We have finally survived another election cycle - mud slinging, attack ads and the dreaded Robo-calls. GRIID spent 30 days prior to Election Day monitoring the Grand Rapids Press, channels 8, 13 & 17. We looked at how much coverage was provided, which races, how often we heard/read candidate comments, and ad per election story ratios. See the summary findings below. One overwhelming conclusion that we could derive from our study is that the local news agencies think that the public was more interested in the DC Sniper case than local elections. There were 17, 48 & 42 stories on FOX, WOOD TV8 and WZZM 13 respectively, but not one single story about the 19 Kent County Commissioner races.
Summary of Findings
# Only the GR Press & WOOD TV8 provided substantive coverage on the Governors race.
# All other state and federal-level races received minimal coverage and in some cases only when a scandal occurred.
# Local races & ballot initiatives received little coverage - the 3 local TV stations never reported on the 19 races for Kent County Commissioner.
# Candidates in the Green, Libertarian, Reformed and US Tax Payers party received marginal coverage.
# Paid ads run during newscasts appeared roughly 4 times per every election story.
# All 3 TV stations ran more crime stories than election stories during the study period - more stories on the DC sniper than all local election races combined.
# Despite hosting and broadcast 28 candidate forums, none of the 4 news agencies studied promoted or reported on the Community Media Centers Tele-Democracy forums.
Contact:
GR Press Local News Desk 222-5455 or send letter to pulse@grpress.com
WOOD TV 8 News Director Patti McGettigan 456-8888 or patti.mcgettigan@lintv.com
WZZM 13 News Director Cheryl Grant 559-1315 or cgrant@wzzm.gannett.com
WXMI FOX 17 News Dir. Tim Dye 364-8722 tdye@wxmi.com
