Small screen, big echo? Political persuasion of local TV news: evidence from Sinclair

This paper investigates the heterogeneous effect of biased local TV news on political outcomes and opinions in the United States, exploiting the timing of the introduction of biased programming of a conservative-leaning broadcasting company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, over the years 1992-2020. First, I document Sinclair's pattern of bias to argue its local news programming exhibits a conservative slant since the 2004 election, though they operate stations since 1971. Using an event study methodology estimated through a two way fixed effect model, I argue that the within county evolution of electoral outcomes would have been the same, absent the change in Sinclair's content. I find that the county-level response to Sinclair bias on electoral outcomes is heterogeneous across time. Exposure to the change in biased content since 2004 corresponds to a 2.5% point increase in the Republican presidential two party vote share during the 2012 election, an effect that doubles during the 2016/2020 election, in addition to Republican gains in Congress in that same period. The associated persuasion rates are 4.7% of its potential audience in 2008-2012, and 14.4% in 2016-2020. Interactions with county characteristics reveal that the effect is concentrated among "isolated" counties, in contrast to economic factors. Individual level survey data reveals a congruent 8% and 10% point increase in the probability to vote for the Republican (presidential and congressional) candidate in 2016. Individual mechanisms suggest educational heterogeneity in the a rise in (self-declared) xenophobic attitudes and tolerance for racial inequality, yet no increases in support for traditionally Republican policy positions or populist rhetoric. A series of robustness checks rule out competing explanations. The totality of our results suggest that political persuasion is a dynamic process that is sensitive to environmental and personal characteristics.