Local TV news tends to emphasize its connection to the community, often trumpeted in slogans like "The #1 Source for Local News and Weather." It is curious, then, that a study of political coverage on local news in 11 markets scattered throughout the country found that most stations all but ignored local political races in order to concentrate their time on the presidential campaign.13 [1]
The study, conducted by researchers at USC, the University of Wisconsin, and Seton Hall University, tracked four weeks of local news coverage on 44 stations from the beginning of October through the day before Election Day. The content analysis found that while the typical half-hour newscast devoted two minutes of coverage to the presidential races, other candidates received 75% less coverage-only 30 seconds on average. Stories about initiatives and public ballot issues accounted for 45 seconds of the average newscast.
Local TV news was also slightly more likely to focus on the "horse race" and political tactics rather than issues. Just under half, 44% of stories, focused on political strategy, while another 32% focused on issues, according to the USC report. The inside baseball orientation was even higher when it came to presidential and Senate races, where three in five stories about focused on the horse race and strategy. The more local stories about U.S. House seats were slightly more likely to focus on issues than strategy.
However, given the usual tendency of local TV stations to put coverage of crime news ahead of all priorities, it is notable that the study found that in the last month before Election Day the amount of political coverage was actually greater than the amount of crime coverage. Election news, all told, took up 3 minutes, 11 seconds of the typical half-hour newscast, while crime stories accounted for 2 minutes and 34 seconds. In addition, local TV news provided a notable amount of service journalism, with almost one in five stories addressing issues like voting precinct locations, and absentee ballot issues.
The study also tracked political advertising during local newscasts, and found that the amount of time over a single evening devoted to commercials for U.S. House and Senate candidates outpaced the amount of news coverage of these races by ratios of six to one or greater. The impact of an unprecedented amount of political advertising spending helped boost many station budgets. (See Economics.) Notably, stories fact-checking political ads accounted for less than one percent of all political stories-perhaps a case of newsrooms showing reluctance to kill the goose laying golden eggs.