This is a continuation of a project published 2 weeks ago by the CivicStory Team.

Last week, we posed two questions: 

• What is the best role of news during critical primary elections? 

• What information do citizens most need to ensure that the entire election process works well and fairly? 

News includes essential civic information in our democracy, and the twin goals of clarity and accuracy are paramount—especially in an election season. State by state, the country is conducting an “executive search” that began in January and will conclude with the major party conventions in mid-July and mid-August. Each primary election is an opportunity for citizens of that state to speak. Two of 50 (4%) primaries have occurred to date.

Yet, in the weeks following the New Hampshire primary, election reporting seemed to coalesce around a new narrative. Rather than revving up (with two candidates, down from six), the Republican primary season was winding down—if not by Saturday, Feb. 24 (South Carolina), then perhaps by March 5 (on which 16 states hold elections).

Hopefully our tracking of candidate name mentions can shed some light on how this idea took hold—that 29 state primaries scheduled March 12 through June 4 might be irrelevant. We’ll return to our informal proposition: if primary elections are fair and orderly, then reasonably equitable attention will be given to major candidates. 

Last week’s graphs of Republican candidates’ name mentions in news stories shows a change from the week of Mon., Jan. 29 to the week of Mon., Feb. 5. When three weeks of total name mentions in election-related stories are viewed in sequence, an election news trend becomes clear, and the inequity in name mentions widens.   

The three charts below compare the percentages of total name mentions each week. To isolate our data set, all findings were taken from election-related stories in print editions of The New York Times.

Ex. 1. Jan. 22–28; Ex. 2. Jan. 29–Feb 4; Ex. 3. Feb. 5–11  

The line graph below connects the total name mentions of two candidates over three successive weeks. The totals in weeks two and three diverge, with one candidate’s name appearing in election-related stories seven times more often than the other.  

Ex. 4. Jan. 22 to Feb. 11.

Methodology

What we counted: 

• basic name mentions in the story

• name mentions via hyphenated or amended words, such as “Trump-backed” 

What we did not count:

• name mentions in photo captions or in editorial subheadings

• pronouns

• descriptive identifiers such as “former UN Ambassador”

• name mentions of family members 

We tracked news stories, not editorials or opinion pieces, with occasional exceptions as noted on story lists. We did not track stories about candidates’ legal issues or policy news unless the 2024 elections were referenced.