Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University and Media Tenor October 19, 2004 Page 1

Summary Findings:

This study examines 2004 presidential election coverage from September 7 to October 1, 2004 on ABC's "World News Tonight", CBS's "Evening News" and NBC's "Nightly News" as well as "Special Report with Brit Hume" on the Fox News Channel.

* More News – Network news campaign coverage in September was up 40% over 2000 – 199 stories vs. 141.

* More Beef – The proportion of stories covering the campaign horse race dropped from 62% in 2000 to only 23% this year, a decline of 57%. Meanwhile, the proportion of stories dealing with policy issues rose from 50% in 2000 to 53% in 2004.

* More Beefs – Both candidates are getting more negative coverage than their counterparts in 2000. Evaluations were only 38% positive toward Kerry and 29% positive toward Bush, compared to 48% positive toward Gore and 33% positive toward Bush in 2000.

* Bite Size News – Candidate sound bites averaged under eight seconds in length.

* More Differences – All three networks gave Kerry 38% positive evalua-tions.

But ABC gave Bush only 20% positive, compared to 30% at NBC and 35% at CBS.

* Bent Toward Bush? – Fox News Channel's "Special Report" featured 31% positive evaluations of Bush compared to 21% positive toward Kerry. And Fox panelists' comments favored Bush by 50% positive to only 13% positive toward Kerry.

* "Fair and Balanced"? – In "Special Report" news segments, the coverage was balanced – 27% positive for Bush and 24% for Kerry. Fox was also more balanced in its issue coverage (30% positive for Bush vs. 28% for Kerry) than the broadcast network (41% positive for Kerry vs. 23% positive for Bush).