Inverted Demand for a More Informative Press


Andrew Trexler
University of Wisconsin-Madison

APSA 2025

The media matters for democracy


Actual media coverage looks different


A classic perspective

Au contraire

  • Typical approaches to coverage do not broaden the audience
  • Instead, they double down on the most attentive: political hobbyists
  • Less engaged audiences prefer more informative content

Typical styles of coverage


Partisan Conflict

Insider Jargon

Prediction-as-News

Clickbait

Public interest

  • Centers normative goals in the approach to coverage

Study 1

Study Design

  • Preregistered conjoint experiment (\(n = 2,101\))
  • Choose between two news stories to read
  • Completed 10 decision tasks
  • Respondents told they would be asked to read one of their selections
  • Randomize style, issue topic, source, reading time

Example Decision Task

Repackaging in Any Style


Coverage Style Example Headline
Public Interest Congress approves new military aid package for Ukraine in bipartisan votes
Partisan Conflict Congress approves new Ukraine funding, delivering Biden victory over GOP objections
Insider Jargon Johnson pushes through Ukraine aid bill despite objections from Freedom Caucus
Prediction-as-news The House Speaker’s push to approve new Ukraine funding might cost him his job
Clickbait Here’s how the House Speaker got around far-right opposition to secure Ukraine aid

AMCE of Headline Style


AMCE of Headline Style


Conditional MCE of Style by Political Engagement

Appendix: PE Measures

Headline Evaluations

Study 2

Study Design

  • Partnered with Ground News
  • Recruited probability sample of US RV, supplemented with nonprob sample (total n = 1,717)
  • Pre-treatment measures of pol. engagement
  • Enrolled in email newsletter
    • 3x/week for 8 weeks
    • 5 headlines in each
  • Randomized headline styles
  • Track demand with digital trace data

Example Newsletters

Engagement

Takeaways

  • Less politically engaged audiences want public interest news
  • News junkies provide demand for entertaining political coverage
  • Outlets have potential avenues to grow news audiences
  • Modest decline in news avoidance over time


Thank you!

atrexler@wisc.edu
atrexler.com