Groups Urge Illinois TV Stations to Boost Election and Public Affairs Coverage

Groups Urge Illinois TV Stations to Boost Election and Public Affairs Coverage

Letter to broadcasters notes project to track coverage in Chicago, Springfield

CHICAGO, June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Four public interest advocacy groups today challenged Illinois television broadcasters to significantly boost coverage of the 2006 elections and election-related issues.

In a letter to the state's TV stations, the heads of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, the Better Government Association, Common Cause Illinois, and the League of Women Voters of Illinois called on broadcasters to demonstrate their commitment to election, public affairs and governmental coverage by airing at least two hours of candidate-centered or issue-centered programming weekly during the six weeks leading up to the November general election.

The letter notes the Illinois groups along with partner organizations throughout the Great Lakes region are teaming up with UWNewsLab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to track and analyze political news coverage in 9 Midwest TV markets, including Chicago and Springfield. The collaborative effort will produce a Midwest News Index providing a quarterly analysis comparing the amount and quality of news coverage in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio.

"We believe that more substantive coverage of campaigns and public policy will provide a great service to a viewing public that is currently overwhelmed and repelled by 30-second campaign ads," the letter says.

The letter also points out that a 2004 study by the University of Wisconsin and the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center found that local TV stations devoted eight times more coverage to stories about accidental injuries than they did to coverage of all local election races combined.

The groups offered to work with the stations to help identify ways to improve coverage, and said in the letter they will call public attention to stations' success in upgrading coverage or failure to meaningfully cover elections and public affairs.

Contact:

Cindi Canary (312) 335-1767

Source: Illinois Campaign for Political Reform

CONTACT: Cindi Canary for Illinois Campaign for Political Reform,
+1-312-335-1767

Web site: http://www.ilcampaign.org/

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