Political journalism between news and opinion: A comparative study of the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections

Abstract

This article compares editorial and news agendas considering O Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S. Paulo, and O Globo newspapers during the second round of the 2018 Brazilian presidential election. We study to what extent the convergence between both agendas discloses some of the political interests sponsored by news organizations. By using content analysis, we examined the thematic convergence between 144 editorials and news. The hypotheses are: H1) The news and opinion sections within each newspaper converge thematically, indicating a political instrumentalization of the journalistic practices; H2) Newspapers differ from each other when considering the topics covered in their editorials, which is not the case when their main cover stories are at stake. The results indicate that the newspapers do not present a strong convergence within their intern sections. However, there is similarity among the newspapers' opinionated agendas, which doesn't happen regarding the news coverage.