A study that was just published in the scholarly journal Mass Communication and Society, which is edited at Illinois State University, suggests that structural bias was apparent on many of the major television networks during the 2004 presidential election in a direction that may surprise many.

Frederick Fico, professor of journalism at Michigan State University, and his co-authors of the article Broadcast and Cable Network News Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election, compare news coverage of Presidential candidates John Kerry and George Bush on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN. They find that Fox News showed more structural bias toward Democratic candidate John Kerry than any other network, and that its bias was stronger than that on other networks. This was true contrary to criticism cited by Fico in which former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite labels Fox News as a “far-rightwing organization.” [Read more...]