BEING THE NEW YORK TIMES: THEPOLITICAL BEHAVIOUR OF A NEWSPAPER

Abstract

I analyze a dataset of news from the New York Times, from 1946 to 1997. Controllingfor the incumbent President's activity across issues, I find that during the presidentialcampaign the New York Times gives more emphasis to topics that are owned by theDemocratic party (civil rights, health care, labor and social welfare), when the incumbentPresident is a Republican. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the New YorkTimes has a Democratic partisanship, with some "watchdog" aspects, in that -during thepresidential campaign- it gives more emphasis to issues over which the (Republican)incumbent is weak. In the post-1960 period the Times displays a more symmetric type ofwatchdog behaviour, just because during presidential campaigns it gives more morecoverage to the typically Republican issue of Defense when the incumbent President is aDemocrat, and less so when the incumbent is a Republican.News, media, information, elections, media bias, New York Times, issueownership