Decades of research on media coverage of the campaigns of women running for high public office have identified several patterns of gendered reporting that supposedly have discouraged citizens from voting for women candidates, discouraged them from contributing to women’s campaigns and dissuaded women from entering politics. This study examines the ways in which each of the patterns was evident in media reporting on Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 election. Data reveal a mixed pattern of continuities and differences. The findings suggest that the consequences of gendered reporting may not be uniform. Rather, they can vary according to the issue or symbolic focus of a campaign, and the degree of conflict between a candidate attempting to keep reporting ‘on message’ and the commercial news media concerned with attracting a large market share.

Objective. This study is an effort to produce a more systematic, empirically-based, historical-comparative understanding of media bias than generally is found in previous works. Methods. The research employs a quantitative measure of ideological bias in a formal content analysis of the United States' two largest circulation news magazines, Time and Newsweek. Findings are compared with the results of an identical examination of two of the nation's leading partisan journals, the conservative National Review and the liberal Progressive. Results. Bias scores reveal stark differences between the mainstream and the partisan news magazines' coverage of four issue areas: crime, the environment, gender, and poverty. Conclusion. Data provide little support for those claiming significant media bias in either ideological direction.

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