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Media Bias Detector

A Closer Look at Media Coverage of Kamala Harris’s Endorsement of Tim Walz

By Delphine Gardiner

Shortly after withdrawing from the 2024 Election, President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, and on August 6th Harris announced her VP pick: Tim Walz, former Governor of Minnesota. Within 24 hours, this significant milestone received considerable coverage across 10 major US publishers, as shown in the Media Bias Detector. Here are some of our findings from the dashboard as well our own analysis of this coverage:

Differences in Lean and Tone

When changing the time period to August 5-7 under the Coverage section of the dashboard, you can see here that among all publishers, coverage on Kamala Harris’s campaign tends to lean either more Democrat or more Republican, with little neutral coverage. The Wall Street Journal provides the most neutral coverage on this event compared to the other major publishers but the majority of its articles still have a partisan leaning. Interestingly, in this same time period, Breitbart published a whopping 83 articles on this topic, almost all of these containing a strongly pro-Republican lean. This high volume indicates Breitbart’s immense criticism of the Kamala Harris campaign and their focus on amplifying negative coverage related to this event.

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In the same time frame, while coverage of Kamala Harris’s VP announcement has been overwhelmingly positive from left-leaning publishers and largely negative from right-leaning publishers, it is interesting to note that the proportion of negative coverage from the left-leaning publishers is actually greater than the positive coverage of this event by right-leaning publishers as shown here, suggesting that left-leaning publishers may be more balanced in their coverage than their right-leaning counterparts.

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Harris Picks Tim Walz vs Trump Picks J.D. Vance

Now let’s talk about the difference in coverage on Harris’ VP announcement and Trump’s VP announcement. Trump picked J.D. Vance, a former Trump critic, as his running mate on July 15, 2024, just two days after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

On August 6th, the day of Harris’s endorsement of Tim Walz, there were 72 articles that appeared on the front pages of ten major publishers, as seen here. This Events view is based on a 3-day sliding window, reflecting the overall coverage on the day of the event plus the two preceding days.

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In contrast, on the day that Trump endorsed J.D. Vance (July 15th), only 21 articles on this event appeared on the front page of the same publishers, again based on the 3-day moving window. The top story of the day remained Trump’s assassination attempt which continued to receive extensive coverage with 140 articles over those three days, 76 of which were published on the same day as Vance's announcement.

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This disparity illustrates that politically significant announcements such as a VP pick can still be overshadowed by other critical events, leading to disproportionate coverage. Additionally, it reflects the broader choices publishers make every day in terms of which topics they prioritize and cover more compared to others. In this case, Trump’s assassination attempt was a high-stakes event taking precedence, highlighting how selective coverage further shapes public discourse when giving more attention to certain events than others.

On the day of each VP’s announcement (still considering the 3-day window), these were the top facts covered by publishers about each running mate:

July 15, 2024

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August 6, 2024

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Several publishers mention the working-class backgrounds of both running mates, with references to J.D. Vance's early life memorialized in Hillbilly Elegy and mentions of Tim Walz’s upbringing in rural Nebraska. In the days following these announcements, the top facts on Walz focus on his political career and his accomplishments, including his efforts to pass laws for universal school lunches, abortion, and gun control. For Vance, coverage after his announcement discusses his past as a former critic of Trump and his stances on foreign policy, specifically his opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine.

How Headlines Differ Between Left-leaning Publishers and Right-leaning Publishers

Though the Media Bias Detector does not currently have a feature that analyzes individual headlines from publishers, we examined the headlines ourselves to see if there were differences in language between right-leaning and left-leaning publishers.

We found that headlines from right-leaning publishers are very critical, with loaded claims that Walz is far-left in several headlines, such as this Breitbart headline: Kamala Harris is ‘Proud’ to Pick Radical Leftist Tim Walz as Running Mate and a Fox News headline: SEAN HANNITY: Kamala Harris taps the ‘most radical far-left governor’ to be her running mate.

On the other hand, left-leaning outlets publish more positive headlines on Walz, including Huffington Post’s: Tim Walz Gives Off “Midwestern Dad” Energy in Wholesome Throwback Video at State Fair, which portrays Walz as an everyman who is relatable to the average voter. These stark contrasts in headlines reflect the partisanship present in coverage of Kamala Harris’s VP pick and highlight the noticeable differences in how left-leaning and right-leaning publishers choose to portray the same event.

When examining the differences in political lean and tone of articles as well as article headlines between publishers on Harris’s VP announcement, it is clear that the same event can be framed in vastly different ways or portrayed in a manner that aligns with the values and beliefs of the publisher. Come check out the Media Bias Detector to see how coverage on the Kamala Harris campaign unfolds as we get closer to the Election.