A recent study in the Midwest is quite fascinating, but also disturbing: It showed people mainly got their political news and information prior to an election by television broadcast and the majority of that was paid advertising.
In other words, the coverage was probably quite biased, not very in-depth, and may have even been loose with the facts or context as often political opponents are tempted to slam each other and integrity and honesty are usually ignored.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison did the analysis as a project. Funded by Chicago’s Joyce Foundation, the UW-Madison’s NewsLab project is called the Midwest News Index and is doing an ongoing study on content and effect of local television news in several Midwest states: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.