The Media and the Mayor's Race: The Failure of Urban Political Reporting.

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.

By Phyllis Kaniss / Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 394, $39.95

Reviewed by RAYMOND L. FISCHER Associate Mass Media Editor, USA Today, and Professor of Communication, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks

The idea of a book about a four-year-old mayoral campaign sounds dull, boring, and outdated. However, such is hardly the case in this examination of the 1991 Philadelphia race.

Coverage of the election of Democrat Edward G. Rendell over Republican Joseph M. Egan is heightened by Kaniss' predisposition concerning the campaign, her style of reporting information, and the results of what she found. In 1990, Kaniss realized new forces were affecting local journalism. Pressures from corporate owners and increasing competition from cable were beginning to change the way news departments approached local elections.

Kaniss focuses on a small number of key reporters and their news organizations, especially Sal Paolantonia of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Dave Davies of the Philadelphia Daily News. By concentrating on the economic forces affecting local TV and metropolitan newspapers, she sought to determine how such factors influenced city political coverage. Ultimately, she wanted to determine whether news coverage was providing voters with the information they needed to make intelligent choices among candidates.

For nearly a year, Kaniss observed Paolantonia and Davies at political events and interviewed them immediately following the events and as they wrote their stories throughout the campaign. She also interviewed other reporters, editors, news directors, the candidates, and their staffs. Moreover, by audiotaping various events and what the candidates and reporters talked about on the campaign trail, she could compare what had taken place with the coverage by newspaper and TV reporters. She also analyzed every newspaper story concerning the campaign and videotaped the weekday evening...