Você está na página 1de 9

Mindy Lewis

Media Bias in Presidential Reports

Is the press biased in their reporting on the President of the United States? For
years, presidents have claimed maltreatment on the part of the media. Various reports
have supported these presidential claims, but issues in isolating the bias variable have
meant that the conclusions of these aforementioned reports have been deemed
inconclusive. It is important that we understand the medias treatment of the President
because often the way the media frames a topic determines, at least to a certain extent,
the way we as the public understand said topic. This means that if the media frames
presidential coverage in a certain way, this can affect the way we as the American
people interpret the Presidents actions and can also affect our approval of the
President. The scholarly article Is Network News Coverage of the President Biased?
by Tim Groeling and Kernell Samuel addresses the issue of media bias in reporting on
the President. They recognize the issues of subjectivity in analyzing positive versus
negative coverage, the unequal weight of news stories and outlets, and the issue of
selection bias within news networks; in so doing, they start their research in an entirely
different manner than previous studies, focusing on stories of presidential approval
ratings, where they were able to isolate the ratings from the aforementioned variables. In
this paper, we will not only look at Groeling and Samuels results and their implications
1

Mindy Lewis
for the Presidents relationship with the press, but we will also look at more recent press
dealings with presidential approval ratings and determine whether their results from
approximately two decades ago still hold water. Lastly, we will, in light of the latter
analysis, discuss the implications of Groeling and Samuels research for modern day
understanding of the medias relationship with the President.
Groeling and Samuel, as mentioned before, are interested in the medias
treatment of the President, specifically that of network news. They are drawn to this
question by previous studies which indicate that previous presidents are justified in their
complaints that the press is biased against them. However, they first begin by identifying
the major problems with all previous studies which prevent any results from being truly
conclusive. The first issue is subjectivity in coding; it is extremely difficult to code new
pieces when one coder may interpret a story as positive feedback whereas another
coder may interpret the same story as a negative news piece for the President. The lack
of an objective standard for coding these news pieces means that there is a lack of
consistency in determining the tone of media reports on the President. Secondly, the
previous studies on this topic neglected to factor in the varying weights of news stories;
for example, a small, foreign news outlet may report negatively on the President while a
large, mainstream, American news outlet reports favorably on the President, and
previous studies would have weighted these news pieces equally, regardless of their
2

Mindy Lewis
differing implications for the American peoples understanding and approval of the
President and his actions. The last issue is selection bias; Groeling and Samuel ask
whether the potential bias occurs in gathering information or in the actual reporting of
that information. In order to determine this, they need to look at the stories collected by
news agencies about presidential approval which were not reported in favor of other
news stories. In order to circumvent these issues faced by previous studies, Groeling
and Samuel focus their study on stories specifically regarding president approval ratings
from three major news networks: NBC, CBS, and ABC over the course of 6 years. The
main question they seek to answer is whether or not network news coverage of the
President, specifically his approval ratings, is biased. They present two hypotheses
which they intend to test in order to reach more conclusive results, recognizing the need
to isolate the potential for polling bias from the potential for reporting bias. As such, their
first hypothesis regarding polling bias is as follows: Other things equal, a network is
more likely to administer a job performance survey if it has information that the
presidents performance rating is declining (Groeling & Samuel, 1069). The second
hypothesis they propose is in regards to reporting bias and follows as such: Other
things equal, a network is more likely to report approval ratings that represent losses in
public support since the last report (Groeling & Samuel, 1069). In order to test these
hypotheses, they looked at the three networks to get a sense of how their results may
3

Mindy Lewis
reflect network-specific practices or are generalizable to the industry (Groeling &
Samuel, 1070). They looked at the evening news coverage of these three networks over
the course of six years in order to get relatively comparable coverage of Republican
and Democratic administrations (Groeling & Samuel, 1070). Additionally, they looked at
the total number of presidential approval polls taken by these networks in comparison
with the actual number of these polls which were reported. Furthermore, they looked at
the effects which changing presidential approval levels could have on both hypotheses.
In looking at all these things, Groeling and Samuel determined that the bias claimed by
presidents is, in fact, founded. Furthermore, they found that the bias lies not so much in
the polling methods and schedule of the networks, but rather in the reporting decisions
made by the networks. However, while it is true that the networks are more apt to cover
declining presidential approval more thoroughly, the relationship between presidential
approval and reporting practices is not as strong as one may think based solely off of
presidential complaints. While there is clear correlation between these factors in terms
of bias, it cannot be classified as the reckless bias which some presidents claim and
some previous studies support. News outlets are apt to report positive swings in
presidential approval ratings, but only when the upward swing is substantial. These
findings are important because they give us insight into the press relationship with the
President and help inform us about potential biases and frames which could be shaping
4

Mindy Lewis
the way we view politics and the President. The tendency of networks to report mainly
negative feedback on the President means that many people will consistently interpret a
weak President who is not doing a very good job, since it takes a large upward swing in
approval ratings for any positive feedback to be reported. As such, many people
understand a very polarized arena, in terms of presidential performance; that is to say,
many Americans think of the President either in terms of poor performance or very good
performance, and not so much in the middle of the spectrum, although it is likely the
President spends more time in the middle of road than anywhere else. Knowing that
there is a bias in how the news reports on the President means that we can control the
effect this bias has on our larger understanding. This means we can stop relying solely
on biased information to be informed and can take this information with a grain of salt,
knowing that the approval ratings reported are correct and up-to-date, but that the low
approval ratings most often reported are not a representative sample of presidential
approval ratings, and thus of presidential performance, across the board.
We can take these results one step further and look at their real life implications
and manifestations through recent news. We will look at the article Can Obama keep
rising? by Justin Sink for the news outlet The Hill. This piece looks at Obamas recent
upswing in public support, which is interesting in light of the Democratic Partys losses
in the midterm elections. Sink points out that polling experts say there is a ceiling to how
5

Mindy Lewis
much Obamas ratings can improve; he has had a small range of approval throughout
his presidency and there is no reason to think that this upswing would continue outside
of that range. This article attributes the recent upswing in Obamas approval to two key
groups: hispanics and millennials. However, the upswing in hispanic support is due
largely to Obamas executive order on immigration, which is not a repeatable event in
order to garner their support regularly. Polling experts also are cautious in reading too
much into the support of millennials, as they are historically a fickle group in terms of
their presidential support, so as quickly as the support came, it could be taken. The
article also says that Obama is enjoying the benefits of a stabilizing economy, meaning
that people are generally less displeased and this is reflected in the upswing. However,
Sink tells us, given the climate and upcoming issues, Obama could stand to lose
support as he faces formidable Republican opposition in both the House and the
Senate. This piece is interesting in light of Groeling and Samuels findings because it
presents an amalgamation of the negative bias and the reporting of large approval rating
swings. It shows that the media does report positive swings in presidential approval;
however, in line with Groeling and Samuels findings, it is a large swing. Furthermore, it
is interesting to see the overall tone of the article; although the change in presidential
approval is positive, the overall tone of the article seems more negative than positive.
Sink focuses on the ceiling of approval that Obama has based off of previous approval
6

Mindy Lewis
ratings, as well as other factors which could prevent him from maintaining those higher
approval ratings and furthermore, could make those ratings actively drop. In light of
Groeling and Samuels findings, it is especially interesting that the tone of the article is
still an anti presidential bias, even in the case of reporting positive indications of support
for the president. This bias is not only consistent with the findings of Groeling and
Samuel, but is consistent with what we know about audiences tone preferences. We
know that news audiences prefer negative news and negative angles on the stories they
are presented with, so it would make sense logically that this article would appeal to
their audience by having that overall negative tone even in the midst of a positive rating
change. This article is a real life manifestation of Groeling and Samuels theories and
findings.
This scholarly article paired with the more recent news article suggest that media
coverage of the President is fairly consistent and stable; it is safe to assume a degree of
anti presidential bias in media coverage of presidential approval. This has a couple
implications for how we understand the media coverage of the president. Firstly, this
means that we may previously have a negatively skewed perception of the Presidents
actual performance. By understanding the reporting bias, we are made aware that we
are more likely to hear about negative presidential feedback, so we can prevent this bias
from dictating our own opinions. This also means that if we are to have a more well7

Mindy Lewis
rounded perception and understanding of presidential performance, we cannot rely on
major news networks reporting to give us this understanding. Such an understanding, it
seems, will rely on citizens taking it upon themselves to seek out the most current
information regularly, not just when there is a sense of general displeasure with the
President. Finally, these finding raise the additional question of the effects of tonal bias
in reporting. Groeling and Samuel looked specifically at the bias in reporting numerical
changes, but they did not look at the tone or manner of reporting these stories. Sinks
article, however, very clearly raises this as an issue which could be contributing even
more to anti presidential biases within the press. A content analysis would be needed to
assess the extent to which tone adds to anti presidential biases, regardless of whether
the actual topic is positive or negative.

Mindy Lewis
References
Groeling, T., & Samuel, K. (n.d.). Is Network News Coverage of the President Biased?
Retrieved January 17, 2015, from http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2647731
Sink, J. (n.d.). Can Obama keep rising? Retrieved February 1, 2015, from
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/231386-can-obama-keep-rising

Você também pode gostar