News-Record.com

For those who are convinced that we have a deep inbred political bias and are out of step with our readership, there is an interesting report in the New York Times. Two University of Chicago economists have attempted to answer what drives the bias in media, according to an article written by a third University of Chicago economist. (The actual study is behind a pay wall here, and fiscal conservative that I am, I didn't buy it.) The economists came up with a statistical model and then analysed 417 newspapers. (Via Jarvis.)

But more important, once the authors had this measure, they showed that the main driver of any slant was the newspaper’s audience, not bias by the newspaper's owner.

and

So although politicians from both sides tend to accuse the news media of partisanship and negativity, the data suggests that they ought to blame the public. The papers basically reflect what their readers want to hear.

The article also suggests that newspapers are simply giving readers what they want to sell more papers.

You know me: I'm buying neither conclusion. Newspapers try to respect the interests of its readers, but not to pander to them. And we know what will sell newspapers, and it's not more photos of President Bush or Hillary Clinton. Or, because we're a local paper, of Skip Alston and Billy Yow.

For the record, in 2004, Kerry carried Guilford County, but he and Bush were separated by about 1,300 votes out of nearly 200,000 cast. Of course, the trouble is that we don't know how many of the voters of each candidate are newspaper readers.