And we expected this one to be sort of close to '92; Not quite, but it was a close election, no president running. What's happening both in number of minutes and a number of stories: It's below the 1996.

If this goes on for another week, it would be the lowest figure ever recorded for the month of September.

WOODRUFF: In a close election?

HESS: In a close election.

WOODRUFF: Now, how do you account for that?

HESS: Well, a bit of it has to be accounted for NBC and the Olympics. If you took NBC, for the first 10 days of the Olympics, and compared it to the 10 days before the Olympics, you would see that they have half as much news about the presidential campaign. They have dropped in half.

But I think that there's more to it than that; much more to it. As I talked to reporters who are covering the campaign, they tell me that New Yorks says the public isn't interested; and if the public's not interested, we're not going to show it.

So these are very troubling figures.

WOODRUFF: What about, Steve -- you also are looking at the quality of coverage. What are you finding there?

HESS: Well, again, my bias is that we have two types of coverage: horse-race coverage that involves who's ahead, who's behind, the strategies -- that's a lot of fun -- and also issues and the qualifications of the presidents. That I call substance, and that's very important. I would like to see a balance. We should have both.

What are we having? We're having two-thirds horse race one-third to substance.

That's again the lowest figure we have had in many, many elections.

WOODRUFF: Any explanation for that?

HESS: Well, the horse race: It's a close election. I think we're going in that direction, and also we seem to be overwhelmed by the superficial: the "Rats" commercials, the Adam Clymer thing, the question about Gore's drugs for his dogs. And every time we do that, that gets recorded as a horse-race story.

So it's not at all the balance that I was looking for.

WOODRUFF: Finally, you're also looking at the positive/negative. Which candidate is -- the last time we talked to you, Bush was getting a tougher, more negative press. What's happening this week?

HESS: That was very interesting, because that first week when we talked Bush was getting 79 percent negative, 21 percent positive. Third week, Gore is getting 78 percent negative, 22 percent positive. So there's a tremendous lurching feeling to the coverage of the news this year.

WOODRUFF: Tracking the polls to some extent.

HESS: It tracks the polls. Very much it's poll-driven. I think that's important, too.

WOODRUFF: The press looks at who's behind and piles on.

HESS: That's right. That's right. But it's almost as if they're reaching the golden mean by averaging. We're not getting a sort of smooth, an interesting of news, but we're getting a back-and- forth that I find, at least I find, very disruptive.

WOODRUFF: All right. Steve Hess, fascinating. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

HESS: Thanks, Judy.