Partisan Bias in Economic News Content: New Evidence

Published date01 November 2019
Date01 November 2019
AuthorEric Merkley
DOI10.1177/1532673X18821954
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X18821954
American Politics Research
2019, Vol. 47(6) 1303 –1323
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X18821954
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Article
Partisan Bias in
Economic News Content:
New Evidence
Eric Merkley1
Abstract
Claims that the mainstream media are biased in favor of the Democratic
Party are commonplace. However, empirical research has yielded mixed
results and neglected potential bias in the dynamics of media behavior. This
article contributes to this literature by using time series analyses of the
dynamics in media tone based on more than 400,000 stories on inflation and
unemployment from top-circulating American print media and the Associated
Press newswire. The results suggest there is bias in favor of Democratic
presidents. Media tone in unemployment and inflation coverage is more
favorable during Democratic presidencies after controlling for economic
performance. Tone is also generally more responsive to negative, short-
term changes in economic conditions during Republican presidencies. In
other words, bias is stronger with worsening economic conditions.
Keywords
media bias, economic news, mass media, economic evaluations, time series
analysis
The media have their critics. Scholars for decades have noted systemic biases
that exist in agenda setting and framing (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Shoemaker
& Vos, 2009). Journalists are prone to report on the news in ways that
1The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Corresponding Author:
Eric Merkley, Department of Political Science, The University of British Columbia, C425, 1866
Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z1.
Email: eric.merkley@alumni.ubc.ca
821954APRXXX10.1177/1532673X18821954American Politics ResearchMerkley
research-article2018
1304 American Politics Research 47(6)
emphasize drama and novelty at the expense of context (Bennett, 1988), and
negative information rather than positive developments (Altheide, 1997;
Harrington, 1989; Soroka, 2006, 2012). Another possibility is that the media
may have partisan bias against a particular party while in office. Most promi-
nent is the suspicion among conservative commentators and activists that
journalists are unlikely to report the news in a way that is fair to both parties
because they largely identify with the Democratic Party (see Baron, 2006, for
a theoretical model of journalist-driven bias). This contention is supported
empirically by some scholars using a variety of methods (Ansolabehere,
Lessem, & Snyder, 2006; Groseclose & Milyo, 2005; Lott & Hassett, 2014;
Schiffer, 2006), but others have found no such pattern in news reporting
(D’Alessio & Allen, 2000; Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2010; Niven, 2002; Puglisi
& Snyder, 2015; Watts, Domke, Shah, & Fan, 1999). The jury is still out on
whether there is pro-Democratic bias in the mainstream media.
Part of the problem is that there are substantial challenges to measuring
partisan media bias. Most early efforts sought to measure fundamental char-
acteristics of news coverage, like its tone or volume, and look for differences
in the treatment of Republican and Democratic administrations or candidates.
However, these differences may or may not be deserved depending on the
performance of administrations while in office or the behavior of candidates
on the campaign trail. The analyses in this article measure tone in economic
news coverage across the Associated Press and a large number of high-circu-
lating American newspapers and use objective economic performance as a
baseline to evaluate the fairness of this coverage – an approach followed by
previous scholars (Lott & Hassett, 2014; Niven, 2002). More precisely, it
examines whether media tone in economic news is more negative during
Republican administrations after controlling for economic performance.
The analyses presented here, however, take a step further in testing for the
implications of a biased press. It is here where this article makes its main
contribution to the literature. The media’s bias toward novelty and negativity
means that economic news coverage focuses on short-term changes in the
economy at the expense of long-term trends, and on negative rather than posi-
tive economic developments (Nadeau, Niemi, Fan, & Amato, 1999; Soroka,
2006, 2012; Soroka, Stecula, & Wlezien, 2015). Thus, this article will exam-
ine whether the media are more responsive to negative changes in the econ-
omy during Republican presidential terms. In short, this article integrates
research on media bias with work on media responsiveness to the economy.
In so doing, it will offer evidence that the economy is covered more nega-
tively during Republican presidencies after controlling for performance and
that this is particularly true when short-term economic conditions worsen.

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