Horserace Coverage

Horserace coverage is a term used to describe mass media coverage of political campaigns that focuses on the overall political spectacle, the who's ahead/who's behind mentality of a race, instead of providing essential political information. The international trend of mass media coverage relying on horserace elements during an election is prevalent in print, television, and Internet channels. Such coverage predominately focuses on the political campaign as a contest instead of a legitimate, substantive political process. Horserace coverage is considered to be a troubling media practice and a breakdown of the gatekeeping function of journalists, as such coverage takes up valuable space in the limited news hole by focusing on image and game elements instead of the political candidates and their issues.

As such, horserace coverage is ...