WIUM Local
(2009-03-24)
Tawnya Adkins Covert
Tawnya Adkins Covert and Philo Wasburn studied how four social issues were covered during a 25 year period. Those issues are crime, the environment, gender and poverty. Their findings are published in the new book Media Bias? A Comparative Study of Time, Newsweek, National Review, and The Progressive. Coverage of Domestic Social Issues 1975 - 2000.
Adkins Covert, who teaches sociology at Western Illinois University, says, "We did find that Time and Newsweek were very centrist in their coverage."
She adds, "Over the 25 year period, we found that most of the coverage fell within what we called balanced. It was neither far left nor far right. It was really middle of the road. And I think that is very different from what you hear and what you see in other discussions of bias."
Adkins Covert says the conservative magazine National Review and the liberal magazine The Progressive were also studied. She says those magazines' editorial statements note their partisan viewpoints. This gave Adkins Covert and Wasburn something with which to compare Time and Newsweek.
Adkins Covert believes those who most strongly argue that bias exists are those with the strongest political views. That includes conservatives and liberals.
Adkins Covert hopes the book convinces readers to move beyond the rhetoric.
A finding that surprised Adkins Covert was the lack of coverage of poverty. "19 articles appeared in Time magazine over 25 years about the issue of poverty. 19 articles," says Adkins Covert. "And in Newsweek only 31 articles over a 25 year period."
She was also surprised to find National Review changed its view of drug laws over the 25 year period. The magazine originally pushed a traditional conservative position of mandatory sentencing and stricter regulations. She says that changed in the mid-1990s when it declared the "war on drugs" had been lost and called for decriminalizing drugs. © Copyright 2010, wium
