Are newspaper articles more liberal than their readership? This question was posted on a forum (see here), and I thought it was interesting, especially in light of the recent spotlight on Matthew Gentzkow's work. So, I'm re-posting it here.


  Some studies claim that newspaper articles are usually more liberal than their readership. Since the news market is competitive, should we doubt this claim?
This strikes me as a straightforward industrial organization anomaly question. Like, why do hot dogs and buns come in different counts to a package or why are the finest apples shipped out of apple producing regions?

Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010) that this paradox is only an apparent contradiction. They find slant is mostly a product of readership bias. 


  By contrast, we find much less evidence for a role of newspaper owners
  in determining slant. While slant is somewhat correlated across
  co-owned papers, this effect is driven by the geographic clustering of
  ownership groups. After controlling for the geographic location of
  newspapers, we find no evidence that the variation in slant has an
  owner-specific component. We also find no evidence that pressure from 
  incumbent politicians or the tastes of reporters are important drivers
  of slant.


But jmbejara already mentions knowing about Gentzkow so it isn't obvious what he's looking for beyond this insight. 

Timothy Taylor,  Managing Editor of the JEP and blogger at CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST also has an article on this subject that may be of interest, 
The Economics of Media Bias.