DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02990.v1
title: News Story Characteristics from Scandal News, 1986-1998: [United States]
title: Version 1

description: These data examine features of news coverage, through the
 content analysis of transcripts and newspaper articles, describing
 four scandals that broke during the 1980s and 1990s to ascertain the
 difference between news coverage in the two decades. Articles and
 broadcast transcripts were drawn from three sources: THE NEW YORK
 TIMES, ABC News, and CNN News. Coverage of the following four scandals
 were analyzed: the Iran-Contra affair (President Reagan and his
 staff's alleged illegal sale of weapons to Iran and the use of that
 profit to aid Nicaraguan rebels), Gary Hart's affair (presidential
 candidate accused of having an affair with model Donna Rice), Clinton
 fundraising (President Clinton and the Democratic National Party
 accused of illegally soliciting campaign contributions for the
 president's reelection bid), and the Monica Lewinsky affair (President
 Clinton accused of having an affair with White House intern Monica
 Lewinsky). News coverage, from the break of the story to one week
 following, was coded according to the subject of the story the news
 source, whether the story was factual, whether it was an analysis or a
 personal profile, whether the story was critical, sympathetic, or
 neutral, headline prominence, placement in the news lineup, presence
 of an "importance phrase", presence of additional issue-oriented
 stories, length of article/broadcast, whether the story made a
 prediction, the points of view presented, use of sensationalized
 words/phrases, number and type of sources, whether the story reported
 facts from other news sources, whether the story utilized rumors or
 unconfirmed facts, whether the report introduced a new fact or
 development, whether a reporter or commentator was consulted in
 addition to the host (if a broadcast), whether sensitive facts were
 presented, whether the story was placed in a political context, and
whether the story mentioned previous events in the scandal.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: News Story Characteristics from Scandal News, 1986-1998: [United States]
description: (1) The data are provided both as SPSS portable and
 STATA data files. (2) This project was supported and/or funded by the
 Dartmouth College Department of Government and the Dartmouth College
 Richter Memorial Trust, with special collaboration by Professor Lynn
 Vavreck. (3) These data were used in the completion of an
 undergraduate honors thesis entitled "Are We Numb to News?: The
 Political Consequences of the 24-Hour News Cycle". Those interested
 in obtaining a copy of this thesis should directly contact the principal
 investigator. (4) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
 staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
 collection in essentially the same form in which they were
 received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to
 Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to
 non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
 ensure respondents' anonymity. (5) The codebook, including data
 collection instrument and frequencies, is provided by ICPSR as a
 Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was
 developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF
 reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how
 to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.