When newspapers fold, voter turnout drops, fewer local candidates seek public office and incumbents become even more likely to stay in office, says a study by two Princeton University researchers.
The researchers studied the northern Kentucky suburbs served by the Cincinnati Post, which published its last edition Dec. 31, 2007. They acknowledge that their study sample was small, and the time frame short. But they note that other studies have had similar findings, including:
- Places with higher newspaper circulation per capita have less corruption.
- Incumbent advantage is lower in cities that have their own daily or weekly newspaper.
An article on the media blog Confessions of a Newsosaur — which is linked from Jim Romenesko’s newsletter — quotes from the study:
“By revealing incumbents’ misdeeds or making it easier for challengers to get their message out, a newspaper may reduce incumbent advantage. Newspaper stories could also raise interest in politics, inspiring more people to vote or run for office.”
The Princeton study concludes:
Several other well-known newspapers have closed since the Post — the largest being Scripps’ Rocky Mountain News, circulation 210,000, just last month — and more are in danger.
Observers are energetically debating whether these closings matter: Do newspapers play a valuable, irreplaceable role in American democracy, or can new media fill the gap left when a paper closes?
Starr (2009) argues that the newspaper industry’s decline “raises practical questions for anyone concerned about the future of American democracy.” On the other hand, after the Rocky closed, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, said the paper’s demise was “mostly for the better” (Crummy, 2009).
Whether our results support Starr’s view or Polis’ depends on how one values competitive elections. But if voter turnout, a broad choice of candidates and accountability for incumbents are important to democracy, we side with those who lament newspapers’ decline.
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
My experience here in the UK is that the local newspapers offer very little scrutiny of politics and politicians. It’s the bloggers who uncover the dirt and publish it.
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It would be interesting to see a study on the newspapers that have closed in the last 5 years to see if they typically leaned liberal or conservative.
I have really appreciated the changes the Post Dispatch has made over the last few years including the changes starting next week on print font. My issues with the liberal leanings of the papers remain however. While liberals say we conservatives are blowing smoke, I have yet to see a liberal complain about any of the reporting from the PD..which tells me that they enjoy the bias that is typically shown.
Since I know to weed out the bias from the truth, I’ll continue to read and enjoy the Post Dispatch. Sitting out on my back lanai (porch) on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee would never be the same if I had to get my news from a laptop.
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Polis is obviously an idiot. The people of Colorado did a disservice to themselves by electing that man to office. There’s a laundry list of problems with only web-based news content. Tops among them is too much unfiltered information. Also, anyone can start a website, which leaves the general public on its own to appraise the credibility of the person delivering the so-called `news.’ Newspapers (it is hoped) hire credible reporters, educated to know the profession. Usually, newspaper reporters also tend to have a cynical eye, which is beneficial — both for themselves and the general public — to weighing the credibility of a news source. Nevertheless, plenty of reporters still get hoodwinked. It happens. But a reporter also needs to harbor a responsibility to step up and correct important misinformation if he or she discovers it to be wrong — even if no one else picks up on the error. This is an important distinction between newspaper reporters and those on television and radio, generally. I’ve witnessed it many a time where a television or radio reporter disseminated false information, but it was never corrected. Of course, time constraints factor in with radio and television, as opposed to newspapers. Still, in my experience, I think television and radio reporters are less likely to correct important misinformation due to vanity. That said, do you believe someone with no journalistic training whatsoever will have cultivated the needed responsibility to correct misinformation they put out? Will they recognize the grave importance of doing so? Not likely. It will be worse than what we have now with the radio and television stations (excluding National Public Radio, of course). A Centrist… Do you ever offer any answers, or do you just criticize? I have yet to read a constructive blog entry from you. Oh, and nice `bank-up’ job on editing your own copy there. I would think it would be hard to type while you’ve got your own foot stuck in your mouth.
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There is a problem with this study. The researchers sampled data from one condition (voting trends in a community of 2 newspapers vs. 1 newspaper) and then draw a conclusion of “Incumbent advantage is lower in cities that have their own daily or weekly newspaper”, a condition of 1 newspaper vs. 0 newspaper.
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Yeah, Steve, the PD did a bank-up job getting the word out about our new president. I guess that’s why we got change.
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Pretty good blog Steve, but I will comment on one thing. A paper like the Post only “makes it easier for challengers to get their message out” if they are annoited by the paper to defeat a conservative incumbent. The amount of press given to a conservative challenging a sitting liberal is way less than if the roles were reversed.
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Despite a newspaper’s best efforts(if indeed they have put forth the effort)to keep corruption out of local politics, we only have to look to our neighbors from the north, Chicago, to know that it’s a moot point. Politics, especially local politics, are corrupted by nature. Chicago has two newspapers, yet just about every single politician working there is as crooked as a stick.
Unfortunately, newspapers are not our saviors. Nothing can save us from the greedy government. NOTHING.
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