State of the Fourth Estate

The Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News Media 2005" concludes that U.S. media coverage of Iraq was balanced, that campaign coverage favored John Kerry, and that Fox was "the most one-sided of all major news outlets." On Iraq, 25% of 2,000 stories analyzed were negative and 20% were positive. "Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, while CNN and MSNBC were evenhanded." A "more limited analysis of campaign coverage found that Bush received more negative, and less positive, coverage than Kerry," perhaps due to setbacks in Iraq and Bush's incumbent status. Also, "with the exception of Republicans who prefer Fox News," American's don't seek out news sources that reinforce their beliefs.