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Abstract:
I analyze a dataset of news from the New York Times, from 1946 to 1997. Controlling for the incumbent President's activity across issues, I find that during the presidential campaign the New York Times gives more emphasis to topics that are owned by the Democratic party (civil rights, health care, labor and social welfare), when the incumbent President is a Republican. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the New York Times has a Democratic partisanship, with some "watchdog" aspects, in that -during the presidential 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 of watchdog behaviour, just because during presidential campaigns it gives more more coverage to the typically Republican issue of Defense when the incumbent President is a Democrat, and less so when the incumbent is a Republican.

Abstract:
I analyze a dataset of news from the New York Times, from 1946 to 1997. Controlling for presidential and congressional activity across issues, I find that during the presidential campaign the New York Times gives more emphasis to topics that are owned by the Democratic party (civil rights, health care, labor and social welfare), when the incumbent President is a Republican. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the New York Times has a Democratic partisanship, with some "watchdog" aspects, in that -during the presidential 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 of watchdog behaviour, since during presidential campaigns it also gives more more coverage to the typically Republican issue of Defense when the incumbent President is a Democrat, and less so when the incumbent is a Republican.

News, media, information, elections, media bias, New York Times, issue ownership

Abstract:
What would happen if the current U.S. campaign finance system, mostly based on private donations, were replaced by a public funding scheme of the same magnitude? It has been argued that public funding would deprive voters of useful information, but this can only be true if private donations are somehow targeted to `better' candidates. Using a survey-based dataset about the effectiveness of state legislators in North Carolina, we ask what voters can learn about the characteristics of a legislator from the amount and pattern of contributions received during the campaign. The total amount that a candidate receives is a positive, but weak, predictor of that candidate's effectiveness. However, the sum of contributions below a given threshold ($2,000) is a positive and strong signal of effectiveness, while the sum of contributions above such threshold is a negative signal of effectiveness. We also find that only contributions from organizations (rather then individuals, parties, or own money) convey a positive signal. In sum, our evidence contradicts the informational argument in favor of private funding when contributions are large or when they come from individuals and parties.

campaign finance, political economy

Abstract:
In a multidimensional policy space, citizens cast their vote on the basis of which policy issue they reckon as being more salient. An issue becomes salient if it is known that problems related to it have occurred, which deserve some policy action by the elected politician. Newspapers and TV news broadcasts provide pieces of news about which problems have taken place, but there is a limited amount of available space on each of them, so that an excluding choice must be made.

I develop a simple model of electoral competition with agenda-setting effects. In a two-issue, one-newspaper environment, I define as spin the ability of the incumbent politician to make the story about the favorite issue sexier, so that it is published for sure, at the expense of the story about the other issue.

As a function of the presence or lack of spin, the model offers testable predictions about the kind of news being published during the campaign, and the effects thereof on the electoral outcome. Moreover, the paper discusses the circumstances under which it would be ex ante optimal for the incumbent politician to commit not to engage himself in spin activity. This is true when the electorate is ideologically polarised.

News, media, elections, agenda setting, issue ownership

Abstract:
We analyze the coverage of U.S. political scandals by U.S. newspapers during the past decade. Using automatic keyword-based searches we collected data on 35 scandals and approximately 200 newspapers. We find that Democratic-leaning newspapers - i.e., those with a higher propensity to endorse Democratic candidates in elections - give relatively more coverage to scandals involving Republican politicians than scandals involving Democratic politicians, while Republican-leaning newspapers tend to do the opposite. This is true even when controlling for the average partisan leanings of readers. In contrast, newspapers appear to cater to the partisan tastes of readers only for local scandals.

Abstract:
We analyze the coverage of U.S. political scandals by U.S. newspapers during the past decade. Using automatic keyword-based searches we collected data on 35 scandals and approximately 200 newspapers. We find that Democratic-leaning newspapers - i.e., those with a higher propensity to endorse Democratic candidates in elections - give relatively more coverage to scandals involving Republican politicians than scandals involving Democratic politicians, while Republican-leaning newspapers tend to do the opposite. This is true even when controlling for the average partisan leanings of readers. In contrast, newspapers appear to cater to the partisan tastes of readers only for local scandals.

political scandals, media bias, United States, newspapers

Abstract:
We study the agenda-setting political behavior of a large sample of U.S. newspapers during the last decade, and the behavior of smaller samples for longer time periods. Our purpose is to examine the intensity of coverage of economic issues as a function of the underlying economic conditions and the political affiliation of the incumbent president, focusing on unemployment, inflation, the federal budget and the trade deficit. We investigate whether there is any significant correlation between the endorsement policy of newspapers, and the differential coverage of bad/good economic news as a function of the president's political affiliation. We find evidence that newspapers with pro- Democratic endorsement pattern systematically give more coverage to high unemployment when the incumbent president is a Republican than when the president is Democratic, compared to newspapers with pro-Republican endorsement pattern. This result is not driven by the partisanship of readers. There is on the contrary no evidence of a partisan bias - or at least of a bias that is correlated with the endorsement policy - for stories on inflation, budget deficit or trade deficit.

Abstract:
We study the agenda-setting political behavior of a large sample of U.S. newspapers during the last decade, and the behavior of smaller samples for longer time periods. Our purpose is to examine the intensity of coverage of economic issues as a function of the underlying economic conditions and the political affiliation of the incumbent president, focusing on unemployment, inflation, the federal budget and the trade deficit. We investigate whether there is any significant correlation between the endorsement policy of newspapers, and the differential coverage of bad/good economic news as a function of the president's political affiliation. We find evidence that newspapers with pro-Democratic endorsement pattern systematically give more coverage to high unemployment when the incumbent president is a Republican than when the president is Democratic, compared to newspapers with pro-Republican endorsement pattern. This result is not driven by the partisanship of readers. There is on the contrary no evidence of a partisan bias - or at least of a bias that is correlated with the endorsement policy - for stories on inflation, budget deficit or trade deficit.

Abstract:
Illegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about what drives individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the United States. We find evidence that -in addition to standard labor market and welfare state considerations- media exposure significantly affects public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for education, income and ideology, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to oppose the legalization of undocumented immigrants. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers, while instead individuals watching PBS are more likely to support the Senate proposal. Ideological self-selection into different news programs is a crucial factor, but cannot entirely explain the correlation between media exposure and attitudes about illegal immigration.

Immigration, Illegal Immigration, Attitudes, Preferences, Media