Local Press Politics

Abstract

This project examines the lobbying efforts of state and regional print media associations in the United States. The analysis is primarily concerned with two aspects of newspaper association lobbying: the amount of money newspaper associations spend on lobbying efforts and the amount of information about lobbying activities those organizations disclose to the public. Those areas of inquiry are addressed through quantitative and qualitative analyses of press association websites and financial records. Using journalistic understandings of transparency as a foundation, the research considers how newspaper associations characterize their efforts to shape public policy through lobbying, what issues they emphasize as priorities on public websites, and how their online statements about public policy compare to actual money spent lobbying on behalf of newspapers. The study suggests that newspaper associations are not especially transparent about their own involvement in the governmental process. Many associations considered in this study provided little information about the money and time spent lobbying the government to make it easier for reporters to do their job and for newspapers to turn a profit. As advocates for government transparency and important actors in democratic societies themselves, the study ultimately argues, newspapers have a moral obligation to be transparent about such matters.

KEYWORDS:

• government
• lobbying
• newspaper
• open government
• press association
• transparency

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Two press associations represented multiple states: the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the New England Press Association, which represents newspapers in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont (Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts also have individual state press associations). There are two state press associations in New York (the New York Press Association and the New York News Publishers Association) and Florida (the Florida Press Association and the Florida Society of News Editors).

2. Form 990s examined in this study were obtained through Guidestar.org, a nonprofit clearinghouse for information about charitable organizations. According to Guidestar's website, nonprofit organizations are encouraged (but not required by law) to submit the forms, which are then made public on the internet. Eight of the 49 newspaper associations had not submitted the forms to Guidestar as of December 2014. Federal tax code requires tax-exempt organizations to make the records available if they are requested in person, but organizations are not required to post the information online. The newspaper associations studied, their Web URLs, and information about their tax documentation are included in Appendix A.

3. One of the three associations that reported no lobbying expenses but listed general policy priorities was the Texas Press Association, which kept its specific lobbying agenda on a password-protected site.