TV’s election efforts studied
A study released earlier this week found the major broadcast TV networks paying more attention to issues in the presidential campaign than four years ago. But a separate study released Thursday had nothing flattering to say about political coverage on local stations.
The Lear Center Local News Archive reported that its survey of evening newscasts in Los Angeles and 10 other cities for one week this month showed stations devoting most of their election coverage to the presidential race rather than to congressional or local races. And even that was limited: The average length of a campaign news story was 81 seconds, the researchers said, and little more than one-third of all campaign stories contained a candidate sound bite.
The Local News Archive is a project of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Wisconsin. It is studying campaign coverage on local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations in 11 markets and will release a report on the full campaign season after the election.
From a Times staff writer
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