This book analyzes the coverage of the 1972 presidential election campaign by the three major television networks, focusing on weekday-evening news broadcasts from 10 July to 6 November 1972. The study's two objectives are to identify and explain discernible patterns of campaign news coverage and to show how these patterns relate to the candidates, issues, parties, and campaign activities, how they relate to each of the networks, and how they persist or vary as the campaign progresses. Chapter topics include considerations for the study's design; individual network coverage of the candidates, the issues, and the political parties during the 1972 campaign; ratings and themes as alternative techniques of analysis; specific issues and sources in news coverage; and conclusions from the study. Thirty-six tables of data illustrate the text. (RL)