Two Papers in Joint Operating Agreement Publish Meaningful Editorial Diversity

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2004 by Rodgers, Ron, Hallock, Steve, Gennaria, Mike, Wei, Fei

A common assumption about newspaper markets is that the competition brought about by the existence of two or more daily newspapers in a market fosters diversity and competition of ideas and news coverage.1 This competition would include different types of stories covered by the separate editorial staffs, different emphasis given to stories of similar topics, different approaches to those stories and the existence of varying ideologies and topics on the editorial page. Such competition is vital to maintain democratic government, as Classer argued in his defense of a free press:

First Amendment protection ... is desirable because it fosters a robust and uninhibited press; a robust and uninhibited press is desirable because it is a press able and. presumably willing to accommodate divergent points of view; divergent points of view are desirable because they sustain public debate; public debate is desirable because it nurtures an informed citizenry; and an informed citizenry is desirable because it brings about a more perfect polity and, in the end, legitimates the very idea of self government.2

The joint operating agreement (JOA) phenomenon began during the Depression as a means of easing the financial stresses of competition.3 After the first formalized agreement was formed in Albuquerque, N. M., in 1933, joint operating agreements continued to be formed until 1969, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such agencies were illegal. The next year, Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the Newspaper Preservation Act allowing newspapers to enter joint operating agreements (JOAs) in which they share costs of production, business and circulation operations while maintaining separate, competing newsrooms.4 However, it mustbe demonstrated that one of the two newspapers is in "probable danger of failing. "5 A 1972 federal district court ruling found that JOAs serve to preserve editorial independence and that the act met constitutional muster.

Literature Review

Few studies deal explicitly with the effects of JOAs on the editorial diversity of the agreement's participating newspapers. Those studies that have been done offer conflicting findings, as reported by Lacy in his review of the literature.6 Lacy has found, however, that JOA newspapers more closely resemble competitive newspapers in news and editorial content than they do monopoly newspapers.7

The literature on chain ownership effects on editorials and editorial pages is a bit richer. This literature is appropriate for the current study, as many JOA newspapers also are group owned. Wagenburg and Soderland's analysis of seven Canadian newspapers belonging to the same chain found no evidence that any of the papers colluded in the writing of their editorials.8 Borstel discovered little difference in editorial comment linked to ownership or competition, but he found that chain newspapers emphasized more local economic issues.9 Thrift found that group-owned papers tended to have fewer editorials of a controversial nature after purchase by a chain.10 Akhavan-Majid, Rife and Gopinath found evidence suggesting that chain ownership can have a homogenizing effect on editorial position and policy.11 In their analysis of endorsements from four national election cycles-1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972-Wackman, Gillmore, Gaziano and Dennis found that chain newspapers were more likely to endorse presidential candidates than were independently owned papers and that the degree of homogeneity among chain newspapers was high for all four elections.12 Gaziano replicated this finding in examining elections in 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988,13 but Busterna and Hansen were unable to find the same trend in a study of presidential endorsements in the 19761984 presidential elections.14

Three phenomena in newspaper markets lend importance to the determination of the effects of newspaper ownership and competition on newspaper editorial independence and diversity. They are the increase in joint operating agreements, whose number had grown, since the first formalized agreement in Albuquerque in 1933, to newspapers in 22 cities by the time of congressional adoption of the Newspaper Preservation Act in 1970;15 the decrease in the number of daily U.S. newspapers over the last half of the 20th century-from 1,772 in 1950 to 1,745 30 years later despite a U.S. population increase from 150,000,000 to 220,000,000 during the same period;16 and the decrease in the number of cities that have daily newspaper competition-the number of such cities had declined from 288 in 1930 (20.6 percent of all daily U.S. newspapers) to 39 (2.5 percent) in 1976. In 1986, 47 U.S. cities had two or more separately owned newspapers that were not chain-owned or newspaper operations in which the two newspapers were owned by the same company, a number that had declined to 20 by 2000.17

In an effort to determine the effects of this changing trend in ownership on newspaper editorial diversity, this study focuses on editorial similarities and differences through an analysis of editorials of two daily newspapers operating in a metropolitan area JOA-Cincinnati, Ohio, where the morning Enquirer is published every day and the afternoon Posf is published Monday through Saturday. The study is intended to determine if the competing editorials of these newspapers offer evidence of diversity in ideology and subject matter and whether two newspapers that are part of a joint operating agreement meet the Newspaper Preservation Act's goals of offering competing editorial voices on their opinion pages. The research questions were: