Does the New York Times Spread Ignorance and Apathy

1
Does the New York Times Spread Ignorance and
Apathy?

• Lisa George
• Department of Economics
• Michigan State University
•  
•  
• Joel Waldfogel
• The Wharton School
• University of Pennsylvania
• and NBER
•  

2
Project Background

• Who benefits whom in product markets?
• (my recent obsession)
• How do product mix and consumer satisfaction vary
  with distribution of consumer types?
• For local products, welfare increases with size
  of ones local population
• Various media contexts
• Markets vs. politics
• Tyranny of the majority in markets?

3
Introduction

• What happens when the cost of transporting
  information declines?
• Better, more specialized media products become
  available everywhere
• Consumers may lose interest in local products
• Distraction from local affairs?
• Relevance Do media products
• distract from community?
• affect political participation
• Is media localism desirable?

4
Context and questions

• Context New York Times
• NYC-based national product
• Targets educated audience
• Questions
• does circulation of the Times outside of New York
  reduce local newspaper circulation among
  college-educated citizens?
• do local papers change?
• does the Times depress local political
  participation among its readers?

5
How Do Outside Media Affect Engagement in Local
Affairs?

• Large markets have more, and more varied, media
  products
• Newspapers, radio, tv
• National newspapers are fairly close
  substitutes for local papers
• May buy NYT in lieu of local paper
• may distract consumers from local affairs
• Two possible mechanisms
• Distracted citizens lack access to local
• Content
• Advertising

6

• Possible welfare consequences of media
  distraction
• All-or-nothing choice
• NYT buyers might prefer convexified product
• Distribution of welfare
• Distracted citizens leave the local electorate,
  changing median voters identity

7
Data

• Local Newspaper Circulation
• Local papers 8,990 zips in 95 and 99
• NYT MSA level (95, 97, 99)
• Both from ABC
• Zipcode demographics 90 Census
• Local Political Participation
• 94, 96, 98, 2000 turnout from CPS
• MSA identifiers
• Used with NYT data to create MSA panel
• Local Newspaper Positioning
• Product-level info
• Reporters by beat, 93 and 99
• Sample characteristics
• Why NYT?

8
Empirical Strategy Results

• Goals measure effect of NYT on
• Local paper circ
• Local paper positioning
• Voter turnout
• CX and longitudinal strategies
• Simple CX approach
• are educated persons less likely to buy local
  papers in markets with higher NYT circ?
• But unobserved heterogeneity

9
Dealing with Unobserved Heterogeneity

• common FE (CX)
• Identify effect from rel. betw. NYT penet and
  local behaviors
• (Local paper consumption)
• (Voter turnout)
• for target group, rel. to non-target group
• Overcomes common unobs. Het.
• FE not common (longitudinal)
• allow for group-specific MSA FE
• Identify effects from the relationship between
  changes in NYT penet. And changes in local
  behaviors for the target relative to the
  non-target group.
• valid inference even if the unobserved not common
  across target and non-target groups.

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1. New York Times Penetration and Local
Newspaper Circulation

• Issues observe local circ by zip
• Suppose observe separate
• Dont but
• So can estimate

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• Approach 1
• MSA FE
• Table 2, cols (1) and (2)
• ?3 ? -5
• Interp in markets with higher NYT penet,
  educated persons are less likely to buy the local
  paper, relative to less educated persons
• Approach 2
• Group X MSA FE
• Table 2, col (3)
• ?3 ? -11
• Interp as NYT penet increases, high-ed local
  paper cons declines, relative to low-ed local
  paper cons

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2. Local Paper Repositioning

• NYT seems to draw readers from local papers
• Do local papers seem to change?
• How do local papers change as NYT penetration
  changes?
• Approach 1
• CX
• Table 3, cols (2) and (3)
• Not clear whats happening
• Approach 2
• Changes (Table 3, col 4)
• NYT?
• increases local news, art
• decreases national news, opinion, special issues
• Roll over?

13
3. New York Times Penetration and Local Political
Participation

• Does the NYT depress targeted citizens political
  participation?
• Local vs. national elections
• Individual-level data
• Two basic approaches
• MSA FE
• Table 4, cols (1)-(3)
• ?3 ? -4
• Longitudinal group-specific FE
• Table 4, cols (4)- (6)
• ?3 ? -14

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Local vs. Presidential Elections

• NYT should not distract (as much) in presidential
  election years
• table 4 hint ?3 smaller in 96
• Test incorporating 2000 data
• Average NYT data across years
• Table 5 - MSA FE specifications, year by year
• Smaller in 96 and especially 2000
• Mobility
• A possible alternative explanation
• Table 6
• Tenure matters, but tenure does not explain
  effects we document

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Conclusion

• NYT
• reduces local paper circulation
• induces repositioning
• depresses voting
• Caveats
• Local papers arent only local info source
• Other national products also may distract
• Local content may matter
• FCC and localism
• Globalism?