Does the Media Cover the Economy Accurately? An Analysis of Sixteen Developed Democracies

Abstract

Can voters learn what they need to learn to hold governments accountable for the economy through news coverage? Employing the first large-scale cross-national dataset of media coverage of the economy — over 2 million articles related to three economic indicators in 32 mainstream newspapers, one left-wing and one right-wing, in 16 developed countries and 6 languages — we investigate media coverage of the economy that bears implications for electoral accountability and partisan advantage. We find that the tone of most mainstream newspapers tracks the economy faithfully, although the frequency of coverage increases with negative outcomes. While we find some evidence for partisan bias in tone for growth headlines and in frequency of coverage for unemployment articles, its substantive magnitude is diminutive. Mainstream newspaper coverage of the economy provides voters with largely accurate information.