When the President Comes to Town

Abstract

Domestic travel has become a common practice for modern presidents. Many claim local media cover these presidential trips more extensively and positively than the national media, yet no one has examined the validity of this assumption. We begin this examination with a study of local and national newspaper coverage of President George W. Bush’s 2001 domestic travel. Our findings confirm that the local press covers presidential domestic trips both more comprehensively and favorably than the national press. We also analyze variations in local newspaper coverage of presidential visits, finding that the most important factor influencing both the amount and tone of such coverage is the level of presidential support within a community. Other factors discovered to affect either the amount or tone of local coverage include the availability of adversarial sources, whether a newspaper has a Democratic editorial bent, and whether a visit occurred after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.