Journalism objectivity during election time An analysis of the coverage of www.nytimes.com

Abstract

In a campaign that put on the table so many questions about media objectivity and the candidates itself. This thesis attempts to analyze the coverage that the digital version of The New York Times gave president elected Donald Trump, during his candidacy. This work is not only important because back in 2016, there were no other investigations on this news outlet objectivity; but also, because when it comes to objectivity there is only one work about the Times coverage. Therefore, to analyze whether or not NYT cover Trump objectively this analysis used 5 variables: basic info, amount of coverage, space provided per candidate, headlines and articles amended. Results show that the Times covered Trump more that Clinton. The coverage itself was mostly neutral. However, Trump was given more negative attention from NYT than Clinton. As a consequence, this analysis concludes that objectivity should not be the only variable to measure the ethics of a news outlet or a journalist.