ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the news media. These are media outlets that are primarily concerned with providing the news that is, information about current events as reported by professional journalists. After World War II, the Federal Communications Commission implemented the Fairness Doctrine, which required television and radio broadcasters to cover controversial information in a balanced manner a regulation that remained in place until the late 1980s. Modern journalists are motivated to produce rigorously reported news stories that make a difference. Newspapers have expanded their readership online, but online advertising revenues are nowhere near enough to compensate. One long-term trend that has shaped election news coverage has been the decades-long shift toward more interpretive journalism. Political scientist Thomas Patterson blames post-Vietnam acrimony between journalists and politicians as well as the rise of an interpretive journalism, which accentuates candidates' failures and downplays their successes. Election news tends to be negative in part because of the media's interest in politicians' personal failures.
