100 Days: Coverage Of Biden Slightly More Negative

News coverage of President Joe Biden’s early days in office was modestly more negative than positive, and most of the stories were centered around his policy agenda rather than his character and leadership, according to a new Pew Research Center study released on the eve of Biden’s 100th day as president. 

Beginning with Bill Clinton in 1993, the Center has released a major study of news media coverage at the beginning of each new presidential administration. The study period for this year’s report spans Biden’s first 60 days and is comprised of two components: a content analysis of media coverage (conducted Jan. 21-March 21 among new stories collected from 25 major national news outlets) and a survey analysis (conducted March 8-14 among 12,045 U.S. adults).

The content analysis of Biden’s early days finds that overall, 32% of stories about the Biden administration offered negative assessments of the administration, compared with 23% that offered positive ones and 45% that were neither positive nor negative. 

Those numbers varied by the topic covered, and they varied even more widely by media outlet types. Fully 78% of the stories from outlets with predominantly right-leaning audiences carried a negative assessment. That stands in stark contrast to the 19% of stories with a negative assessment from outlets with left-leaning audiences and about one-quarter of stories (24%) from outlets with mixed audiences. Comparing early news coverage of President Biden with that of former President Donald Trump, researchers found that negative Biden stories slightly outnumbered positive ones, while negative stories about Trump outnumbered those with positive assessments by four-to-one (44% to 11%). 

The survey component, meanwhile, found that Americans’ perceptions of news coverage of the Biden administration are more positive than the study of the news coverage reveals: 46% of U.S. adults say that the early coverage they’ve seen about the Biden administration offered mostly positive assessments, far more than the 14% who say they’ve seen mostly negative ones. These views also vary by the types of media outlets people turn to, though across all media diets, larger portions say they have seen mostly positive coverage than say they have seen mostly negative coverage. 

The survey revealed that about one-in-five Americans (22%) have been following news about the Biden administration “very closely”; 27% say the same about following news about distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among the report’s other key findings:

• About half of all news stories about Biden’s early days in office mentioned former President Trump (48%). Trump was often mentioned in Biden administration stories about immigration (68% of all immigration stories studied) and political skills and management (72% of stories studied). Looking at different types of media outlets, those with left-leaning audiences mentioned Trump in 50% of the stories about the new administration. Outlets with right-leaning audiences and those with ideologically mixed audiences each mentioned Trump in 47% of stories.
• Outlets with right-leaning audiences put more emphasis on the issue of immigration, while outlets with left-leaning audiences and those with more mixed audiences both focused coverage heavily on the economy and health care. News outlets with right-leaning audiences stood out for their focus on immigration (20% of stories), at about twice the rate of news outlets with left-leaning (8%) or politically mixed audiences (10%).
• When asked in the survey whether five of Biden’s key priorities were getting too much, too little or about the right amount of media attention, only one topic, the COVID-19 pandemic, was identified by a majority of Americans (58%) as getting the right amount. Racial inequality is the topic that the highest percentage of Americans say is getting too much attention (36%), while the economy and immigration are the topics with the highest shares saying they are not getting enough attention (44% and 43%, respectively). (Note: This survey was conducted before the fatal shooting of six Asian women and two other people in the Atlanta area on March 16 and before the trial of Derek Chauvin began on March 29.)

“Having studied media coverage of new presidents since 1993, it’s notable that news coverage of the Biden administration has given much more prominence to domestic issues than coverage of his predecessors – with much of the domestic coverage tied to COVID-19,” said Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell. “And the heavy focus on Biden’s policy agenda over leadership and character lines up most closely with early coverage of the Bush presidency in 2001.”