Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues

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Kuypers examines over 800 press reports on race and homosexuality to documents a liberal political bias in mainstream news. Kuypers charts the potential effects the printed presses and broadcast media have upon the messages of political and social leaders when they discuss controversial issues. Examining over 800 press reports on race and homosexuality from 116 different newspapers, Kuypers meticulously documents a liberal political bias in mainstream news. This book asserts that such a bias hurts the democratic process by ignoring non-mainstream left positions and vilifying many moderate and most right-leaning positions, leaving only a narrow brand of liberal throught supported by the mainstream press. This book argues that the mainstream press in America is an anti-democratic institution. By comparatively analyzing press reports, as well as the events that occasioned the coverage, Kuypers paints a detailed picture of the politics of the American press. He advances four distinct reportorial practices that inject bias into reporting, offering perspectives of particular interest to scholars, students, and others involved with mass communication, journalism, and politics in the United States.

Author Bio

Jim A. Kuypers is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Office of Speech at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in a Post-Cold War World (Praeger, 1997) and co-editor, with Andrew King, of Twentieth-Century Roots of Rhetorical Studies (Praeger, 2001). He is a former editor for the American Communication Journal.