Assessing Americans' Opinions About the News Media's Fairness in 1996 and 1998

Abstract

This article reports an analysis of Americans' opinions about the news media's fairness in covering public affairs. The data come from the 1996 and 1998 National Election Studies, which contained variables tapping exposure to and opinions about the news media, as well as key political dispositions−partisanship, ideology, and opinion about presidential and congressional job performance−and a plethora of demographic variables. The data show that people who adhere to traditional moral codes and are misanthropic tend not to trust the news media to cover politics fairly. In a presidential election year, opinion about the president's job performance affects perceptions of the press's fairness. In an off-year election, however, opinion about the president's job performance is replaced by opinion about how the Congress has been doing its job. In addition, perception of how the media covered the Lewinsky scandal also influenced opinion about the press's fairness in general.