Marion Just

The Three Faces of Negative Campaigning: The Democratic Implications of Attack Ads, Cynical News, and Fear-Arousing Messages

“Negative campaigning” is widely deplored by journalists and the public. Commonly, the term negative campaigning refers to critical statements or visuals of political candidates, institutions, processes, or policy issues that may occur during an election campaign. These negative messages are ubiquitous in campaigns. They are found not only in political advertisements, but also in the news, talk shows, Internet Web pages, and late-night TV comedians’ monologues. Negative campaigning ranges from personal attacks among candidates to cynical statements regarding the motives of candidates and the self-serving intentions of actors in the policy-making process.

The Local News Story: Is Quality a Choice?

The conventional wisdom about local TV news is that quality journalism does not sell and that only by focusing on crime, disasters, and other “soft news” can newscasts get good ratings. Political scientists have decried the poor quality of TV news as a betrayal of the presss mandate to inform citizens of the important policy issues of the day so that they can hold government officials accountable. This study tests the proposition that audiences prefer low effort, tabloid journalism by looking at external measures of commercial success—the Nielsen ratings data. Utilizing data from a 5‐year study matching the content quality of 33,911 local news stories from 154 TV stations in 50 TV markets nationwide to corresponding ratings success, we show that solid reporting and a focus on significant issues actually produce better ratings than slapdash or superficial tabloid journalism. Additionally, we find that strategy-oriented coverage of political campaigns that focuses on the horserace does not build an audience. These surprising results have practical implications for democratic practice and local TV news production.