The relationship between members of Congress and local media outlets has long been understudied by political scientists. This failure to fully explore one of the critical links between citizens and their representatives has left us with an incomplete understanding of how, or even whether, the local news media facilitate representation and accountability. R. Douglas Arnold's new book takes a significant step toward addressing this gap with an ambitious and rich study of the local news media's role in providing (or not providing) the information necessary for citizens to hold their elected officials accountable. While Arnold notes that citizens may receive information about their House members from various sources, he argues that local newspapers are unique among these information providers because, ideally, they act as independent monitors as well as forums for the airing of diverse opinions. Ultimately, however, he finds that many newspapers fall far short of this ideal by failing to produce adequate congressional coverage.
The key finding in Arnold's analysis is that there is substantial variance in the type of congressional coverage produced by local newspapers: Some papers produce exceptional coverage of House members, while others fail to produce a minimal standard of information that would be necessary for citizens to reasonably hold incumbents accountable. Specifically, newspapers with more resources and fewer House members to cover tend to provide the best coverage. Representatives also attract more coverage when they do newsworthy things, such as running for higher office or becoming the subject of ethics violations. His analysis reveals that unfortunately, reporters do not find legislative activities such as bill sponsorship or committee work particularly newsworthy. An even more troubling finding is that only 6 percent of the news stories referred to anyone who criticized the incumbent's performance; most criticisms were confined to editorials and letters to the editor. This finding only further underscores that citizens may not be receiving the type of information they would need to fully evaluate the performance of their representatives.
There is much to commend in Arnold's book, not the least of which is the impressive data that he brings to bear on this relatively new area of study. Indeed, local congressional news coverage has not been heavily studied at least partly because of the difficulty in collecting data from news outlets across more than 200 local media markets in the United States. Not only does the author present a wealth of data, but he also does so in a thoughtful way that allows him to say a great deal on the subject. His inclusion of both large and small market newspapers allows him to analyze coverage in papers as different as the Los Angeles Times and the Idaho Falls Post Register. These newspapers clearly operate in very different environments with very different resources, factors that influence the production of local congressional news, according to Arnold's findings. The scope of his analysis is also illuminating, as the study includes everything that appears in the newspaper, including editorials and letters to the editor. There are important differences in news stories compared to opinion coverage, namely, that opinion coverage tends to be more critical of House members while news coverage is typically neutral or positive. It is also notable that Arnold tracks coverage throughout an entire Congress, providing far more context than previous studies that have focused only on congressional campaigns. Yet despite the overwhelming amount of analysis presented, he does a nice job of highlighting the key findings and tying things together at the end of each chapter.
Because the book is one of the first comprehensive examinations on the relationship between House members and the local media, there are, naturally, many avenues left unexplored (a point Arnold himself discusses in the final chapter). One of the most intriguing aspects for all scholars of representation is the process through which the news media may facilitate accountability. According to the author, there are at least two ways that the news media can play this role. First, the local media may encourage accountability by providing citizens with information they can use to determine whether their representatives are performing their jobs well. In this conception, the news media and citizens are the central actors; reporters must produce information about incumbents and citizens must also consume and use that information. This process is Arnold's focus, and he produces a first-rate examination of whether local newspapers provide sufficient coverage and how citizens use that information.
A second way the local media may facilitate accountability is by influencing the behavior of incumbents. Members of Congress who are aware that the local media in their districts are watching and reporting on them may be more careful to provide better representation to their constituents than those who draw less attention back in their districts. In this way, accountability is less attributable to what the media actually report (or whether citizens consume that coverage) than it is to incumbents acting strategically to avoid unfavorable coverage. This idea is an important one because it means that accountability relies less on citizens, whom political scientists typically view as cognitive misers, and on the media, who are often indicted for the quality of their political coverage, than it does on politicians concerned about the story that local reporters might write if they misstep. As a result, Arnold argues, House members who are most likely to win coverage are also most likely to do the best job representing their districts.
Of course, this is merely a hypothesis presented by the author, and a direct test of the idea is beyond the scope of his book. Examining this aspect of the local media's role in promoting accountability would necessitate a study of legislative behavior as ambitious as his analysis of local news coverage. But this untested hypothesis is just one example of the many exciting new directions that Arnold's analysis suggests to future scholars. Indeed, this is one of the central contributions of ambitious studies in previously understudied areas; they often provide us with as many new questions as they do answers. Arnold's fine book provides both.
