U.S. Election Coverage Unfair To Bush
Study by press watchdog affiliated with Columbia University



By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush (news - web sites) than Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites), according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study looked at 16 newspapers of varying size across the country, four nightly newscasts, three network morning news shows, nine cable programs and nine Web sites through the course of 2004.

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