Corporate-Owned Papers Near the Border More Likely to Run Anti-Immigrant News and Views

By Lee Drutman, Miller-McCune.com. Posted June 22, 2009.

"All these news values put news organizations close to the border searching for sensational local stories like drugs, smuggling, kidnapping," Dunaway said. "People crave local information, so there's a real push for these guys to stick with what's relevant to the community. Put that with the crime news script, and the fact that the border is closer, and it makes sense that this is how patterns in coverage would turn out."

The result is often a distortion of reality. Actual crime statistics show that levels of immigrant crime do not increase closer to the border, Dunaway noted. Only the coverage of such crime increases.

"They have to cover things that are relevant to the community," Branton added. "But I don't think that the implications of immigration are all negative. There's a way to cover these stories without the negative. They could be more neutral."

As for the extra-negative boost associated with corporate-owned papers, the authors note that these papers are even more concerned with making money, and hence most likely to try to give readers exactly what their publishers are convinced their readers want. In the case of communities closer to the border, this appears to be a lot of sensational, anti-immigrant stories.

"[Corporate-owned papers] are a slave to their audience in a narrower way," Dunaway explained. "But it's not that privately owned papers don't need to profit, but they have other competing goals, like public service. Publicly traded companies generally are just more sensational." (In a separate study, Dunaway found that media organizations owned by publicly traded companies produced less "substantive" political election coverage.)

So, if the newspapers are just trying to make money and keep readers, isn't that defensible?

"In my opinion, no," Dunaway said. "Even aside from the tensions it could create, another complaint I have is that sensational stories are probably crowding out more important news stories. Papers won't spend time talking about a policy proposal at the local or state or national level, or options that voters might have."

Since Branton and Dunaway argue that one reason that coverage is so negative in the first place is that newspapers are catering to the pre-existing anti-immigrant prejudices of their readers, it can be a bit difficult to determine exactly what effect the coverage is having. Dunaway believes it serves a "reinforcing" function. It also may help to prime citizens to see certain aspects of an issue but not others. In another study, Dunaway, Branton and Marisa A. Abrajano (a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego) find that the media plays an agenda-setting role in discussions of immigration policy.

"I think the next important step is making the connection between not only the tone, but also the volume, in affecting attitudes," Branton said. "One interesting characteristic of media coverage on this issue is not only does it heighten the salience of the issue in the public's mind, but it also serves to make attitudes a little more negative, and for more restrictive immigration."

Though the logic these studies describe is a somewhat reinforcing one — local media outlets covering the negative, sensational aspects of immigration because that's what they think sells, which makes opinion even more negative, creating even more demand for negative coverage — the scholars see some possibilities for breaking the cycle.

Branton notes that with the current economic situation, the flow of immigrants coming to border states to look for work has decreased, which has the possibility to change the tenor of the debate.

And Dunaway thinks that with local journalism in crisis generally, it's possible a new business model might emerge. And perhaps a new model — one not so dependent on ad dollars — might give local media organizations more freedom to offer a more balanced perspective.

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