{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.017172295363480253, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.287769784172662, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
News Coverage of Part-time and Full-time Legislatures

Understanding the news coverage of state legislatures may be particularly important over the next few years. Federal budget cutbacks and the possible shifting of power to the states may focus more public demands on state legislatures. The way reporters inform citizens about state legislative decisions will become increasingly important for how those decisions are made. Both reporters and lawmakers at the state level are bound to become more important as a result. The routine news reporting of state legislatures may be determined, however, not so much by the press as by the time constraints imposed on the legislative institution by the larger society. Specifically, news coverage of a part-time and a full-time legislature is examined in this study to illuminate differences in the sources used, in the ways in which legislators and their work are portrayed, and in the concentration of news attention on public issues. A number of factors obviously affect the quality of such coverage. These include news organization size and resources, editorial influences and pressures and, of course, the experience and ability of the individual reporters. However, news organizations must depend on sources in governmental institutions. The qualities of these news sources thus may determine the ultimate quality of the news reports. Studies by mass communication researchers have frequently noted this leading role of officials and institutions in generating news.' Gans, Sigal and Epstein, for instance, have emphasized that newsroom organizational needs compel dependence on widely-known and recognized governmental sources able to generate news efficiently and reliably. Tuchman suggests the