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by Stewart Truelsen

Federal laws and regulations affect farmers and the farm economy as much as changes in the weather, export markets or technology, but government news is becoming hard to find, according to a major journalism study.

The Council for Excellence in Government study found that media coverage of the federal government has declined significantly over the last 20 years. The survey found that the number of stories about the federal government dropped by 31 percent on network television news, 12 percent in the New York Times and Washington Post, and 39 percent in four regional newspapers.

The study also concluded that whether Republicans or Democrats were in power, the coverage was always more negative than positive. "The combined coverage of all three branches of government, during all three administrations, was almost exactly two to one negative in tone," said the report.

The findings help explain why important items like the energy bill, estate tax reform and the farm bill are often reported in a negative way. This makes it easier for activist organizations and political gadflies to grab headlines and get quoted, as happened during the farm bill debate.

One could argue that no news is better than a steady diet of negative news about national policy issues, but that would leave us totally uninformed. According to Patricia McGinnis, the president and chief executive of the Council for Excellence in Government, "Television and newspapers are the modern civics teachers for most of us." If television and newspapers are going to be good teachers they need to give us both sides of the story, sufficient background and explain the workings of government.

The trends are not encouraging though. This study found a big increase in the amount of opinion injected into television news. "The number of evaluations per story on television news more than doubled, increasing by a startling 138 percent," the study said. "The surge of opinions expressed on network newscasts is a powerful indicator of a shift toward a more analytical and judgmental style of presenting government news on television."

In 1981, the Washington Post and New York Times had a total of 35 front-page stories about the Agriculture Department. In 2001, the story count dropped to 18. The downward trend applies to all three branches of government. If government isn't news, what is? Lately, it's been news about terrorism, but the Project for Excellence in Journalism said media attention is turning to entertainment, celebrity and what it calls "soap opera crime." Agriculture faces an uphill battle in getting news media discussion of its important national issues.