Representative Reporters? Examining Journalists’ Ideology in Context

Objective. We investigate the ideological orientations of U.S. statehouse journalists, asking whether reporters hold similar political ideologies to their audiences, and under what conditions reporter ideology diverges from audience ideology. Methods. We use an original survey of statehouse journalists, and employ both traditional OLS regressions and a heteroskedastic regression. Results. We find that reporters tend to reflect the political leanings of their audiences. Considering reporters in the context of the states they serve, we find that journalists who are racially and economically dissimilar from their constituents have less representative political predispositions than journalists who have characteristics similar to their readers. Conclusions. In the case of statehouse reporters, descriptive representation leads to substantive representation.