The Democratic debate in Philadelphia on October 30th was notable for both its aggressive tone and freewheeling structure. The multitude of debates this campaign have raised many questions about their information value to voters. CMPA researchers took this opportunity to examine media coverage of a debate to determine how well news reporting conveyed the major points and discussions in the event to readers and viewers.

Following the debate we examined all news stories about the debate that appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, ABC World News, CBS Evening News, CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume, and NBC Nightly News on October 31st. The Times and USA Today ran two stories apiece, while the Post and Journal each ran one story. On television, ABC, CBS and CNN aired two stories apiece, while NBC ran one story. Fox News aired one story and a rather extensive discussion during the roundtable portion of the show (this analysis does not include the roundtable section of the program in order to maintain comparability with other news outlets).

To analyze news coverage we first examined a transcript of the debate counting the number of words dedicated to discussion of a particular topic. By counting words we are able to make comparisons to news stories of varying lengths and formats. The debate itself lasted a bit over two hours and contained over 20,000 words (20,567 words to be exact). The candidates and the moderators covered everything from the situation in Iraq to tax policy and Iran to UFOs.

What Are Debates Made Of?

The graph below shows the distribution of topics in the debate. This distribution is based on the number of words addressing that topic as a percentage of the overall number of words in the debate.

The most frequent topic (16.6% of the debate) was the ?sense of the Senate resolution that passed the previous week authorizing the administration to implement sanctions against Iran in an attempt to limit the growth of its nuclear weapons program and activities in Iraq. This was followed by discussions of health care and Social Security (6.6% each). The top five topics in the debate were rounded out by discussions of energy (5.8%) and education policies (5.5%).

Tax policy placed sixth in the debate (5.1%), well ahead of charges that Senator Clinton was being evasive or engaging in double talk with her answers (3.7%). The situation in Iraq came in eighth 93.5%), edging out debate over Governor Spitzer's plan to issue New York drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants(3.4%). Discussions of disaster relief (2.1%) and calls upon Senator Clinton to expedite the release of her White House papers (2.1%) round out the top ten topics in the debate.

What the Media Said

So how did the media do in covering the debate? Overall, the answer is not very well. Across the nine media outlets the major topic of coverage was the accusation that Senator Clinton was being evasive in her statements and answers. Discussions of her evasiveness accounted for 13.5% of coverage. This was followed by discussions of the Senate resolution on Iran (9.8%) and granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants (9.4%). Rounding out the top five topics in media coverage of the debate were discussions of the expedited release of the Clintons' White House papers (6.5%) and the situation in Iraq (4.5%). Of the other major topics in the debate, only Social Security made an entry into media coverage (1.5%).

While overall, the news media seem to have done a poor job covering the substantive policy discussions that occurred there was considerable divergence in what they did cover. Beginning with discussions of the Senate resolution on Iran, outlet differences become clear.

Over a fifth (22.7%) of the Post's coverage focused on the Senate's Iranian resolution placing it well ahead of any other outlet. Fox News (16.6%), the Wall Street Journal (16.4%) and the New York Times (15.8%) offered similar amounts of coverage of the Iran resolution. The Times was unique for providing details on the actual content of the Senate resolution. NBC (8.7%) and CBS (5.1%) were the only other outlets to report on the Iran resolution. An interesting side note in the coverage, the Times and Journal were the only outlets to note that Senator Obama missed the vote on the Iran resolution

While over six percent of the debate was devoted to discussions of problems in health care, no media outlets picked up on that part of the debate. Social Security also accounted for over six percent of the debate content, but had a very low media profile.

Only the Post (9%), Journal (2%) and Times (0.8%) covered the Social Security discussions found in the debate.

Media outlets ignored 16 percent of the debate content when they failed to report on the discussions of energy policy, education issues and taxes that were peppered throughout the debate.

What dominated media coverage of the debate was the question of Senator Clinton's evasiveness. Such exchanges accounted for only 3.7 percent of the debate, but 13.5 percent of media coverage overall. If we add in additional discussions about her hesitation to expedite the release of her White House papers the percentage climbs to 20 percent of media coverage. These two areas accounted for less than six percent (5.8%) of the debate content.

On this aspect of the debate CBS stood out by dedicating almost half of its coverage (43.9%) to questions of evasiveness. Better than a quarter of CNN and Fox News coverage (26.3 and 26.2 percent respectively) was focused on Hillary Clinton's forthrightness. Among newspapers, the Times offered the most coverage of this controversy (22.9%). NBC followed close behind with 21.4 percent. In the Post, 17.4 percent of coverage was devoted to questions of evasiveness, while in the Journal evasiveness accounted for 16.3 percent. ABC discussed the Senator's possible evasiveness in 8.2 percent of coverage. In the pages of USA Today, such discussions were found in 5.9 percent of coverage.

The controversy about a plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in New York state arose very late in the debate and accounted for 3.4 percent of debate content. In media coverage, this issue loomed far larger. With the exception of USA Today, this was largely an issue for television.

Over half of USA Today coverage (53%) addressed the controversial license program. On the air at CNN, licenses for illegal immigrants occupied one-third of coverage. At CBS the plan accounted for 17.6 percent of reporting and 11.5 percent on Fox News. NBC devoted 8.7 percent of coverage to the controversy, while at ABC it accounted for 7.2 percent. Issuing licenses to illegal immigrants was a small part of coverage in the Times (4.8%) and Post (3%). For its part, the Journal did not cover this controversy.