Editorial Bias of Newspapers

Claims by newspaper editors and editorial boards that they seek to be politically balanced needs to be taken with grain of salt. Sometimes the nature and degree of a paper’s political bias is evident after reading a half-dozen or so editorials whereas for others whose editorials are nuanced it may take as many as three dozen editorials to detect their political bias. Bias is also reflected in the editorials but also in the columnists they publish over the course of a week.

Having lived in various places over the years in reading a diversity of editorial pages, I’ve noticed that the paper tends to reflect the nature of the community in which it is published and their primary audience. The more nuanced papers tend to be in communities that tend to be more centrist where they sometimes elect a person leaning more towards the political left and other times a person who leans more towards the political right.

Why do so many have a clear bias which their community’s voting pattern rather the balanced approach they claim?  Options:  A) The paper’s editorial bias permeates the community to the degree that its opinion shapes the electoral outcomes. This view cannot be sustained as I’m not aware of any paper held in such high regard that people follow its thinking.  B) The community’s political posture and views are what shapes the editorial page’s content. I can’t agree with this view for it leaves the paper and its editor merely pandering to the community and not helping shaping its opinion.   C)  The paper’s owner hires editors whose viewpoints are akin with the nature of community and/or primary audience. I believe that this is the more likely option. Newspapers are sales driven and it is not wise to be alienated from those who consume your product.

Hence it’s not that the paper and its editor lack a defined opinion, or think through issues as would be suggested by option “b”. Rather the owner hires editors with biases that reflect the community, ensuring that the starting point for the editorials will tend to align with those of the given community.