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The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics
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News

Presidents and Front-page News: How America's Newspapers Cover the Bush Administration

Jeffrey S. Peake

Department of Political Science, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, jpeake{at}bgsu.edu

Presidency and political communication scholars have given scant attention to how local news media cover the presidency. The author offers a comparative study of coverage of the Bush presidency on the front pages of 100 American newspapers during a five-month period in 2006. Sociological and economic theories predict slanted coverage of national politics by America's newspapers, despite journalistic professional norms to the contrary.The analyses suggest there is a slant to the coverage of President Bush that is partly explained by the political leanings of the newspaper and its audience. Newspapers that endorsed Bush's reelection in 2004 tended to write more favorable headlines, and newspapers in states where Democrats are strong politically tended to write less favorable headlines.

Key Words: George W. Bush • newspapers • local media • media bias • presidency—press relations

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The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol. 12, No. 4, 52-70 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1081180X07307378
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This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
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Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
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Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Peake, J. S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?