Data obtained through content analysis of articles about or concerning President Reagan in Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report during two time periods indicated that no relationship existed between time and variance of news coverage given to Reagan. Three content analysis measures were used: comparison of favorable and unfavorable statements, amount of coverage and number of quoted words. The study is composed of four chapters: Chapter I introduces the study, Chapter II presents the data, Chapter III evaluates the data and Chapter IV summarizes and makes recommendations.

This study seeks to show that a tradition exists of personal journalists who, more than supporting a partisan position, have moral concern and desire reconciliation. Between the First World War and the Hutchins Commission report of 1947, Walter Lippmann and other media critics theorized that journalistic objectivity is impossible, but recognized journalists' responsibility to interpret events to their publics. In the 1930s these new theories coincided with historical events to encourage journalists' personal involvement with their subjects. The work of the best personal journalists, for example, George Orwell and James Agee, resulted from moral concern. This tradition is furthered today in the journalism of Bill Moyers.