USC Annenberg associate dean and Norman Lear Center director Martin Kaplan discusses problems and solutions associated with television coverage of elections during an in-depth July 23 interview on NOW with Bill Moyers . "The sad truth is that local stations show almost nothing of the campaigns that they could cover if they wanted to," says Kaplan, who cited numerous findings from the Lear Center Local News Archive during the 12-minute segment. For example, the Lear Center found that only 44 percent of top-rated local broadcasts had any campaign coverage at all during the seven weeks leading up to the elections. "So if you want to complain about the quality of the coverage, first you have to find it," he says. Read the transcript» Watch the NOW segment in RealMedia» Visit the Lear Center Local News Archive» ALSO: Kaplan in NY Times »

Communication professor Manuel Castells and his book The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture received glowing praise in the May-June issue of Academe , the magazine of the American Association of University Professors. Simon Marginson praised Castells for his exemplary research in the field of information and communication technologies. "I believe that if there were a Nobel Prize in sociology, there could be no better candidate than Castells," Marginson writes. Read the Academe article»

47 A July 22 Pew Hispanic Center poll that finds Hispanics back Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry by almost two-to-one over President George W. Bush garnered extensive media attention. Newspapers such as the London Guardian, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News and USA Today ran articles featuring the poll, which also finds 56 percent of Hispanics disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war in Iraq. "Bush's numbers with Hispanics were up from the time of his inauguration until about a year ago, but they've slipped ... significantly now that there's a presumed Democratic nominee," says Robert Suro , director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "Now Bush is back where he started." USA Today article» LA Times article» Pew Hispanic Web site» View the press release»

USC Annenberg associate dean Thomas Hollihan tells the Wall Street Journal that attacking alleged bias in the political coverage of the Fox News Channel could benefit Democrats in November. "In a razor-thin race like this, you need to fire up your base," Hollihan says in a July 20 article. "An issue like this gets those hard-core liberals focused and attentive. It's a kind of issue that people can talk about at work." ALSO: Hollihan tells the Los Angeles Times in a July 18 article that a shift of political convention coverage from network to cable television will lead to an "information gap" among voters. "Those who are interested in politics can find more and better information than ever before" through a variety of outlets, he says, but those who are not interested "will learn less than ever before." Read the WSJ article» Read the Los Angeles Times article» ALSO: Hollihan in The Seattle Times» Related Houston Chronicle article»

49 USC Annenberg journalism professor Bryce Nelson defended the objectivity of the Los Angeles Times in a June 19 appearance on Fox News. The "Fox Report Saturday" segment suggested a connection between recent cutbacks at the paper and what Fox News reporter Anita Vogel claimed was "a clear political bias." Nelson told Fox News that the cutbacks at the Times, which won five Pulitzer Prizes in 2003 and "tries to play it down the middle" politically, have nothing to do with bias and everything to do with falling ad revenues and the resulting economic pressure from parent company Tribune Co. "The Tribune is a ruthless taskmaster, and they cut people when the advertising goals are not met," Nelson told the station.

48 USC Annenberg associate dean Martin Kaplan tells USA Today in a front-page article that talk of values resonates with moderate and independent voters during a presidential election. Voters want to know if candidates "care about somebody like me," Kaplan says in the July 9 story. ALSO: Kaplan weighs in on Michael Moore's new documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 during a July 6 interview on CNN Daybreak. "There have always been documentary makers and they've always had an impact on social issues. But those have been localized social issues rather than attempts to mobilize a nation around a political position." USA Today article» Read the CNN transcript»

A July 10 Associated Press article picked up by several major newspapers lauded journalism professor Ed Cray's Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie . "More than a dozen writers have tried to chronicle the vagabond life of Woody Guthrie, but none have brought him alive quite like Ed Cray," AP reporter John Rogers wrote. Cray conducted extensive research on the influential singer-songwriter that included interviewing friends of the folk hero and analyzing Guthrie's personal notes and letters. Associated Press article»

Senate Commerce Committee chair John McCain and FCC chair Michael Powell cited a report by USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center in a June 16 letter to the heads of all the broadcast networks. The Lear Center Local News Archive report found that stations aired nearly four times as many political ads as campaign stories during local news broadcasts in the 2002 election. In their letter, McCain and Powell challenged the networks to provide more information on political issues during this election year. "Stories on campaign platforms and in depth coverage of candidate debates truly assist voters in making an educated choice," they wrote. The Lear Center report was also cited on June 2 in House Energy & Commerce Committee testimony by Gloria Tristani, former Federal Communications Commissioner. Read the McCain and Powell letter» Lear Center report»