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New York, November 3, 2008: With the voters going to the polls tomorrow, the media is now focusing on the horse race between the candidates over the issues.

"Most of the coverage is about polling numbers or what pundits expect to have happen tomorrow," says Roland Schatz, President of Media Tenor International. "The economy, taxes and other issues are now dwarfed as topics by discussion about campaign strategy and the final hours of the election.”

How voters are viewing the economy and the election has largely depended on where they choose to get their news from, but that gap has been narrowing. ”Throughout the race, Fox News has portrayed the economy much less negatively than the three broadcast networks,” Schatz says. “This is still the case, but the gap between these two viewpoints is much smaller than it has been. Similarly, all four networks are now covering Obama more positively than McCain. While Obama has the least advantage on Fox News, he still has the advantage. As election day approached, the media viewpoint is became more consistent,” he adds.

While Obama continues to dominate in the coverage of polls and predictions, Schatz emphasizes that the race is still too unusual to call. “Everyone is focusing on the polls” Schatz notes, “but it is hard to know if they will be accurate in such a unique year. Part of it is the historic nature of the candidates, but part of it is also the sharp rise in early voting; many voters in more than half the states have already cast their votes. The media message no longer impacts them.”

In these last hours of the race, the candidates need to be highly tactical. “There is no longer time for the candidates to grapple with each other about who has control over what issue. The economy has gone back and forth, sometimes with Obama having the advantage and now with McCain having the advantage. But at this point, both candidates need to focus on get out the vote efforts, election day volunteer recruitment, and sewing doubt in the minds of their rival´s supporters,” Schatz says, noting that the outcome of the race is likely to be closer than many pundits are currently saying.


For the third time, International Media analysis company Media Tenor is offering a detailed analysis of the U.S. presidential campaign. TV news coverage of the leading Presidential contenders is scrutinized at a detailed level. “The methodology was developed 15 years ago and has been successfully used not only to analyze the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential campaigns, but also for International politics,” Schatz explains. Media Tenor´s Presidential Campaign Watch focuses not only on candidate standings, but also on topics and sources, while adding an international perspective. Results of Media Tenor studies will be regularly published on MediaChannel.org.

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