Yesterday’s Pressbox column talks about a new paper by a couple of UChicago economists. They’ve analyzed the role of economics in determining media bias in the United States, with interesting results: to wit, competitive pressures will have a mitigating effect on natural bias.
That said, though the math may work, I’m not sure that I fully agree with the conclusion. Jack Schafer, the author of the column, points out the example of the London newspapers, and it seems a good example. I’d be curious to see what Gentzkow and Shapiro think.
(Original paper, in pdf format, is here: http://home.uchicago.edu/~jmshapir/bias091305.pdf)