As the political season heated up, little more than a third of the over 2,400 local news broadcasts analyzed in a new study contained any election coverage. The findings released by the Lear Center Local News Archive, a collaboration between the USC Annenberg Schools Norman Lear Center and the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison result from an analysis of the highest-rated half-hours of early- and late-evening news on 122 stations from September 18 through October 4, 2002. Researchers analyzed a total of 2,454 half-hour local news broadcasts. Of those broadcasts, 1,311 carried no campaign coverage at all. On those broadcasts which included campaign coverage, the average campaign story length was 90 seconds on the top-rated early evening news, and 70 seconds on the top-rated late-evening news, for an overall average of 80.5 seconds. Of the 1,037 campaign stories that were captured by the research study, less than 20% contained any sound bites from candidates. The average length of a sound bite was 9.5 seconds. Although both parties are focused on gaining control of the Congress, it is proving difficult for Congressional candidates to get news coverage. To date, coverage has focused on state level contests for governors mansions. Overall, while gubernatorial campaigns made up 48% of campaign stories analyzed, 17% of campaign stories focused on U.S. Senate contests, and only 5% of campaign stories focused on campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives. The remaining stories focused on other state and local election contests and ballot initiatives. News media (practically) ignoring elections | 
