Barack Obama, Pew Research Center | featured news

Coverage of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, especially on cable TV and leading news websites, is increasingly driven by the campaigns themselves, resulting in one of the most negative elections this country has seen in decades. That's the conclusion of a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which looked at more than 800 news stories produced by top newspapers, websites, and television and radio shows during the general election campaign.

President Obama for the first time has opened a sizable lead over his most likely Republican opponents, thanks to growing support among independent voters, according to a new Pew Research Center poll .