Accuracy and Asymmetry in the News

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference I: Going Negative: How Information Affects Attitudes

Abstract

There are large and growing bodies of work highlighting inaccuracies in news coverage. In this paper, we suggest that “negativity biases” in news account for some portion of longstanding inaccuracies (or “misinformation”) in coverage. Using automated content analyses of over 40 years of television news transcripts merged with macroeconomic data, we measure the accuracy of coverage of unemployment across the six major US broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBS, Fox, MSNBC and CNN). We then examine the degree to which variation in accuracy – both across broadcasters and/or over time – is associated with variation in the tendency to overweight negative information relative to positive information. Findings suggest a connection between inaccuracy and negativity biases; and preliminary analyses suggest that similar dynamics may be evident in news reporting of policy. We interpret these findings as they relate to our understanding of “misinformation” in the news, and consider their implications for public preferences on a broad range of political and economic issues.

Authors

• Stuart N. Soroka, UCLA

• Christopher Wlezien, University of Texas at Austin