Slanted Media Requires Slanted Demand

"It will happen again because people like you and me like to be lied to. We like bedtime stories."
--Jacob Moore (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)

It's easy to emphasize the supply-side of media of bias. Politically interested journalists slant their work because they simply can't help themselves from expressing their bias.

However, active markets for bias require both supply and demand. Journalists spewing politically biased drivel could not flourish unless people were willing to pay to consume it.

In fact, if you subscribe to the idea that supply follows demand, then it is the consumer's taste preference for biased information that finds media sources scrambling to satisfy the craving for slant.

1/ A writer for the NY Times once told me that the problem with the newspaper is that the readers are deluded. "If you write something that opposes the far-left party line, even if it's true, they punish you---through things like online comments and subscription cancellations."

— Tim Groseclose (@Tim_Groseclose) May 18, 2019

Tim Groseclose demonstrates with the above tweet. His NYT source implies that if the paper published content that opposed leftist doctrine, then readers would sanction the Gray Lady by reducing consumption. This is classic resource dependence theory in motion.

One could easily insert Fox News and the political right in the above narrative and get a similar logic.

While much is made about media bias, don't forget that sellers of slant can't get far without willing buyers.