A review of the early press coverage of George W. Bush's administration reveals some unexpected and troubling features of contemporary political journalism: even the most serious newspapers in the country have pulled back dramatically on covering the presidency.

Coming from press critics, the following may strike some as out of character: We believe journalism should be praised for its work in the wild epilogue of election 2000. One reason the American people seemed calm but fascinated during the spectacle--even as they witnessed sometimes disgraceful ta ...

As we watch the Overtime Campaign of the 2000 election, the headache of reporting it continues. Election night, when the networks made erroneous projections about who had won, was probably the worst moment in the 50-year history of television coverage of politics. Newspapers that prematurely misc ...

In the closing weeks of the presidential race, coverage was strikingly negative, and Vice President Al Gore got the worst of it. In contrast, George W. Bush was twice as likely as Gore to get coverage that was positive in tone, more issue-oriented and more likely to be directly connected to citizens.

The first-ever study of online coverage of the presidential election found that many of the most popular online portals do not live up to the promise of the Internet as a gateway to new, unfiltered and diverse information about politics.

This study attempted to discern the nature of the press coverage of the story by examining several major threads of the story and comparing them to the Starr Report and its supporting evidentiary material. Contrary to White House accusations, those doing the bulk of the original reporting did not ferry false leaks and fabrications into coverage. But in some important cases, the press leaned on the suspicions of investigators that did not hold up and downplayed the denials of the accused, according to a new study. The findings raise questions about whether the press always maintained adequate skepticism about its sources.

The study, a follow up to an earlier one in February, raises basic questions about whether the press has become too lax about offering readers as much information as possible, and whether journalists have allowed sources to dictate terms too easily.

>From the earliest moments of the Clinton crisis,the press routinely intermingled reporting with opinion and speculation--even on the front page--according to a new systematic study of what and how the press reported. The study raises basic questions about the standards of American journalism and whether the press is in the business of reporting facts or something else.