CEO Images in Magazines--2
The Growth of CEO Coverage and the Importance of Competence,
Personal, and Integrity Dimensions to Image Formation
Developments at Enron, Adelphia, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, WorldCom and
other companies have been the subject of widespread news reports in the past year. News
coverage has highlighted the illegal and unethical decisions and behaviors of corporate CEOs,
other management executives, financial auditors, and government regulators, among others. As a
result, CEOs have been vilified, and the images of American businesses and executives have
been tarnished (Fallen idols, 2002).
The press also has been criticized for its failure to uncover and report on the warning
signs of these corporate excesses and misdeeds. Press coverage of business during the past
decade has been described broadly as “corporate cheer leading,” or after-the-fact reporting, even
while large corporations have exerted increasing influences over our work lives, financial
investments, social environment, and political system (Lewis, 2002).
How specifically has the print media portrayed business—and especially business
leaders--over the past decade? In fact, the public relations and mass communication literatures
shed little light on the subject. This is surprising given recent developments, the long-
acknowledged social and political influences of business, and the importance of CEOs to public
relations practices (L. Grunig, 1997; Marston, 1993) and to formation of organizational image
(Eichholz, 1999; McGrath, 1995; Pincus et al., 1991).
This study builds on the recent work of Park and Berger (in press), who examined
portrayals of CEOs in newspaper coverage during the 1990s. Using a similar content analysis
approach, we explored images of CEOs as presented in coverage in three leading magazines from
1990-2001: NewsWeek, Business Week, and U.S. News & World Report. Salience and valence of
Convention