The Conservatives and Labour are the clear and only major parties in media terms. Leaders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn were the two most prominent campaigners overall, the Prime Minister achieving a particularly high profile on television.

Both their parties’ each received approximately a third of TV coverage although Labour spokespeople were more likely to be quoted on air. The two parties were also prominent in print reporting with Labour attracting two-fifths of press coverage. There was parity in the amount of newspaper quotations from spokespeople belonging to both parties. Particularly prominent here were Sajid Javid and John McDonnell, reflecting the prominence of the economy as the third-place issue in the campaign. Coverage levels of McDonnell exceeded that of Javid in press and TV.

The Liberal Democrats were a clear third in respect of their share of approximately an eighth of all TV reporting. The party and Jo Swinson’s newspaper presence coverage was far less, failing to match the news presence of the Brexit Party. The latter, and its ‘pact’ with Boris Johnson, ensured it also received more coverage than the SNP in both TV and in the print media. Brexit Party spokespeople were more likely to be quoted in print than on television. The SNP received some TV attention but gained little print coverage and if a representative was quoted it was almost certain to be leader Nicola Sturgeon. This helped make the Scottish First Minister the most prominent women campaigner although she was one of only 5 female representatives in the Top 20 overall. The Greens, Plaid Cymru, DUP and other parties were negligible be it on TV or in print.

Disaffected former Labour and, to a lesser extent, Conservative politicians received some news prominence. Comments from the ex-Labour ministers Ian Austin and John Woodcock that urged voters to support Boris Johnson were quoted in the press almost as frequently as those from spokespeople belonging to a Brexit Party preoccupied with whether and how their candidates would intervene in the election. This scenario together with their core rationale of wanting to leave the European Union helped ensure that Electoral Process and Brexit were respectively the first and second most prominent issues. The significance of the former was also boosted following the unexpected resignations of Alun Cairns from the Cabinet and Tom Watson as Deputy Labour Leader, which helped ensure they both made the Top 20 campaigners. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s presence in the top 20 was largely a result of his controversial comments about Grenfell. He may well fall out of the chart in the coming weeks.

The marginalisation of Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon was emblematic of a wider gender inequality across all coverage. When considering all participants in election news coverage (i.e. including citizens, businesspeople, experts, public professionals, etc.) women’s voices accounted for just a third of all quotation in TV news and a fifth of quotation in the national press.

Recent and potential changes in the ownership and editorship of several national newspapers invites speculation as to their impact on the strength of press partisanship in this campaign. The results from the first formal week of the campaign suggest that it is ‘business as usual’. Only the Conservative party attracted more positive than negative press coverage, which is boosted when weighted for circulation. Labour have had a higher newspaper presence than the Conservatives over this period, but a substantial element of this involved negative reporting of the party and its policies.