Corporate ownership and news bias: Newspaper coverage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act

The purpose of this study is to assess the influence of corporate media own ers over news content. In particular, we address the claim that the financi al interests of corporate owners lead America's news bureaus to downplay th e significant issues surrounding the growing concentration of ownership of the country's mass media. To do so we examine newspaper coverage of one asp ect of the 1996 Telecommunications Act: the loosening of restrictions on te levision ownership. We compare coverage of this aspect of the Telecommunica tions Act in newspapers owned by companies that stood to gain From the loos ening of these restrictions, with coverage in newspapers owned by companies which did not stand to gain. We find substantial differences in how newspa pers reported on these proposed regulatory changes depending on the financi al interests of their corporate owners.