Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Even minimal definitions of democracy recognize that access to information about political candidates is a necessary component of “free and fair” elections, but electoral competition and economic liberalization do not by themselves guarantee more politically plural coverage. In our examination of the most-frequently cited source of political news, television, we find that the worldviews of station owners or state TV directors – the businessmen, partisans and oligarchs who make up today’s television elite in the developing world – determine how biased the news will remain as a new democracy consolidates. Their news decisions are based in part on instrumental calculations of how to profit economically or politically in a new macro-environment. But they are also influenced by authoritarian inertia and distinctive philosophies of news production. Thus, we argue, policy debates about state or private sector ownership miss the heart of the matter. For partisan bias to end, newsrooms must be controlled by people dedicated to political pluralism in the news, but those newsrooms can be constructed within either the state or the private sector just as they can both be captured by partisan interests. Although our quantitative analysis and case studies are drawn from Mexico, our conclusions should be relevant for a range of new democracies