Slant seen in '08 race coverage

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Campaign coverage of the 2008 presidential election has been both biased and shallow, according to a study released today by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

One party dominates, and there's way too much partisan fluff.

Numbers reveal all: Democratic candidates were the subject of half of the 1,742 recent print, broadcast and online news stories analyzed in the research. Republicans garnered 31 percent.

"Overall, Democrats received more positive coverage than Republicans (35 percent of stories versus 26 percent), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35 percent versus 26 percent)," the study said.

The public pines for substance. A separate survey found that 77 percent of the respondents said they wanted more solid information on candidate policies and ideas. The press did not deliver.

Instead, almost two-thirds of the coverage focused on the "game" of the political horse race and candidate "performance." Accounts of their marriages, health and religion followed in importance in 17 percent of the stories — with just 15 percent examining domestic and foreign policies. A mere 1 percent shed light on candidates' public records.

"The press and the public are not on the same page when it comes to priorities in campaign coverage," the study said. "This disparity indicates there is room for the press to calibrate its coverage differently to make it more useful and possibly more interesting to citizens."

Indeed. More than half the public wants more insight into candidate debates, sources of campaign money and the lesser-known White House hopefuls. Of 18 candidates running, 52 percent of the coverage went to just five of them: Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois fixated press interest, garnering 17 percent and 14 percent of the total coverage, respectively.

Three Republicans followed: Rudolph W. Giuliani with 9 percent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona (7 percent) and Mitt Romney (5 percent).

Contenders, such as Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, were featured in only a dozen stories; Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, scored just one. Even John Edward's wife, Elizabeth, got more coverage than 10 of the candidates, the study found.

Mr. Obama was the media darling: 47 percent of the stories about him were positive, compared with 27 percent for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. McCain got the most press abuse. Just 12 percent of the stories about him were positive in tone.

The public, meanwhile, has only tepid reviews for it all, with a majority — 53 percent — rating the news coverage only fair to poor. The fault could lie in journalism's focus on insider politics.

"Just 12 percent of stories impact ordinary citizens," the study said. "By contrast, 86 percent of the stories were produced in a way that largely focused on how the politician's chances of election would be affected."

The stories were analyzed between January and May; the survey of 1,000 adults was conducted Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, with a margin of error of three percentage points.