Good Question: Is There An East Coast Bias?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Whether it's a heat wave or a blizzard, a traffic pile-up or a political confrontation, if it happens on the East Coast, it is national news. We talk a lot about political bias, but is there an East Coast bias to the news?
"Generally because New York and Washington, D.C. are centers of what happens and centers of finance, it happens naturally," said Seth Lewis, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota.
Lewis used to work in the east coast media, at a newspaper in Miami.
"In Miami, there's a sense that there's a New York bias in the news," he said.
In sports, there's no question there's a media fascination with the New York Yankees. When the team came to Minnesota for the playoffs, more than 300 reporters showed up.
"In the solar system of media, New York is the epicenter. They are the sun and we all just revolve around New York, for better or worse," said Lewis.
Part of it is the sheer volume of media organizations in New York. According to Manta.com, there are 8,769 media organizations in the state.
"These networks are based in New York, there are so many elites living there, we're left with picking up the scraps," Lewis said.
There's also a psychological component to this, because editors and journalists are vulnerable to the same biases as everyone else.
"Journalists tend to report the things they're most associated and familiar with," Lewis said.
Psychologists call that the availability heuristic. We over-inflate the importance of things right in front of our eyes.
To New Yorkers, it's the perception that "the world ends at the Hudson River," Lewis said.
But there's a defense to the perception of east coast bias: the sheer size of the population. The reality is, from Miami to Maine, approximately 36 percent of the U.S. population lives on the East Coast.
"Minnesota's a small little place; New York gets all the coverage," said one woman on the street of downtown Minneapolis.
By population, it would take about 21 Minneapolis' to equal the number of people who live in New York City.
"If these network newscasts were based here in the Midwest, you'd probably see a different kind of coverage," said Lewis.
The good news for news consumers may be in the digital era of news.
"We can filter it out by the kinds of things we choose to read," said Lewis. "You have the chance to get localized, individualized kinds of news."
