Not so much, actually:

* Sixty percent of the nation’s daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.
* In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.2
* The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
* The top 10 columnists as ranked by the total circulation of the papers in which they are published also include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.
* In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice — in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.
* In three out of the four broad regions of the country — the West, the South, and the Midwest — conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.
* In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.

We live in a pretty evenly divided country, one that actually is more center-left now than it has been in the recent past, so economics probably cannot explain this by itself. This is a complicated issue, involving the phony ‘liberal media’ campaign of the right, but I don;t think that anyone can see a discrepancy this large and not notice that newspapers tend to be owned mainly by rich people and large media corporations. And I don;t think it will come as a surprise that such people tend to like conservative economic policies because those policies redistribute wealth up the economic ladder. Newspaper owners pay for the news they want and, especially, for the opinions they want. They want conservative opinions and news and they get it.

Again, this more complicated than anyone issue, but it would be astonishing if the economic/political desires of the owners were not reflected in the editorial page choices. For some reason, the notion of “objectivity”, that news papers should provide both sides of the story, dies on the editorial page. It makes perfect sense that conservative owners would take that loophole in journalism ethics and use it to try and get the political outcomes that they desire.

Link via Atrios.