Increasing Candidate-Centered Televised Discourse.

Content analysis of local television newscasts during Election 2000 showed marked differences between stations participating in two news improvement projects and those stations that did not participate in the “5/30” and “Best Practices” initiatives. Stations participating in those projects offered more news coverage overall and more candidate-centered coverage than did their in-market competitors. Stations enrolling in either of those programs also provided candidates with longer sound bites than did stations not participating in the programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]