News media broadcast things like polling locations, times, and procedures. They do very little in terms of what candidates stand for which positions in a level of detail sufficient to distinguish primary candidates. By contrast, the parties simply provide a list saying which candidates to vote for in elections where that isn’t already clear from the ballot itself.
If California and Washington prohibit distributing literature outside polling places, this effect is definitely less strong; but that is just a weaker push towards partisanship, not a push away from it.
I would expect news media to distribute more voting information then political parties do in the US.
News media broadcast things like polling locations, times, and procedures. They do very little in terms of what candidates stand for which positions in a level of detail sufficient to distinguish primary candidates. By contrast, the parties simply provide a list saying which candidates to vote for in elections where that isn’t already clear from the ballot itself.
If California and Washington prohibit distributing literature outside polling places, this effect is definitely less strong; but that is just a weaker push towards partisanship, not a push away from it.