Christensen, Julia B. "The Impact of Media Supply on Bureaucratic Information Collection"
Bureaucrats rely on news media to navigate a complex information environment and make strategic decisions, yet the volume of news is overwhelming. Agencies, therefore, contract private firms to distill news into daily “clipbooks” of relevant stories. I analyze these clipbooks across U.S. executive agencies and find a systematic skew: conservative news sources appear more often in briefings for conservative agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The skew does not appear to arise from biased news selection; instead, it mirrors the news supply--conservative outlets generally produce less content about liberal agencies, and vice versa. Because of this supply asymmetry, liberal agencies receive very little news from conservative sources. While the pattern is generally stable across administrations, there is some evidence of biased demand during Trump's second term, representing a clear departure from prior periods. I close by discussing how these disparities in coverage may affect agency decision making and representation.
Working paper and appendix.
Christensen, Julia B. "The President's Media Diet: White House News Consumption from Clinton to Obama"
What determines the president’s media diet? Every year, the US executive branch spends millions of dollars on news clipping and news brief services, yet we know relatively little about the causes and consequences of this effort. Using presidential archives, I collect and analyze a random sample of daily news summaries and clips (or “clipbooks”) from the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Preliminary text analysis of these documents suggests a complex set of tradeoffs broadly consistent with prior research on party leadership, reelection incentives, coalition merchants (Noel 2013), reality testing (Burke and Greenstein 1989) and governing through news (Cook 1998). Additionally, these documents reveal how news collection has adapted to changes in the media market. This paper draws together and substantiates prior theories of elite news consumption while also revealing the diversity and shifting nature of news sought out by the White House.
Research memo available here. Examples of clipbooks available here.
Christensen, Julia B. "Gatekeeping Bias in Local Media Coverage of Pedestrian and Cyclist Fatalities"
Last year, over a hundred thousand pedestrians were hit by cars in the United States and around eight thousand died. Decisions by local governments determine where and how often these deaths occur. While deaths often prompt cities to consider pedestrian improvements, responses vary widely and depend on whether politicians feel pressure from their constituents. This pressure is dependent on people learning about policy problems, which depends (in part) on the news media. Due to its critical role, we need to understand when and why the news chooses to feature pedestrian fatalities and other indicators of policy failure. When do journalists choose to feature a particular case? From prior research, we know that victim characteristics like race and gender can shape perceptions of newsworthiness in policy areas with strong racial and gender stereotypes. I find little evidence that these racial disparities persist when we look at coverage of pedestrian fatalities, although I do find that other victim characteristics like mode of transportation, gender, and age affect the likelihood of coverage. I also find some evidence that the hollowing-out of local news coverage has reduced coverage of pedestrian fatalities, but the effect is concentrated to certain papers/cities.
Working paper and slides available upon request.