Study: N.M. newspapers favor right-wing opinions

By | The New Mexican

6/22/2008

Conservatives dominate op-ed pages in New Mexico newspapers, according to a nationwide study by Media Matters in America.

According to a news release from Media Matters, a Web site of media criticism, conservative syndicated columnists appear an average of 33 times each week in New Mexico's 18 daily newspapers, compared to 10 times for "centrists" and 18 for "progressives."

The Santa Fe New Mexican and the Roswell Daily Record were evenly balanced between conservatives and progressives, according to the study, while the Deming Headlight and the Las Cruces Sun-News put only conservative columnists on the pages opposite their editorial pages. The state's largest newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, used conservatives 60 percent of the time and progressives only 27 percent, the study said.

"Together, these results prove what many have suspected for years — that our opinion pages both nationally and in New Mexico are consistently skewed to the right, allowing conservatives a disproportionate advantage in shaping public opinion," wrote David Brock, Media Matters' president and chief operating officer.