A Failure to Report? Presidential Election Politics and the 2008 Economic Crisis

This paper addresses a key question that has thus far received scant attention: How do presidential candidates frame, spin, and sell the economic news on the campaign trail? A controlled random sample of 180 news articles was taken between August 2008 to November 2008 from six regionally diverse newspapers, The New York Times, USA Today, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Philadelphia Inquirer. In spite of conventional expectations related to candidate discussions, economics along with general defense issues and energy/environment were the most discussed policy issues in the 2008 election. Economic news reporting, thus, is dependent upon political cycles, presidential candidates, and varying economic concerns. Additionally, the evidence suggests that both candidate concerns and contemporary economic issues drive candidate speech related to the economy.