The Times has a story today about the differences between a publicly (read: shareholders) and privately (read: mogul) held newspaper. They don’t appear to really offer much of a deep analysis either way, but prior research in fact has.
I recently came across an article by U-Iowa Law faculty Randall Bezanson about this very distinction and its impact on press law (“The Structural Attributes of Press Freedom: Private Ownership, Public Orientation, and Editorial Independence,” 2003). The article refers to a study by Bezanson, Cranberg and Soloski with an interesting finding (Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company, 2001). The study attempted to answer the question, “whose opinion has the greatest impact on a newspaper’s content?”
Was it the audience? Was it advertisers?
Nope…it was the investment market. I have not read the actual study, so I cannot speak to the exact nature of the differing impact, but the finding seems very relevant to this story.
Also in the Times today is a piece about the legal status of YouTube (compare to the previous post).
On a more personal note…I’ll be taking preliminary exams very soon, so there likely won’t be any posts until November.
Cheers,
-john