The E

Th Economics
i off News
N
Media Slant

Jesse M. Shapiro
Assistant Professor of Economics

Research joint with Matthew Gentzkow

Says Who?

• November 30, 2003 battle in Iraq...

2
Says Who?
• In one of the deadliest reported firefights in Iraq
since the fall of Saddam Hussein's
Hussein s regime,
regime US
forces killed at least 54 Iraqis and captured eight
others while fending off simultaneous convoy
ambushes
b h S Sunday
d iin th
the northern
th city
it off S
Samarra.

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Says Who?
• American commanders vowed Monday that the
killing of as many as 54 insurgents in this central
Iraqi town would serve as a lesson to those fighting
the United States, but Iraqis disputed the death toll
and d said
id anger against
i tA America
i would ld only
l rise.
i

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Says Who?
• The US military has vowed to continue aggressive
tactics after saying it killed 54 Iraqis following an
ambush, but commanders admitted they had no
proof to back up their claims. The only corpses at
Samarra's
Samarra s hospital were those of civilians,
including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child.

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Media Slant
• Same underlying events, very different
impressions
p

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So What?
• Is this just packaging?
• Does it affect
– How people vote?
– How they see the world?

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Effects of News Media
• Effects on voting
– “Fox
Fox News Effect
Effect” (Della Vigna & Kaplan,
Kaplan 2007)
• Effects on worldview
– Attitudes in Muslim countries ((Gentzkow & Shapiro
p
2004)
• Effects on public policy
– News
Ne s dro
droughts
ghts (Eisensee & Stromberg 2007)
Implications
• News media have power to change “hearts and
minds
minds”
• How do they wield that power?
• Is Fox’s p
political slant driven byy
– Rupert Murdoch?
– Its customers?
– Something
S thi else?
l ?

9
Economic Framework
• Media firm has two objectives
– Cater to customers (advertising $)
– Cater to owner ideology
• Firm trades these off

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What do Media Customers Want?
• Evidence that consumers gravitate to like-minded
sources…
sources

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Attraction to Like-minded Sources

Fox News NPR

40

Percent 30
who watch 20
/ li
listen
10
regularly
0
very moderate very liberal
conservative

Respondent Political Views

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2004) 12
Perceptions of Like-minded Sources

Fox News NPR

40
Percent 30
who believe
all or most 20
of what 10
outlet says
0
very moderate very liberal
conservative

Respondent Political Views

Source: Gentzkow and Shapiro (2006) 13

Is it a Two-Way Street?
• Fox affects its customers
• Do its customers affect FOX?
• “Demand-driven bias”

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Systematic Evidence
• Need large-scale, quantitative evidence on
determinants of media slant
• Hard to measure
• Hand-codingg of content: slow, hard to scale

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Our Approach
• Study political use of language
• Example from “LuntzLuntz memo”:
memo : “Never
Never say
‘privatization/private accounts.’ Instead
say ‘personalization/personal accounts.’
Two thirds of America want to personalize
Two-thirds
Social Security while only one-third would
privatize it. Why? Personalizing Social
Security suggests ownership and control
over your retirement savings, while
privatizing it suggests a profit motive and
winners
i andd llosers.””

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 The Back Benches

Republicans Democrats

600
500

Uses in 2005 400

Congress 300
200
100
0
"personal accounts""private accounts"
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Lessons
• Economic: strategic use of language
• Statistical: can infer party/ideology from language

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Estimating Newspaper Slant
• Identify partisan language using computer
algorithm based on Congressional speech
• Compute index of whether newspaper “talks” more
like a Congressional Republican or a Democrat

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Some Well
Well-known
known Papers

SF Chronicle Relatively liberal

Washington Post
New York Times
USA Today
Wall
W ll Street
St t Journal
J l
Washington Times
Houston Chronicle Relatively conservative
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 Washington Post Washington Times
Same-sex couples Homosexuals 'marry' in
line up early for a Massachusetts
marriage made in
Massachusetts
Anniversary of U.S.-led Anniversary of Operation
invasion of Iraq Iraqi Freedom
The
h uproar wrought h by
b From despair
d comes faith-
f i h
'religious' films based film
V t on estate
Vote t t taxt L
Lawmakers
k tackle
t kl death
d th
tax
GOP callll for
fo tax
ta cuts
c ts B h urges
Bush ge tax
ta relief
elief over
o e
renews party divide more spending
Does Content follow Customer?

Newspaper
frequency of
"death tax"
relative to
"estate tax"
ta "

Very liberal Very Conservative

Ideology of newspaper's market (city)

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Do Owners Matter Too?
• No evidence that two papers with same owner look
more similar than two papers with different owners

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 City Folk in South Carolina

Rock Hill Herald Relatively liberal

Greenville News
Columbia State
Charleston Post & Courier
Spartanburg Herald-
Herald-
Journal
Myrtle Beach Sun-
Sun-News
Anderson Independent-
Independent- Relatively conservative
Mail 24
Conclusions
• Different sources treat the same news very
differently
• These differences can be quantified
• Portrayals
y influence p
policy
y

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Demand
• Consumers gravitate to like-minded sources
• Creates an incentive to target content
Supply
• Firms do tailor news to suit customers
• Owners don’t
don t seem “willing
willing to pay”
pay to deviate

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