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A content analysis of stm'es and photographs about 30 a n t s in the 1988 presidential campaign found that the Washington Post's coverage was balanced and neutral, but the Washington Times' coverage favored the Republicans. More than one-third of the Times' headlines and stories were biased, and each time, they were biased in favor of the Republicans. These findings are important because they support Shoemaker and Reese's theo y of news content, which states that owzershipandfinancingdetermine news content.In the past 30 years, numerous studies of presidential campaigns have indicated that major political parties and presidentialcandidatesreceived equal news space by the prestige press, a group of 15 newspapers recognized for superior news coverage, integrity and public service. 'This equality holds true despite the presence of an incumbent or a third-party presidential candidate and despite the issues raised in the campaign? According to Hackett, "the partisan traditions of press reporting have withered under broadcasting's impact on audience expectations of the news, increasingly anonymous corporate ownership, the extensive reliance on news agency reports, and the economic need to reach as broad a market as p~ssible."~ A few studies, however, have found that one political party received more and/or better newspaper coverage than the other. In a study of 49 dailies, newspapers' partisanship was attributed to the "newsworthiness" advantage Ronald Reagan seemed to have over Walter Mondale in 1984: A study of the prestige press found that when newspapers endorsed a candidate on their editorialpages,theirnewscoveragefavoredtheendorsedcandidate.5Inastudy of eight Colorado dailies, biased political news reporting was attributed to "management attitudes." Political orientation of editors and publishers correlated with three different measures of bias.6The purpose of this study is to learn if two particular newspapers, the Washington Post and the Washington Times, avoided bias in their news coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign.In Washington, D.C., charges of bias have flourished during the past nine years, as the Washington Post and the Washington Times fought a spirited "newspaper war." Since catapulting to prominence in the 19Mk, the Washington ldim(2umterly Keith Kenney is an assistant professor in the College of lournalism and Mass Vol. 70, No. 2 sunrmam 395355 @lRSIMrnC Communications and Chris Simpson is the director of marketing and media relations at the University of South Carolina.

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