Why do conservative columnists dominate the newspaper op-ed pages in most the country?

Kevn Drum notes that they do, in a “dog bites man” blog post about an in-depth survey of newspaper commentary over at Media Matters.

I offer my observations from someone with a slice of life inside the industry, at least right now.

I’ve worked at one small daily, and a variety of non-dailies, for about 13 years. Aside from the “name” columnists at “name” syndicates, you have a variety of smaller syndicates putting out B-side/AAA minor league columnists.

These, even more than at the Major League level, tend to tilt small town/Chamber of Commerce/down on the farm right; a fair subset of them tilt religious right, also.

In other words, if you think the situation is skewed at your typical seven-day daily, you ain’t seen nothing.

Then, amongst freebie columnists, you have some conservative think tanks, plus state chapters of conservative organizations, floating their columns everywhere.

For instance, I, at a weekly paper of about 4,500-5,000 circulation, get columns every week from folks like the Conservative Values Coalition and Texas chapters of several national coalitions. I’d estimate I get six-seven a week like this.

Then, there are organizations that are officially apolitical, such as the Texas Medical Association, but that may take conservative positions on issues near and dear to their hearts, such as national healthcare, in this case.

Also, Senators and many Representatives send “their” columns out every week; of course, they’re all staff-written, not by the MCs themselves. But, my off-the-cuff guess is that conservative Congressmen reinforced conservative newspapers here in a sort of closed feedback loop.

The solutions? Well, given that liberals are generally more idealistic, and thus interested in editorial positions, speaking up on an op-ed page wherever possible is a start. Liberal public policy groups, etc. churning out more op-eds would also help. And professional groups that have a more liberal take on issues, like state trial lawyers’ groups on tort reform, have done some writing in the past, but need to be joined by others.

Take labor issues; if someone from the AFL-CIO would crank out some well-crafted op-eds on a variety of labor matters, and pitch them with a smaller-town angle, it would be water in the desert.

Given that smaller-town newspaper readership is not declining as much as at seven-day dailies, this is a fertile field.

A rhetorical question about a newspaper company and hiring practices between its left and right hands

Why would anyone want to work at a newspaper company where an employee of the company owner’s ranch is put on the payroll of one of the newspapers? Not only does it punish the bottom line of that newspaper (and any profit-based bonuses to which its publisher might be entitled), it makes a skeptical mind wonder if there might not also be legal or tax reasons for this being done, and then wondering what such reasons might be.

How NOT to do a Progress edition

I’m just a lowly editor, not a publisher or general manager, but I know you never give away a larger editorial hole than the purchased ad space.

Gold Country Media, put a crowbar in your wallet

It's bad enough, when you own seven weeklies, one semiweekly and one six-day daily in the Sacramento area, all in growing, even booming communities, to expect out-of-area finanlists for the ME's position at one of your weeklies to pay full travel costs to interview.

It's even worse when you're already planning on hiring from within.

New Zealand’s top daily outsourcing Sunday production

Things like this show I’m in a dying profession:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Newspaper publisher APN News & Media began outsourcing editorial production work on Sunday, a plan that will be extended to five daily and three weekly newspapers by year end, a senior executive said.

The changes mean news editing and layout operations at The New Zealand Herald, the nation’s biggest daily, and a string of regional dailies will be done by an outside contractor, APN deputy chief executive Rick Neville said.

“I’m confident readers won't notice the difference” in the papers’ editing and design, Neville said.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that includes New Zealand journalists, however, said the move will erode the quality of news coverage because stories will be handled by copy editors not familiar with local issues. ...

By year end, Pagemasters will employ about 45 editing staff at their site to edit the seven newspapers - nearly 30 fewer than the newspapers employed.

A goofy production thing about Granite Publishing

Not all its papers are on the same web. Most are 50-inch, but at least one is the old 55-inch.

HUH?

The difficulties of news reporting in Iraq

From San Antonio Express-News veteran Sieg Christenson.