A new study from Wake Forest University suggests a lack of competition among news outlets contributes to media bias.
Economists Tommy Leung and Koleman Strumpf looked at stories on the websites of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. They used an artificial intelligence tool to calculate the political leanings of tens of thousands of articles published between 2021 and 2023.
The results show more biased stories tended to stay on home pages longer – even when less slanted stories received the same amount of reads and social media attention.
But that diminished when the papers covered the same story. Leung says that implies that competition reduces media bias.
“As a voter, it's very important to get information and news from all sides because we know there's media bias," he says. "And so it's very important to have a very balanced news diet, especially now, a few months away from the election.”
Although they focused on two of the best-known national newspapers in the country, Leung says this could also be a factor at the local level as news outlets close or consolidate under fewer owners.