By Brad Friedman on 2/25/2009, 10:02am PT  

Sounds about right to us...

Journalists, so concerned with being accused of having a liberal agenda, will at times overreact by self-censoring themselves, resulting in more favorable coverage of Republicans, a new analysis of television coverage finds.

A book by two Indiana University professors details their study of the three broadcast networks' --- ABC, CBS and NBC --- presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004. According to the analysis, the coverage favored Republican candidates in each election.

"We don't think this is journalists conspiring to favor Republicans. We think they're just so beat up and tired of being accused of a liberal bias that they unknowingly give Republicans the benefit in coverage," said Maria Elizabeth Grabe, an associate professor at IU, who along with Associate Professor Erik Bucy, wrote Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections.
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"Grabe and Bucy found the volume of news coverage focusing exclusively on each party --- one measure of media bias --- favored Republicans. Their research found there were more single-party stories about Republicans overall and in each election year except 1992," reads the release.
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The authors found that Republicans were more likely to get the last word in every presidential election studied but the 2004 election.

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Article Categories: Mainstream Corporate Media, Mainstream Media Failure