www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert153.shtml
During these two months the networks devoted the bulk of their reporting on Kerry to the candidates string of victories in early primaries and caucuses. Of the 2,895 statements made about Bush during the nightly half-hour network broadcasts, Media Tenor analysts counted 834 or 288 percent of statements as negative. Only 104 percent of the 1191 network statements about Senator Kerry were negative. Over the same period, the networks shone a more benevolent light on Kerry. In the first two months of the year, more than 35 percent or 422 of 1191 statements of network coverage of Kerry was counted as positive. Bushs positive coverage rating amounted to only 119 percent of the total statements made about the president during the half-hour network broadcasts. CBS Evening News with Dan Rather leads the networks in negative coverage of the president and positive coverage of Kerry. More than 35 percent of the Bush-related statements made during CBS nightly broadcast portrayed the president in a negative way. By comparison, ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings was more neutral towards the president. Media Tenor rated ABCs Bush coverage as 227 percent negative, 12 percent positive and 65 percent neutral. CBS shone more brightly than the other networks when covering Senator Kerry. Media Tenor classified more than 38 percent of their coverage of the Democratic candidate as positive, ABC and NBCs news programs were positive on Kerry 334 and 359 percent of the time, respectively. Bush continues not to be able to leave a convincing impression on TV news, said Roland Schatz, president of Media Tenor. While the president received the largest share of media coverage against the field of Democratic candidates, the focus was on negative, not positive, stories about Bush. Media Tenor analysts pore over transcripts and watch the half hour-broadcasts to classify news statements as negative, positive or neutral. Their data for the first two months of 2004 show that more than 55 percent of all statements about the candidates were neutral - or neither negative nor positive towards the candidate. When considering the remainder of statements, President Bush received far fewer high marks than his likely opponent for November. MediaChannel earlier this week shared the data via fax with the anchors and executives at NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight and CBS Evening News.
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