An Economic Theory of Political Journalism

Signifcant scholarly work suggests mass media professionals largely set the voices in their coverage to mirror that of mainstream government debate. While it is a compelling assertion, this view is only intermittently supported by data. This paper suggests that such theories enjoy inconsistent support because they fail to consider the interaction between journalists' incentives and the political climate. An economic theory is advanced here that the political journalists' objectives to please their superiors, please themselves, limit negative feedback, and expend minimum energy, in other words to minimize their costs and maximize their benefits, lead them to rely on tactics that vary with the scope of consensus support for an issue. This theory is tested by analyzing newspaper coverage of four political issues debated in Congress.