Press: Political coverage down

Media interest in the general election is lower than it was in 2001, according to new research.

A Loughborough University study of the first week of the campaign, for the Guardian newspaper, found that the "red tops" have devoted half as much space to politics compared with the equivalent period at the last poll.

The mid-market tabloids - the Mail and the Express - carried less than a quarter as much front page space than they did four years ago, while broadcasters have given the election 10 per cant less air time in their main evening bulletins.

The period between April 4 and 11, during which the campaign was formally launched, did see the Pope's funeral and royal wedding take up a large portion of media attention.

However, the figures could also reflect a decline in what editors see as their audiences' interest in current affairs, in contrast to a booming celebrity culture.

Head of social sciences at Loughborough Professor Peter Golding said there is a sense of "distrust" and "disconnect" in the media, particularly the press.

Political parties are also trying new initiatives to circumnavigate the media altogether, such as email, internet campaigns, and direct questioning from the public.

The research also picked up a continued sex bias in political reporting, with 88 per cent of politicians quoted being male, the same as in 2001.

Meanwhile, a separate study from media monitoring firm Factiva found that Labour is dominating what coverage of the campaign there has been so far.

In the first week of the campaign, Tony Blair was mentioned in 994 articles (60.78 per cent), Michael Howard 451 (27.61 per cent) and Charles Kennedy 191 (11.61 per cent).

Issues

Labour is also winning the battle in getting its favourite issues aired, with tax and the economy commanding more air time and column inches than asylum and immigration, according to the Loughborough research.

Iraq has also received little attention so far, with less than four per cent of all the themes tracked by the researchers concerning international relations, military conflicts and foreign policy.

"Some of the issues we expected to be quite high profile have not really emerged," Professor Golding said.

Factiva found that Labour is dominating coverage of policy issues.

Out of a total 2195 articles, it was mentioned in 71 per cent of stories on the economy and a majority of stories on health, crime and education.

The Conservatives were mentioned in 23 per cent of economy stories, 27 per cent of education and crime stories and 30 per cent of health stories.

The Liberal Democrats were left out of even more stories, featuring in seven per cent of economy stories, 10 per cent of health, 12 per cent of crime and 14 per cent of education stories.

On immigration coverage was slightly more split, with Labour mentioned in 49 per cent of stories, the Conservatives in 41 per cent and the Lib Dems in 11 per cent.