A Test of the News is a study of the objectivity and neutrality of press coverage, written by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, later editor of The New York Times. It was prepared with the assistance of Faye Albertson Lippmann, Lippmann's first wife. The subject was the portrayal of the Russian Revolution. The study appeared on August 4, 1920, as a 42-page supplement to The New Republic. In a kind of content analysis, the authors examined several thousand newspaper articles in more than 1,000 issues published over a period of three years, beginning in March 1917 and ending in March 1920. Objectives The occasion was the widespread doubt about media coverage, which was to be verified by an empirical study:There is today a widespread and a growing doubt whether there exists such an access to the news about contentious affairs. This doubt ranges from accusations of unconscious bias to downright charges of corruption, from the belief that the news is coloured to the belief that the news is poisoned. On so grave a matter evidence is needed. (p. 1)The New York Times was chosen because it was the most influential newspaper, because it had the ability to investigate, because the technical editing of the news was admirable, the index facilitated systematic study, it was easily accessible and it was one of the greatest newspapers in the world. The Russian Revolution had been chosen as a subject, because it was so significant and aroused the passions that put the objectivity of the reports most to the test. The question to be answered was:... whether the reader of the news was given a picture of various phases of the revolution which survived the test of events, or whether he was misled into believing that the outcome of events would be radically different from the actual outcome.The study was devoted to seven periods of time and, in retrospect, to undisputed main events. For each time period, the main tendency of press coverage is worked out. Sections 1 to 3 : Purposeful optimism Section 4: Disappointment and propaganda for a military intervention Section 5: Fear of the "Red Scare" as a further motive for intervention Section 6: Generals of the "whites" are propagated as saviours Section 7: The fear of the Germans is replaced by the fear of the "Reds" Conclusions The study concluded that the Times' reporting was neither unbiased nor accurate. The