On A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades
JBSm actually, the small increase is from 2004 to 2005: in other words, the uptick actually happened during 2004. Let me phrase this another way: say the measurements were taken on January first of 2004 and on January first of 2005: the increase in readership did not happen in 2005, but 2004. The slight uptick cannot be attributed to Goldberg, since he was only added in 2005. In other words, if Jonah Goldberg were to influence readership one way or the other, you'd expect the difference to be seen in the year AFTER his hiring, that is from 2005 to 2006.
Posted on October 28, 2009 at 1:12 pm
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On A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades
I think you depict an incomplete assessment of the situation. Fox was successful as a right wing outlet pretty much from the start. The NYT, LAT, Boston Globe, Washington Post and the like are on the liberal end of the mainstream. If they tried to emulate Fox and the like in an attempt to grab some of that advertising cash, you'd expect their more liberal readership to be turned off by it, and see a corresponding decrease in circulation. In contrast, adding a conservative columnist at, say, the NY Post wouldn't hurt their circulation numbers because their readership is already conservative. Let me put it this way: if Fox news were to start to feature liberal viewpoints quite prominently in their broadcasts on a regular basis, it'd be very likely that it would cause several of their right wing viewers (who are likely to also be their most devoted listeners) to tune out. It's called self-selection bias.