Coverage of Congress in an Era of Declining Local News

• In Event: Elite Communication: Congress, Candidates, and Experts

Abstract

As local news outlets have declined, an increasing percentage of the American public gets its news from national sources. How has this shift changed the news people consume about Congress? Existing research examines the factors that drive coverage for individual members of Congress, suggesting that national coverage is driven by seniority and ideological extremity, but that these factors do not increase local news coverage. However, existing work does not directly compare coverage in local and national coverage, nor does it examine whether patterns of coverage have changed as local news outlets have declined. Drawing on an original dataset measuring the volume of coverage of members of Congress in two national papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and in the largest paper in each member’s district, we evaluate the variables related to the volume of coverage a member of congress receives in two time periods, before the collapse of local news outlets (2003-2007) and after (2015-2019). The results have implications for understanding the increase in polarization over this period, as well as the cratering of approval of and trust in Congress over the last decade.

Author

• C. Daniel Myers, University of Minnesota