."
        Our hypothesis is that a publicly held media property will be more likely to display objectivity in its news coverage of a presidential campaign than a privately held company.  Kenney and Simpson employed a similar hypothesis in their examination of the two remaining newspapers in our nation's capitol.[29]  Kenney and Simpson used content analysis to test the ownership theory by examining coverage of the 1988 presidential race by the Washington Post and the Washington Times.
To adequately prove bias, Kenney and Simpson compared media reports to "social reality"(a view of the world that shows what society knows about itself.[30]  The study used a list of 30 campaign highlights as a measure of social reality.  To determine balance, Kenney and Simpson used "news story generation gates."  These rates were determined by dividing the number of stories favoring a political party by the number of events favoring that party.  Results showed that the Times was most likely to overlook events that helped the Democrats or hurt the Republicans.  The results were more clearly identified when the news generation rates were examined.  The Post published a proportionate number of stories and photographs about events favoring each party, while the Times gave far more coverage to the Republicans than the Democrats.  Overall, Kenney and Simpson found that the publicly owned Post was fair and balanced in its news coverage, while the privately owned Times was frequently biased.
Popovich, Moriarty and Pitts studied news magazine coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign.[31]  They performed a directional content analysis, but did not apply the ownership theory to their findings.  A directional content analysis was used because it allowed the researcher to determine preferential press treatment of one candidate over the other.  It also allowed the researchers to determine whether press orientation toward a candidate was positive, negative or neutral.  They found that Time and Newsweek provided the two candidates with balanced coverage: positive and negative statements were equal.  However, the authors found that this was not the case with U.S. News and World Report.  The magazine published mostly positive statements about Republican George Bush and mostly negative statements about Democrat Michael Dukakis.  Thus, Popovich, Moriarty and Pitts concluded, "Only U.S. News and World Report showed support for a candidate by giving more positive coverage to Bush
 than to Dukakis."[32]
As noted earlier, accusations of media bias are not a recent trend.  A study of the 1972 presidential campaign conducted by Evarts and Stempel revealed bias in the media coverage of the campaign.[33]  This study examined television, news magazine and newspaper coverage of the campaign.  Included in the study were the three major broadcast networks, the three major news magazines and six major newspapers.  Evarts and Stempel used a symbol coding system, with the sentence being the context unit.  Sentences were coded as positive, negative or neutral.  Results showed than most of the media studied did not give equal coverage to the candidates.  The only media outlets that provided coverage that was not significantly favorable to one candidate over the other were CBS news, the Christian Science Monitor and the Los Angeles Times.  For our purposes here it is critical to examine their findings in regard to the news magazines.  It was found that Newsweek was the most favorable to the Rep
ublicans and Time was least favorable to the Republicans.  U.S. News and World Report and World Report was in between the other two news magazines.  An interesting finding was that overall the news magazines favored the Republicans, while the television networks and newspapers favored the Democrats.  Evarts and Stempel concluded that "the reason for this is that while television and the newspapers dealt with the day-by-day activity of the campaign, the news magazines assessed the campaign over a period of a week.  They focused on trends, and most trends were pro-Republican."[34]  This statement relates to Bagdikian's assumption about the ability of the news magazine to neatly package the news.
        D'Alessio and Allen conducted a meta-analysis of 59 quantitative studies that looked at media bias in presidential election coverage over the past 50 years.[35]  The authors examined the studies of newspaper, television and news magazine coverage for three types of bias: gatekeeping bias (choosing stories that favor one party over the other); coverage bias (devoting greater space to coverage of one party at the expense of the other); and statement bias (publishing or broadcasting information that is more favorable to one party than the other).  D'Alessio and Allen found no significant bias in newspaper coverage and negligible bias in television and news magazine coverage.  According to the authors, the eight studies that examined the news magazines' presidential coverage did show a slight pro-Republican bias.  However, most of the news magazine studies examined presidential elections that took place in the 1970s and 1980s.

Research Questions and Hypothesis
The primary research question for this paper is: Does the type of ownership of a media company play a role in how objectively that news organization reports on a national political campaign?  There are other questions this paper also seeks to answer.  To the extent that bias does exist in any of the news magazines, does it favor a particular candidate or party?  Finally, how does the news magazines' political coverage of the 2000 presidential election compare with what Bagdikian found in the 1950s when media moguls like Henry R. Luce at Time and David Lawrence at U.S. News and World Report often used their publications as a bully pulpit to promote conservative Republican positions as gospel?
Based on previous studies, the hypothesis is that a media company that is publicly owned-such as Time or Newsweek-will be more likely to display objectivity in its news coverage of a presidential campaign than a privately held company such as U.S. News and World Report.
Scholars are divided on the issue of corporate control and its effect on fairness and balance in news reporting.  Some argue that as corporate control increases, the media become more biased.  Among the most outspoken adherents of this idea is Bagdikian.  He contends that increasing corporate control of the nation's media has caused newspapers, television and radio to place a greater emphasis on pleasing their advertisers rather than serving their audiences.[36]  In his words, "The enemy is avarice married to arrogance."[37] Without radical change, according to Bagdikian, there will be "further erosion of the relevant and responsible public information needed to sustain the American democracy."[38]
The work of Schudson, a social historian of journalism, suggests a drastically different picture regarding objectivity, advertising and the profit motive.  Schudson argues that objective, fact-based journalism arose in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century as a means to profits.[39]  He finds that publications such as the New York Times attracted a growing audience of middle- and upper-middle class readers by delivering information-based journalism.  That, Schudson finds, proved incredibly profitable, as advertising in the Times rose from 2.4 million agate lines in 1897 to 23.4 million agate lines in 1920.  In Schudson's scenario, media companies have a vested self-interest in delivering journalism based on facts and largely free of bias.[40]
Other scholars contend that increasing corporate control improves the quality of the organization's news product.  Demers surveyed publishers, editors and reporters at more than 200 newspapers, then ranked the publications on a corporate newspaper scale from low to high.[41]  He also conducted a survey of public officials representing more than 200 of the cities sampled.  He found that the publishers, editors and reporters at the newspapers scoring highest on the corporate scale placed much more importance on such measures as "being the best," "hiring the best employees," "being innovative" and "improving the news product." He also found that public officials in these same cities were more likely to say that the local newspaper was too critical of their performance.  Demers concludes that "the corporate newspaper actually places much more emphasis on quality journalism and much less emphasis on profits than its entrepreneurial counterpart."[42]
        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 may be such that they override the goals and objectives of the owner.  For example, King and Schudson have 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.[43]  Reagan accomplished this by cultivating reporters and other key people at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Time and Newsweek.  Nor was this a great surprise: According to King and Schudson, Washington reporters use no documents other than press releases in three-quarters of their stories.  In Washington's verbal society, reporters repaid Reagan's personal charm with biased positive stories built on little or no factual basis.
 Methodology
The study includes all articles published in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report from the Labor Day campaign kickoff until the issues dated November 13, 2000, which were released to newsstands the day before the election.  Despite the unusual nature of this presidential election, which continued for over a month after the November 9th voting day, no articles were included after the original cutoff date was established.  Because votes were already cast, the valence of national media coverage of the aftermath could not effect change.
To meet the researchers pre-established criteria, articles selected from the magazines had to be presented as news; all columns, editorials, letters and opinion pieces were eliminated.  In addition, only stories that directly addressed one of the four major party candidates (Al Gore, George W. Bush, Joe Lieberman and/or Dick Cheney) were accepted.  Only article text was considered in the content analysis; no headlines, photographs, or captions were included or coded.  In total, 101 articles were coded for this analysis.  Of these, Time accounted for 31, Newsweek for 33 and U.S. News and World Report for 37.
A coding sheet, which can be found in Appendix A, was designed for use with each story included in the analysis.  Each article in its entirety was examined for four characteristics: bias in favor of the Republicans, bias in favor of the Democrats, bias that was unfavorable toward the Republicans and bias that was unfavorable toward the Democrats.  Coders placed a "0" before the characteristic if it was not present in the text, and a "1" if that characteristic was present.  Coders were reminded of several factors to consider in their analysis:
ù       The nature of an event may favor one party or another, which does not constitute bias.

ù       Based on the methodology of Kenney and Simpson, four factors of objectivity (as found in Westerstahl's definition) were used:

1.      Neutrally presented: Article is free of opinion and sensational language.

2.      Truthful: Information reflects the facts of the situation and avoids any intention to mislead.

3.      Relevant: Avoids trivial details and emphasizes items of significance.
4.      Balanced: Gives more-or-less equal accounts of the alternative points of view (e.g. all quotes supporting one political party should not appear at the beginning of the story with the opposing view at the end).

The three researchers served as coders for this project.  Each was well versed in the literature and theory behind this analysis, which allowed for thoughtful reasoning and consideration of each of the articles.  The stories were numbered according to magazine, month and issue of publication and order in the magazine.  For example, article number 21032 is the second election story in Newsweek, October 16, 2000.  Once each of the articles was reviewed and numbered, they were randomly distributed to each of the researchers for coding.  Each coder worked with roughly one-third of the sample in order to lessen the effects of potential coder prejudices, a technique utilized in Kenney and Simpson's 1993 study.  Approximately fifteen percent of the total number of articles were tested for intercoder reliability by using Holsti's coefficient of reliability with 80 percent being preset as the minimum acceptable percentage.[44]  Each combination of researchers resulted in a different number: Coder 1 and Coder 2 had an 82 percent reliability, Coders 2 and 3, 80 percent, and Coders 1 and 3, 88 percent.
Once coded for bias, the articles were separated into categories based on whether the focus was on the candidate(s), issues, or any other aspect of the campaigns and elections.  It is interesting to note that both Time and Newsweek tended to run a balanced number of candidate- and issue-centered articles, while U.S. News and World Report overwhelmingly concentrated on candidate articles.
Category
Time (n=31)
Newsweek (n=33)
U.S. News (n=37)
Candidates
23.5%
29.4%
47.1%
Issue
45.2%
38.7%
16.1%
Other
26.3%
31.6%
42.1%
Table 1: Article Content Categories in the
2000 Presidential Election Campaign by News Magazine

Results
Bias occurred most often in U.S. News and World Report.  Personal opinion was found in 56.7 percent of its stories.  This was about twice the level of bias found in the other two magazines.  In Newsweek, personal opinion regarding the candidates was found in 30.3 percent of the stories.  In Time, bias was found in 22.6 percent of the stories.
The bias in Time and Newsweek was almost invariably against the candidates.  There were 14 instances of bias found in Newsweek; all 14 were unfavorable toward one or both candidates.  There were nine instances of personal opinion found in Time; eight of the nine were unfavorable toward one or both candidates.  In U.S. News and World Report, personal opinion was found both in favor of and against the two candidates.  There were 24 instances of bias found in U.S. News and World Report; of these, 12 were unfavorable toward one of the candidates and 12 were favorable toward one or both candidates.
News Magazine
Anti-Republican
Anti-Democrat
Pro-Republican
Pro-Democrat
TOTAL
Time
2
6
1
0
9
Newsweek
9
5
0
0
14
U.S. News
5
7
4
8
24
Table 2: Instances of Bias For or Against Major Party Candidates
 by News Magazine in the 2000 Presidential Election

Time and Newsweek exhibited a greater level of bias against a particular candidate compared with his opponent, while U.S. News and World Report did not demonstrate a significant bias in favor or against any particular candidate.  In Newsweek, there were nine instances of bias against the Republican candidate compared with five instances of bias that were unfavorable toward the Democratic candidate.  In Time, there were seven instances of personal opinion that were favorable toward the Republican candidate or unfavorable toward the Democratic candidate compared with two instances of bias against the Republican candidate.  In U.S. News and World Report, there were 11 instances of personal opinion that were favorable toward the Republican candidate or unfavorable toward the Democratic candidate compared with 13 instances of opinion against the Republican candidate or for the Democratic candidate.
It is interesting to note that a single reporter, Howard Fineman, was responsible for the majority of biased stories that appeared in Newsweek.  Of the 10 stories with personal opinion that appeared in Newsweek, Fineman was the author or co-author of seven or 70 percent.  Overall, Fineman wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 33 Newsweek articles used in this analysis or 33 percent.  In a November 6 article on the eve of the election, Fineman suggests that he is repelled by both candidates.[45]  As he writes, "The theme song for this campaign isn't 'Yankee Doodle' or 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' it's 'Who Let the Dogs Out?'"[46]  He says the election represents a low-water mark in American politics, adding Bush and Gore "may set a record for cloying moments."[47]
Because of small cell sizes, identified biases were collapsed into four categories: pro-republican (consisting of both pro-republican and anti-democrat biases), pro-democrat (pro-democrat and anti-republican biases), bias against both parties and no bias.  These data were then crosstabulated with the article content categories in an effort to determine whether article type affected bias.

Category
Pro-Republican (n=17)
Pro-Democrat (n=15)
Both Parties (n=6)
No Bias (n=63)
TOTAL
Candidates
21.6%
25.5%
9.8%
43.1%
100%
Issue
9.7%
3.2%
3.2%
83.9%
100%
Other
15.8%
5.3%
0%
78.9%
100%
X2 (d.f.=6, N=101) = 18.47, p<.005

Table 3: Partisan Bias in News Magazine Articles about the
2000 Presidential Election Campaign by Article Content Category

Table 3 shows that candidate-centered articles show a more-or-less equal bias toward each party, although bias is found much more frequently in articles about candidates than those about issues or other elements of campaigns and elections.  This is particularly important because U.S. News and World Report, the news magazine that was found to contain the most bias, publishes considerably more articles that focus on candidates than either Time or Newsweek.
The second research question, whether or not a magazine's bias favors a particular candidate or party, is addressed in Table 4.
Magazine
Pro-Republican (n=17)
Pro-Democrat (n=15)
Both Parties (n=6)
No Bias (n=63)
TOTAL
Time
16.1%
3.2%
3.2%
77.4%
100%
Newsweek
3.0%
15.2%
12.1%
69.7%
100%
U.S. News
29.7%
24.3%
2.7%
43.2%
100%
X2 (6, N=101) = 19.19, p<.004

Table 4: Partisan Bias in News Magazines'
Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election Campaign

Table 4 indicates Time's coverage of the 2000 Presidential campaign favored the Republican Party, whereas Newsweek leaned toward the Democrats.  It is interesting to note that the magazine with the most instances of bias, U.S. News and World Report, did not overwhelmingly favor one party over the other.

Conclusions
This study examined all of the articles about the 2000 Presidential election campaign published in the three major American news magazines from Labor Day through Election Day in an effort to determine whether or not a relationship exists between media ownership and instances of bias in coverage of political candidates. U.S. News and World Report, the only privately owned news magazine included in this study, exhibited large amounts of bias in its stories: 56.8 percent of the total stories examined contained bias either for or against major party candidates.  Time showed bias only 22.6 percent of the time, and Newsweek 30.3 percent of the articles.  These results uphold the hypothesis, that publicly held media outlets (such as Time or Newsweek) will be more likely to display objectivity in its coverage of a presidential campaign than their privately owned counterparts.
The instances of bias found in U.S. News and World Report were split relatively evenly between the two parties.  This was not the case with either of the other two magazines.  Time, while having the least amount of bias, tilted towards the Republicans, while Newsweek tended to favor the Democratic candidates.  These results address whether bias that does exist favors one candidate or party over the other, the second part of our research question.  In addition, the biases found in both Time and Newsweek were overwhelmingly negative; only one example of pro-Republican bias was cited from either magazine, and neither had any articles biased towards the Democrats. What is not clear, however, is whose ideology is being reflected in these articles.  As noted in the results section of this study, one reporter-Howard Fineman-was overwhelmingly responsible for the bias found in Newsweek's articles as either the author or co-author of 70 percent  of the biased articles.  Future research int
o this area is greatly needed to determine whose biases are making it into the news magazine's articles.
While journalistic bias can still be found in the three major American news magazines, it appears to be less pervasive and ideological when compared to what Bagdikian found in the 1950s.  Bagdikian found that an overarching political agenda governed news coverage at each magazine, particularly Time and U.S. News, and that this, in turn, deeply influenced each publication's political coverage.  This was not surprising, given the strong personalities and deeply held political views of the men who then ran the news magazines.
Luce launched Time in 1923 followed by Fortune in 1930 and Life in 1936.[48]  He was brilliant and innovative, "one of the giants in the history of American journalism" in the words of the legendary foreign correspondent Theodore H. White.[49]  The journalist David Halberstam credits Luce with pioneering the idea of a weekly news magazine.[50]  As even Luce's longtime nemesis, William Randolph Hearst once observed, "There can no longer be any doubt that Time is the world's outstanding journalistic venture to date."[51]  Luce did not use his prize creation to promote fair or balanced reporting.  As he told one friend, "Listen, I don't pretend this is an objective magazine.  It's an editorial magazine from the first page to the last and whatever comes out has to reflect my view and that's the way it is."[52]
Even star reporters at Time found that they crossed Luce at their peril.  This was true for White, who was forced to resign his job as a foreign correspondent because Luce repeatedly had his dispatches on the Chinese Revolution rewritten to fit Luce's ideas.  As White later recalled, "He was responsible to his balance sheet and his conscience alone, thumbing his nose at advertisers, politicians, correspondents, critics, anyone who stood between him and the view of reality he expected his magazines to follow."[53]  John Hersey, another foreign correspondent at Time, repeatedly complained about editors who rewrote his stories to fit Luce's policies.  He once grew so angry that he fired off a cable to Luce, complaining that his work was "torn from the context( and put into [the] new context of Time's editorial bias."[54]  Hersey, whose book Hiroshima is one of the seminal works of journalism in the 20th century, eventually left Time too.  He knew there was no changing his boss.  As L
uce himself once said, "I am biased in favor of God, the Republican Party and free enterprise."[55]
Lawrence, who took over U.S. News and World Report in 1940 and helped transform it into a major news magazine, could have said much the same about himself.  He used U.S. News and World Report to promote his views as well as a column that ran five days a week in 270 newspapers across the country.[56]  He was a staunch supporter of Senator Joe McCarthy, a fierce anti-Communist and a rabid segregationist; he once ran 18 consecutive columns opposing integration.[57]  Lawrence used the news pages of U.S. News and World Report to attack any threat to racial segregation, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision striking down state-sanctioned segregation in the nation's public schools.[58]  In fact, Lawrence's ideological stranglehold on U.S. News and World Report exceeded even Luce's grip on Time; a writer for The Nation observed in a 1955 profile of Lawrence and U.S. News and World Report that "even the gossip columns are slanted."[59]
Today, however, this type of flagrant and pervasive bias cannot be found at any of the nation's three major news magazines.  In fact, this study found no evidence of a political agenda at any of the news magazines.  Thus, the portrait of the news magazines described by Bagdikian in 1958-one of opinion masquerading as news-does not apply to those same magazines today.  It is clear that media ownership does effect content bias, and that the trend towards publicly held media corporations has valued objectivity over personal opinion in news magazines.
 Appendix A
Coding Instruction Sheet

1.      Name: Enter your (the coder's) name.

2.      Number: Enter the story number located in the top right corner of the article you are coding. If the article is not the primary story on the page (i.e. text begins on the upper right corner of the page).

3.      Date: Enter the date of the story you are coding.

Bias: After reading and considering the entire article, please enter the appropriate code based on the following rubric:

ù       Note that the nature of an event may favor one party or the other, which does NOT constitute bias.
ù       For the purposes of this project, bias is defined as "the reporter or a news organization inserting subjective opinion into what is supposed to be a factual account."
ù       Please consider the following four factors when determining bias/objectivity:
ù       Neutrally presented: Article is free of opinion and sensational language.
ù       Truthful: Information reflects the facts of the situation and avoids any intention to mislead.
ù       Relevant: Avoids trivial details and emphasizes items of significance.
ù       Balanced: Gives more-or-less equal accounts of the alternative points of view (i.e. all quotes supporting one political party should not appear at the beginning of the story with the opposing view at the end).

4.      Biased in favor of the Republicans
0 ( This characteristic is NOT PRESENT in the article
1 ( This characteristic IS PRESENT in the article

5.      Biased in favor of the Democrats
0 ( This characteristic is NOT PRESENT in the article
1 ( This characteristic IS PRESENT in the article

6.      Biased against the Republicans
0 ( This characteristic is NOT PRESENT in the article
1 ( This characteristic IS PRESENT in the article

7.      Biased against the Democrats
0 ( This characteristic is NOT PRESENT in the article
1 ( This characteristic IS PRESENT in the article
Please note: It is possible that an article will contain elements that are favorable to either both or neither party; please consider each category individually and keep in mind that any combination of "0" and "1" is acceptable.

Notes: Enter any information or examples you believe need to be considered in the final analysis of the articles.

[1] References


 Project for Excellent in Journalism Web site, http://www.journalism.org/publ_research/character1.html See also Jane Hall, "Gore Media Coverage(Playing Hardball," Columbia Journalism Review, (September/October 2000): 30, 50.
[2]  AOL Time Warner Web site, http://www.aoltimewarner.com
[3]  Time Magazine's Circulation Information Web site, http://www.time-planner.com/planner/circulation/index_body.html
[4]  Stephen Labaton, "AOL and Time Warner Gain Approval for Huge Deal, but With Strict Conditions," New York Times, 15 December 2000, Sec. A, p.1.
[5]  Stephen Labaton, "F.C.C. Approves AOL-Time Warner Deal, with Conditions," New York Times, 12 January 2001, Sec. C, p.1.
[6]  AOL Time Warner Web site, http://www.aoltimewarner.com
[7]  Neil Hickey, "Coping with Mega-Mergers," Columbia Journalism Review 38 (March/April 2000): 16-20.
[8]  MSNBC Web site, http://www.msnbc.com/m/nw/nwinfo_history.asp
[9]  Postco.com Web site, http://www.postco.com/mag.htm
[10]  U.S. News and World Report Web site, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/misc/history.htm and http://www.usnews.com/usnews/misc/fact.htm
[11]  Devin Leonard, "The Importance of Being Mort," Fortune, 13 November 2000, pp. 150-170.
[12]  Gwen Kinkead, "Mort Zuckerman, Media's New Mogul," Fortune, 14 October 1985, pp. 190-196.
[13]  Mike Hoyt, "Can James Fellows Practice what he Preaches?" Columbia Journalism Review 35 (November/December 1996): 27-30; Leonard, "The Importance of Being Mort."
[14]  Ben H. Bagdikian, "The Newsmagazines," Providence-Journal Bulletin reprint, 5-17 October 1958, p. 1.
[15]  J. Herbert Altschull, Agents of Power: The Role of the News Media in Human Affairs (New York: Longman, 1984): 254-257.
[16]  Ibid., p. 254.
[17]  Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, Mediating the Message (White Plains: Longman, 1991): 112-114, 144-145, 163-164. See also Pamela Shoemaker with Elizabeth Kay Mayfield, "Building a Theory of News Content: A Synthesis of Current Approaches," Journalism Monographs No. 103 (Columbia, S.C.: AEJMC, June 1987): 1-36.
[18]  Bagdikian, "The Newsmagazines."
[19]  Ibid, p. 25.
[20]  Ibid, p. 26.
[21]  Ibid, p. 22.
[22]  Guido H. Stempel III, "The Prestige Press Covers the 1960 Presidential Campaign," Journalism Quarterly 38 (spring 1961): 157-163; Guido H. Stempel III, 'The Prestige Press in Two Presidential Elections," Journalism Quarterly 42 (spring 1965): 15-21; Guido H. Stempel III, "The Prestige Press Meets the Third-Party Challenge," Journalism Quarterly 46 (winter 1969): 699-706; Guido H. Stempel III and John W. Windhauser, "The Prestige Press Revisited: Coverage of the 1980 Presidential Campaign," Journalism Quarterly 61 (spring 1984): 49-55; Guido H. Stempel III and John W. Windhauser, "Coverage by the Prestige Press of the 1988 Presidential Campaign," Journalism Quarterly 66 (winter 1989): 894-896.
[23]  David Domke, David P. Fan, Michael Fibison, Dhavan V. Shah, Steven S. Smith and Mark D. Watts, "News Media, Candidates and Issues, and Public Opinion in the 1996 Presidential Campaign," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74 No. 4 (Winter 1997) : 718-737.
[24]  Mark D. Watts, David Domke, Dhavan V. Shah and David P. Fan, "Elite Clues and Media Bias in Presidential Campaigns: Explaining Public Perceptions of a Liberal Press," Communication Research 26 No. 2 (April 1999): 144-175. For a good summary of articles that have found media biases-and no biases in news content-see p. 146.
[25]  Gordon Mantler and David Whiteman, "Attention to Candidates and Issues in Newspaper Coverage of 1992 Presidential Campaign," Newspaper Research Journal 16 No. 3 (Summer 1995) : 14-28.
[26]  Project for Excellent in Journalism web site, http://www.journalism.org/publ_research/character1.html
[27]  Robert A. Hackett, "Decline of a Paradigm? Bias and Objectivity in News Media Studies," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1 No. 3 (September 1984): 229-259.
[28]  Jorgen Westerstahl, "Objective News Reporting: General Premises," Communication Research 10 No. 3 (July 1983): 403-424.
[29]  Keith Kenney and Chris Simpson, "Was Coverage of the 1988 Presidential Race by Washington's Two Major Dailies Biased?", Journalism Quarterly 70 No. 2 (Summer 1993): 345-355.
[30]  Ibid, 348.
[31]  Mark Popovich, Sandra Moriarty and Beverley Pitts, "News Magazine Coverage of the 1988 Presidential Campaign," Mass Communication Review 20 Nos. 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1993): 99-110.
[32]  Ibid, 108.
[33]  Dru Evarts and Guido H. Stempel III, "Coverage of the 1972 Campaign by TV, News Magazines and Major Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly 51 (1974): 645-649, 676.
[34]  Ibid, 647.
[35]  Dave D'Alessio and Mike Allen, "Media Bias in Presidential Elections: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Communication 50 No. 4 (autumn 2000): 133-156.
[36]  Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 6th edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983).
[37]  Ibid, 237.
[38]  Ibid, lxiii.
[39]  Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (Basic Books Inc., 1978).
[40]  Schudson argues that objectivity eventually triumphed in American journalism for economic reasons as well as to satisfy a psychological need among journalists. He argues that journalists needed objectivity as a means of coping with deep doubts about their ability to truthfully report events, doubts he traced to the use of propaganda in World War I and findings from the emerging field of psychology.
[41]  David Demers, "Corporate Newspaper Bashing: Is it Justified?," Newspaper Research Journal 20 No. 1 (winter 1999) : 83-97.
[42]  Ibid, 84.
[43]  Elliot King and Michael Schudson, Public Opinion and the Communication of Consent (New York: Guilford Press, 1995).
[44]  Klaus Krippendorf, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications Inc., 1980).
[45]  Howard Fineman, "Who'll Have the Last Laugh?," Newsweek, 6 November 2000, pp. 26-30.
[46]  Ibid, 28.
[47]  Ibid, 30.
[48]  Alan Brinkley, "To See and Know Everything," Time, 9 March 1998, pp. 90-91.
[49]  Theodore H. White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure (New York: Warner Books, 1978), 206.
[50]  David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1979).
[51]  Lance Morrow, "The Time of Our Lives," Time, 9 March 1998, p. 86.
[52]  Halberstam, The Powers, 62.
[53]  White, In Search, 206.
[54]  John Hersey, "Henry Luce's China Dream," The New Republic, 2 May 1983, p. 30.
[55]  Ibid, p. 28.
[56]  "Dark Valley," Time, 7 October 1957, pp. 72-73.
[57]  Ibid, p. 73.
[58]  Bagdikian, "The Newsmagazines," pp. 6-7.
[59]  Edgar Kemler, "The Lawrence Riddle," The Nation, 19 March 1955, p. 236.