UK election: the great media coverage disparity

An analysis by Loughborough University of national TV and newspaper coverage of the 2019 election has revealed stark differences in the amount of times each party has been represented. Of the 1,843 election-related items in the weekday content of main national evening TV news programmes and the main news sections of all national paid-for newspapers from 7 November to 4 December, Labour had the largest share of the coverage, with a Labour source, Jeremy Corbyn, or an 'independent Labour' representative recorded by the research team 43 percent of the time. The Conservatives are close behind in second place with 39 percent.

As pointed out by Graeme Demianyk at HuffPost UK, one of the most glaring disparities in the data is to be found at the bottom of this infographic. Despite the major role played by Northern Ireland's DUP in allowing the Conservatives to form a government after their 2017 debacle, there were only 5 appearances counted during the analysis period, making up a measly 0.2 percent.

David Deacon and Dominic Wring, of the University of Loughborough’s Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, told HuffPost UK: “It is striking how Arlene Foster and her DUP colleagues, who were long presented as key power brokers in the Brexit process, have become forgotten figures in the reporting of this campaign.” As Demianyk correctly notes: "By contrast to the DUP, Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party featured more than 140 times, despite it seeming increasingly unlikely the upstart party will take a single seat".