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  Most Americans get the majority of their news from local news broadcasts. According to recent surveys, 79 percent of Americans receive their information from television and 59 percent report watching local news regularly.[1]

This is a substantially higher percentage than from any other news source. Although more and more Americans acquire their information from local TV newscasts, there have been few systematic studies on the content and effect of local television news.

This study will be the most comprehensive examination ever conducted on the content of local broadcast news, which is typically the single greatest source of news information for most Americans. The project, the first to examine broadcast news in a systematic fashion over an entire year, covering nine Midwestern media markets:

– Cleveland
– Columbus
– Chicago
– Detroit
– Lansing
– Madison
– Milwaukee
– Minneapolis/St. Paul
– Springfield

The Midwest News Index (MNI) will track the content of local news aired on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and Univision. While the main focus will be on political coverage, the MNI will capture and categorize all stories.

Election 2006
The MNI will monitor the highest-rated early and late-evening half-hour of English and Spanish language early- and late-evening news coverage aired during the 60 days prior to Election Day 2006. This will allow us to compare the performance of Midwestern stations’ coverage of the midterm elections. Many of these states have highly competitive gubernatorial races in the upcoming election, placing even more importance on quality local news coverage.

Political/Government (Non-Election) Coverage 2006-2007
During the rest of the year, we will continue to monitor the same number of stations but will capture a large random sample (one third of broadcasts). Scholars, politicians, and policymakers care a great deal about elections and the content and quality of election coverage on America’s primary source of news; however, news coverage of politics does not stop after Election Day. Just as it is important to examine the volume and content of election information reaching voters, it is equally important to know how much information is aired about the daily activities of state and local government throughout the year. After all, citizens cannot hold their elected officials accountable, nor can elected officials gain legitimacy, without this kind of information.
The project, funded by a generous grant from the Joyce Foundation, will be carried out by the University of Wisconsin’s NewsLab.

The MNI Index will:
• provide data with which to compare the quality of local news coverage across five Midwestern states,
• enhance the ability of local news stations to improve the quality of their work,
serve as a learning tool,
• improve the accuracy of the information about local news coverage for policymakers and citizens,
• generate enormous advances in the quality of policy research surrounding this topic, as no study has ever systematically examined the content of news coverage in this way.

Please visit this website again to see our quarterly reports and press releases on the most recent findings from the MNI. Later in the year, you will also find a comprehensive web-based searchable archive, available to scholars.

[1] Pew Center for the People & the Press Survey Report “News Audiences Increasingly Politicized: Online News Audience Larger, More Diverse,” (June 8, 2004). See http://people-press.org.