Media bias alert: Why do newspapers endorse candidates?
FILE-A voter walks to a booth to fill out their ballot inside a school. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
Newspapers historically have endorsed political candidates and while the insights of the print publication can be a helpful resource for readers, a study explores the relationship between endorsements from newspapers and how it influences media bias.
In a Harvard study published in 2023, lead researcher Kevin DeLuca, a Yale political science professor, assessed how newspapers may be biased in their preferences for one political candidate over another.
DeLuca evaluates the political candidate’s quality and if this may influence a newspapers endorsement of a candidate and if it factors into a partisan bias by the publication.
According to the study, newspapers make endorsements of candidates based on their coverage of them leading up to elections, which provides a service for readers who do not have the time to research a candidate or election and rely on the newspaper for information. The newspaper will then publish an editorial justifying their endorsements to their readers.
The study defines candidate quality as the characteristics of political candidates that make them better at governing like competency, experience, and not being corrupt.
The report also points out that if newspapers favor a particular political candidate, it may reflect a partisan bias by the newspaper influencing their endorsements, without considering the political candidate’s qualities to run for office.
One example used in the study illustrates that if a Democratic candidate receives a significant number of endorsements, including endorsements from newspapers that tend to support Republican candidates, this is an indication that the Democrat is a "high-quality candidate" and the "Republican is a low-quality candidate."
To estimate candidate quality, the study includes data of more than 22,000 local newspaper endorsements of political candidates. These endorsements come from over 400 different newspapers from 1950-2022 and include endorsements in thousands of elections across all offices, from president to local city government roles.