Center for Media and Public Affairs

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The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a self-described nonpartisan and nonprofit research and educational organization that is affiliated with George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The CMPA conducts studies of the news and entertainment media and performs, among other things, a continuing analysis and tabulation of late night political jokes, an annual report on diversity among network news journalists, and a content analysis of the nightly news on the major broadcast and cable news networks. CMPA also engages in health communication research, investigating the way in which scientific issues are conveyed in the media and conducting surveys of scientists.

CMPA conducts social scientific research on media coverage with the use of such techniques as content analysis and survey research. Its studies appear in academic journals and textbooks as well as popular media outlets. CMPA's specialty is its "rapid response" studies of media coverage of current issues, which appear quickly enough to influence ongoing public debates, such as presidential campaigns, Senate confirmation hearings, and major policy debates in Congress.

For example, in 1992 a CMPA study found that the average length of a presidential candidate's soundbite on the evening news had dropped from to less than ten seconds, down from 42 seconds in 1968. In response CBS adopted a policy requiring longer soundbites on the CBS Evening News. That same year CMPA's study of PBS documentaries was frequently cited in a congressional debate that led to newly mandated standards of fairness and balance. The Federal Judicial Center chose CMPA to conduct a content analysis of the experimental use of television cameras in federal courtrooms. The results of the study led the justices to conclude that the experiment was unsuccessful and to end it.

Although CMPA avoids taking political stands, its studies of entertainment media have been used by members of Congress such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) in their efforts to reduce gratuitous violence and sex in television entertainment. CMPA's research on entertainment media has also included studies of how various groups have been portrayed on television, such as studies of Hispanic Americans' portrayals commissioned by the National Council of La Raza and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The organization has long been controversial in some circles, because its founders also co-authored a widely debated survey that identified most major media journalists as politically liberal. Some liberal watchdog groups, such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), have challenged CMPA's non-partisan claim, based on the argument that much of its funding has come from conservative sources, and its founder, Dr. S. Robert Lichter, held a chair in mass communications at the American Enterprise Institute from 1986 to 1988 and is currently a Fox News contributor. (Lichter, who holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, has also been a faculty member at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown, George Washington and George Mason universities.)

Private foundation financial reports show that CMPA initially relied heavily on funding from conservative foundations such as the Sarah Scaife and John M Olin foundations. Since the early 1990's, however, its funding base has diversified to include more liberal foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Pew Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Kaiser Family Foundation.

Many of CMPA's recent findings on political journalism are found in Stephen Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The Nightly News Nightmare: Television Coverage of Presidential Elections (2006, 2nd ed.); and The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance (2007). These books examine the media's coverage of government and election campaigns from the 1980's to the present.

CMPA was founded in 1985 by Dr. S. Robert Lichter and his now ex-wife Dr. Linda Lichter. It publishes a bi-monthly newsletter called "Media Monitor."