tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22031270.post1988307818104965554..comments2023-11-03T19:05:08.512+11:00Comments on Harry Clarke: Krugman on MurdochUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22031270.post-28705575472718447642007-06-30T21:08:00.000+10:002007-06-30T21:08:00.000+10:00Hi Harry,I agree that your summary (not having rea...Hi Harry,<BR/><BR/>I agree that your summary (not having read the Krugman piece) doesn't present Murdoch as anymore than a ruthless profit maximizer.<BR/><BR/>My concern is the quote that he is "slanting news coverage to favor whoever he thinks will serve his business interests."<BR/><BR/>Gentkow's results for newspapers are inconsistent with this. <BR/><BR/>Unless Fox news is more like editorial comment then it is hard to see why the same won't hold for television. One could argue that if Fox had presented the bad news about Iraq its audience would have switched off anyway. This is hard to test. Gentkow (and Shapiro)'s work is clever in that they have measures of political bias for both news coverage and political leanings for markets so the question can be tested.<BR/><BR/>The assessment at the end of the reply seems a bit more critical of Krugman than the last paragraph of the original post.<BR/><BR/>cheersAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22031270.post-66760375550941629722007-06-30T20:08:00.000+10:002007-06-30T20:08:00.000+10:00David, I don't think Krugman is accusing Murdoch o...David, I don't think Krugman is accusing Murdoch of dishonesty - nor do I think he sees systematic political interference. He justs sees a ruthless profit-maker who tailors his papers to maximise profit in any situation. This is not inconsistent with the Gentzkow argument. <BR/><BR/>He is arguing that truth (that which Krugman believes in with the wisdom of hindsight) should be presented on FOX - not programs that maximise Murdoch's profits.hchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13799594181016858701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22031270.post-66012054018452537392007-06-30T19:34:00.000+10:002007-06-30T19:34:00.000+10:00The problem with this story is that the empirical ...The problem with this story is that the empirical evidence on newspapers doesn't support their being systematic political interference in news reporting in newspapers. Matthew Gentzkow has looked at this question:<BR/>http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/matthew.gentzkow/papers.html<BR/><BR/>He finds newspapers tend to reflect the political biases of their audiences e.g. a paper owned by the New York Times in South Carolina looks more like other South Carolina papers than the New York Times.<BR/><BR/>My memory from his talk is that this may not be the case for editorial pages. But for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, it is unlikely Murdoch will make it more right wing!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com