ABSTRACT
Organizational and economic factors are important macro determinants of news, and the chapter discusses their role in contemporary media. After describing organizational influences, such as the nature of the newsroom and organizational culture, the chapter delves deeply into the biases induced by owners’ political ideologies, with particular emphasis on Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and MSNBC. Economic forces are of critical importance in understanding newspaper declines and broader changes in news. The chapter lays out key factors, such as the collapse of the standard news distribution model and difficulties in monetizing Facebook. The final section pulls these issues together by focusing on a core dimension of news – local coverage – with an examination of the sociological and economic roots of local news, enriched by a real-life example of the misfortunes of a metropolitan newspaper.
