Ainda o viés da mídia

Sobre o tema que lancei abaixo, sobre a ausência do Fórum de São Paulo na mídia, veja uma excelente posicão do prof. Sutter: The news media play an important role in society and particularly in democracy, acting as intermediaries in the market for information between citizens who are interested in information about current events and news makers with messages they would like to communicate to people. Economists have extensively studied information goods, but the news media have received relatively little attention from economists, although this is changing. My research interests with regard to the news media involve the economics of news bias and the role of commercial forces versus professionalism in assuring the quality of news products. Bias, and particularly the media’s alleged liberal bias, is one of the enduring hot button topics on the political landscape. Both conservatives and liberals believe the news media is biased against their side of political discourse, and efforts to document the media’s alleged bias have produced almost a cottage industry. Rush Limbaugh’s rise to national prominence was fueled in large part by his attacks on the alleged liberal news media. Observers have been trying to track and document bias in the news for over three decades. I examine partisan bias from the perspective of economic theory. Economics links social outcomes in a methodologically rigorous way to the incentives and actions of individuals. Instead of looking at the output of news, my work on the news bias asks, is biased news consistent with basic principles of economics. I consider charges of both liberal and conservative (particularly pro-business) bias from this perspective. I ask questions like, does the lack of liberal or conservative news indicate an inefficiency in the news market? Is there a market for liberal or conservative news? If the market demand for conservative news, say, is not being met, why, and is this a problem? Bias must have a source in the news market, and four different sources can be distinguished. On the demand side of the market are consumers and advertisers, while on the supply side are owners and employees (journalists). Allegations of liberal media bias assign much of the blame to liberal journalists, while proponents of pro-business bias charge that advertisers control news content. Owners though have to play a role, at least indirectly, in each argument. The other question which interests me about the news media is the role of market forces, versus the professionalism of journalists, in assuring the quality of news supplied to consumers. News is an experience good, or indeed, even a credence good since consumers often cannot verify the accuracy of information presented in the news after consumption. Whether market mechanisms can assure the quality of experience goods has been debated since publication of George Akerlof’s famous lemons paper. Many journalism scholars are particularly skeptical whether market incentives and the profit motive – what they call commercialism – can supply high quality journalism. Competition for profit they feel will lead to a race to the bottom. By contrast, they contend that professional journalists insulated from market pressures or perhaps even a noncommercial media offer the best means of assuring product quality. One question I find of interest in this debate is whether news consumers (or at least some of them) perceive quality and whether media company stock prices adjust to changes in the quality of their news products. Also of interest is the role of compensation for journalists on news quality. Normally higher salaries should translate into higher quality news, but a number of journalism scholars suggest that superstar journalists actually are bad for the news product. Finally I find the positive externality or merit good aspect of news consumption intriguing. If consumption of news, and particular quality news or critical news, provides external benefits or changes peoples’ preferences over time, can a market based media supply news?