Content analysis of education coverage in three influential U.S. newsmagazines during a year of low public support for education

The study attempted to determine and compare the extent of coverage of diverse aspects of education and the correspondence between coverage and reported public concerns.

Nine hypotheses were developed:

1. U.S. News and World Report will place the greatest emphasis on education, as measured by amount and prominence of attention.

2. Significant differences will appear among the three major newsmagazines in the journalistic handling and presentation of education.

3. The greatest attention will be given to the broad themes of Excellence, Economics, and Equality.

4. Significant differences will exist in topical coverage among the three major newsmagazines.

5. Level bias will emerge. Higher education will receive approximately half the coverage; pre-elementary, a miniscule proportion of attention.

6. Elitist emphasis will prevail in higher education coverage. State schools, which most Americans attend, will be referred to less frequently than prestigious private institutions such as Harvard and Yale.

7. Geographic bias will exist. Coverage of New England will exceed coverage of other specific regions of the United States.

8. International coverage will be extremely sparce, limited to a few Western countries and the U.S.S.R.

9. Coverage of education problems will significantly differ from public concerns expressed in the 1978 Gallup Poll of Attitudes Toward Education. Hypotheses 2 through 8 were accepted following chi square analysis. Hypothesis 1 was not statistically supported. Data pertaining to hypothesis 9 were inconclusive.

The following conclusions were reached:

1. Although the major U.S. newsmagazines regularly cover education, comparison with related studies indicates that coverage diminishes as support for public education declines.

2. Excellence, Economics, and Equality may be considered the "3 E's of Education" in 1977-1978. Quality of education, financial woes, and reverse discrimination were prominent concerns.

3. The scope of education coverage—variety, balance, and comprehensiveness—was limited during 1977-78 in regard to levels of education, types of institutions, and geographic regions.

4. A gap existed between (polled) public perceptions of education problems and attention provided in the three newsweeklies.

5. U.S. News emerged as the most distinctive of the three newsmagazines in coverage of education; it tended to excel in amount, depth, and breadth of coverage.

Telephone interviews with the education editors of the news magazines suggested that the data may be explained partly by propinquity, accessibility, input from representatives of higher education, and gatekeepers' perceptions of newsworthiness.