Obama Extends or Holds Onto ‘Headline’ Leads in Several Battlegrounds States – Except Pennsylvania

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

If John McCain is hoping that the national polls are overstating his opponent’s lead and that he’ll get the electoral math to tip his way on the only day that matters, he won’t find too much solace in local press coverage in a handful of battleground states. Because here, as with almost every other way the media coverage is sliced, Barack Obama was ahead in the media race during the past week.

In the period of October 19 to 25 versus the previous week, the Democrat increased his lead in total number of headline mentions in four battleground states – Nevada (by 21 percentage points, on the heels of visits by him and his wife), North Carolina (by 10 points), Florida (4 points) and Missouri (3 points). He lost ground, though, in Colorado (where his lead shrunk by 6 percentage points, on a strong push by McCain there), Ohio (2 points) and Pennsylvania (2 points).

And it is Pennsylvania – where Obama has a comfortable lead in public polls, but where the McCain camp insists its private polls put the state at a dead heat – which appears the closest in the headline race. The week of October 19 to 25 showed a 51%-49% split barely leaning Obama’s way. That is a 2-percentage-point drop there for Obama.

And what are those reporters writing about in Pennsylvania? Like everywhere else, it’s kitchen-table issues, with the economy and taxes in the top two slots. As to how Pennsylvania’s coverage differs, it’s not dramatic, but the data show slight variation. The issue of “experience” shows up in the top 10, which was not the case in the other battleground states when taken as a group.

The everyman message of “Joe the plumber” still resonates in Pennsylvania as in the other battlegrounds, getting mentioned more than the issues of jobs, health care and the financial bailout. International issues, including both wars, did not make the top 10.


Methodology: Sources include selected newspapers, newspaper Web sites and broadcast outlets in each state. The past two weeks were compared and the two periods saw similar number of articles written in each state.

Pennsylvania Coverage Race Too Close To Call

Dow Jones Insight Staff

Like the race for votes, the race for press coverage in Pennsylvania ahead of next Tuesday’s primary remains tight, but in the most recent two-week period, the coverage advantage has reverted back to Clinton. While Obama had pulled ahead in our last review, since April 1 Clinton received more mentions in the Pennsylvania press (3,033) than Obama (2,920), giving her 51% of all Democratic mentions to Obama’s 49%.

Methodology: Pennsylvania publications analyzed include 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs).

Dems Flip-Flop in Pennsylvania Coverage Race

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In our previous post about the battle for coverage in the Pennsylvania press, we reported that Clinton was maintaining a small but definite edge in total number of mentions, but that has not been the case in the two weeks since.

With the exception of the days surrounding her swing through the Philadelphia area on the 25th – when she made a widely covered speech about the mortgage crisis, said that she “misspoke” about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia, and said Reverend Wright “wouldn’t have been my pastor” – the Pennsylvania coverage race has either shown large Obama leads (at the height of the Wright controversy during the week of the 18th), small Obama leads (around the 29th when he toured the state with, and was endorsed by, U.S. Senator Bob Casey) or been dead even.

As far as the total number of excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name) in the Pennsylvania press, from March 18-31 there were 2,772 total mentions of “Barack Obama” (or 41% of all mentions), 2,623 mentions of "Hillary Clinton" (39% of the total) and 1,302 mentions (or 19%) of “John McCain.” This reverses the figures from our previous post, which had Clinton at 41% and Obama at 39%.

Methodology: Pennsylvania publications analyzed include 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs).

Clinton Still Leads in Pennsylvania Newspaper Coverage

Pati Carson
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In Pennsylvania, the press continued to show a tendency to talk about Clinton more than the other two candidates. By looking at the total number of excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name), we see that since our last count there were 1,530 mentions of "Hillary Clinton," compared with 1,455 mentions of "Barack Obama" and 766 for "John McCain."

Despite a decreasing percentage of positive coverage for all candidates, Clinton has gained an advantage as the percentage of documents rated as positive fell dramatically for Obama, from 10% on March 18, from 27% on March 12. Positives slipped to 17% from 21% for Clinton, and 20% from 31% for McCain.



March 7-12, 2008

March 13 - 18, 2008

Press Analysis Methodology: Total media coverage includes analysis of more than 6,000 publications. Pennsylvania publications analyzed includes 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs). Articles were found in the following: Print and Web versions of: Centre Daily Times, Herald Standard, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reading Eagle and The Philadelphia Inquirer; print versions of: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and The Morning Call; and Web sites of: ABC 4, CBS3 Philadelphia, FlipSide, NBC 10, NewsMax.com, Observer-Reporter, Our Town, Phillyburbs.com (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Channel, Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pa.), Ridgway Record, The Allentown Morning Call, The Citizen's Voice, The Daily Review & Sunday Review, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Times Leader, The Times-Tribune, WJAC TV, York Daily Record, York Sunday News Online and York Weekly Record.

Automated Favorability Methodology: This analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded.

Pennsylvania Papers Show Leaning toward Clinton

By Glenn Fannick

Dow Jones Insight staff

Following Obama's victory in the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday, the mainstream press coverage on Sunday and Monday showed a tendency to talk more about Obama than about Clinton and McCain. In our survey of more than 6,000 publications for Sunday and Monday, we see 3,506 mentions of Obama, to 3,341 mentions of Clinton, to 2,070 for McCain.

However, in Pennsylvania, the largest yet-to-be-contested primary state, the press still showed a tendency to talk about Clinton more. By looking at the total excerpts (each mention of a candidate's name), we see that there were 149 mentions of "Hillary Clinton", to 131 mentions of "Barack Obama", to 73 for John McCain.

Interesting then, that the press in Pennsylvania -- a state which watchers say could go for Clinton -- seems to be slightly favoring Clinton in how many times they mentioned her name over Obama's.

Methodology: Total media coverage includes analysis of more than 6,000 publications. Pennsylvania publications analyzed includes 146 print and Web sites of mainstream media (excluding blogs). Articles were found in the following: Print and Web versions of: Centre Daily Times, Herald Standard, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Reading Eagle and The Philadelphia Inquirer; print versions of: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and The Morning Call; and Web sites of: ABC 4, CBS3 Philadelphia, FlipSide, NBC 10, NewsMax.com, Observer-Reporter, Our Town, Phillyburbs.com (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Channel, Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pa.), Ridgway Record, The Allentown Morning Call, The Citizen's Voice, The Daily Review & Sunday Review, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Times Leader, The Times-Tribune, WJAC TV, York Daily Record, York Sunday News Online and York Weekly Record.