The study was carried out jointly by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. It portrays press coverage of the elections as being out of touch with citizens’ information needs.

Among its main findings:

- Stories focus more on fundraising and polls than the candidates’ political stances.
- Five candidates received about half of the total media coverage.
- Democrats got more coverage and overall, as well as more positive reactions generally.

The outlook of the report doesn’t bode a very optimistic view of the press’ coverage of the elections. Maybe newspapers can rethink their approach in view of some of its findings?

There is another factor that newspapers and citizens alike should be considering in media coverage of the elections (and which probably wasn't fully integrated by the previous study): the rising influence of political blogs, which are flowering across the Web. This Washington Post article describes the emergence of blogs, held by professional journalists and citizens alike, and how these are opening new channels to voice politicians' concerns, which aren't always captured by traditional media.

Source: Guardian