Loughborough University research shows that UK press ran more articles that were negative for Ed Miliband’s party during election campaign

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The UK press ran almost twice as many articles on issues that were negative for Labour as positive during the election, according to research from Loughborough University.

Of 2,495 news items examined by the team from the Communications Research Centre at Loughborough, 682 focused on issues that were broadly negative for Ed Miliband’s party, compared to 358 on positive issues.

In contrast, 614 items covered issues deemed positive for the Conservative, compared to 502 considered negative.

The contrast in fortunes was even more stark when print circulation was taken into account, with the country’s two best-selling newspapers, the Sun and Daily Mail, even more focused on issues that would play well for the Conservatives.

Loughborough used a ratings system giving a score of one for positive issues and -1 for negative, assessing each news item and then working out an average for each party and each week of the campaign. It then weighted the figures based on the circulation of each title.

Key conclusions on coverage from the report include:

Levels of positive Conservative coverage remained stable during the final stages of the campaign.



Levels of negative Labour coverage reduced in the final days, but still remained significantly high.



There was an appreciable increase in the negativity of SNP coverage in the final stages of the campaign.



Lib Democrats started to register some degree of negative evaluative coverage in the last sample period. Previous to that, they received little evaluative coverage of any kind.

Loughborough University directional election coverage graph Illustration: Loughborough University

The difference between print press and broadcasters, who are required by regulator Ofcom to avoid bias, is clear in how much more frequently Conservative sources appeared in print than on TV compared to their Labour counterparts.



Labour sources appeared slightly more frequently on TV than Conservative ones, whereas in print the Conservatives accounted for 37.5% compared to Labour’s 31.8%.

