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September 12, 2007
More Media Navel-Gazing
Josh Patashnik is probably looking at the wrong metric when he examines self-described liberals and conservatives -- party affiliation is probably a more accurate determinant of which columnists you agree with.
But his post reminded me that one possible explanation for the apparent overrepresentation of conservative columnists is that liberals are disproportionately found in big cities, where a paper like the New York Times will serve a few million of them, while conservatives are disproportionately found in rural communities, giving them more papers even as those papers don't serve many readers each. It's sort of like those maps where Bush won 98% of the country's square feet while getting only 51% of the actual vote. So it would be natural for papers in conservative communities to run more conservatives, just as The New York Times runs mostly liberals. There's no way of running this study, but in some ways the correct metric would be how well-read columnists are rather than how many papers they appear in.
Update: Whoops, the report addresses this by totaling up newspaper circulation. They find that “in a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.”
September 12, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
49%
Posted by: Sam L. | Sep 12, 2007 3:40:56 PM
do rural newspapers by and large have their own columnists or do they reprint those from larger papers that their parent companies also own? big cities like NY and LA often have many more newspapers serving the same city, e.g. NY Times, NY Post, NY Daily News etc.
Posted by: Cody | Sep 12, 2007 3:40:58 PM
Really though wouldn't the combined circulation of the newspaper a columnist appears in approximate what you're after here? That seems like a measurable number.
Posted by: UberMitch | Sep 12, 2007 3:52:07 PM
I'm not sure by what standard the New York Times is still "liberal." Compared to Fox News, sure, but that's not exactly a high bar.
Posted by: Aaron | Sep 12, 2007 3:57:50 PM
I'm not sure by what standard the New York Times is still "liberal." Compared to Fox News, sure, but that's not exactly a high bar.
whichever side of the spectrum the NYT's editorial staff falls in, being a paper in a large, liberal city will necessitate having some liberal columnists, and that's what Ezra was getting at.
even Fox News has to hire liberals to stay viable, even if only to have crash test dummies to slam against the walls of their echo chambers.
Posted by: Cody | Sep 12, 2007 4:02:43 PM
Cody -
Fox News hires "liberals"? The only one I know of is Alan Colmes. Are there others actually on Fox's payroll?
Posted by: NonyNony | Sep 12, 2007 4:10:05 PM
In my small town, the newspaper has columnists for many things, but I believe all the op-ed political stuff is syndicated
Posted by: BillCinSD | Sep 12, 2007 4:13:26 PM
i've heard Gretta Van Sustren is a liberal. Juan Williams is something of a liberal. i don't really know much about Fox News beyond what others tell me, actually. that could be fortunate or unfortunate, but i know they take great pains to 'appear' balanced so they can pretend to be legitimate.
Posted by: Cody | Sep 12, 2007 4:17:22 PM
As Ubermitch notes it is possible to correct for the small town bias of just counting papers by multiplying by the newspaper's circulation and, indeed, mediamatters did just that
"In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million."
Less extreme than the simple count of newspapers but still tilted right. By the way the quote is from the executive summary
http://mediamatters.org/reports/oped/
Posted by: Robert | Sep 12, 2007 4:22:06 PM
The study didn't just use number of papers, it used circulation statistics as well.
Posted by: dave | Sep 12, 2007 4:22:34 PM
it would be natural for papers in conservative communities to run more conservatives,
It's not just 'conservative communities', but 'local newspaper readers in smaller communities'. You can have relatively liberal small cities with newspapers covering a more conservative suburban and rural market, and the people who read the local paper in its print edition will tend older and more conservative.
But the report makes that point, and also notes that the smaller the circulation, the more likely the op-ed page will be dominated by syndicated wingnuts. Larger papers introduce liberal voices to that template, but the template still exists.
A commenter at Matt's place with experience of the newspaper industry makes a depressing point: picking up syndicated wingnuts is less likely to generate concerted opposition than adding a liberal voice. For some strange reason, syndicated liberals are usually denounced as 'outsiders' whose voice doesn't fit the local community, a charge rarely aimed at George Will.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Sep 12, 2007 4:49:17 PM
... that's probably because George Will is too boring to be judged controversial. :)
BTW, Ezra, I think you have beaten this topic to ever-lovin death.
Posted by: weboy | Sep 12, 2007 5:44:22 PM
As long as I can get David Brooks telling me how liberals are linked to Osama bin Laden, coast to coast, I'm happy.
Posted by: SFVKyle | Sep 12, 2007 11:29:52 PM
Maybe the metric we should use is whose ox gets gored by the editorials in question. When conservative Cal Thomas attacks Reid and Pelosi, and presumed centrist David Broder attacks Reid and Pelosi, and alleged liberal MoDo lobs insults at Reid and Pelosi, that makes a case for Mighty Wurlitzerism.
Posted by: Michael Bloom | Sep 13, 2007 10:50:07 AM
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