aggregate informat ion away from the truth 3.3 Interaction bet ween Spin and Ideology In a compet it ive environment, spin and ideology interact in interest ing way s First hen agent s are categorical, the bias from ideology can be exaggerated by spin. Con- sider the case where the first newspaper reporting the story has an ideology and ot her newspapers do not. The first newspaper knows that, by manipulat story, not only is it affecting beliefs today, it is also affecting future reporting. The following proposit ion formalizes this idea Proposition 5 Suppose that there are two newspapers, one of whi ch has an ideology and the other cf which does not. lf agents are categorical thinkers and each newspaper receives only a small bit cf news, then the aggregate bias is more in the directi on of the ideological n ewspaper if it reports first This result emphasizes t he case where a single ideological newspaper can bias stories in a particular way and exploit later newspapers'desire to be consistent with priors Proposit ion 5 has one important implication, namely the opport unity for politicians themselves to control spin. If a polit ician can get out his story to a friendly newspaper first, and thereby create a particular image of himself or his proposals, fut ure newspa- pers will be influenced by the priors created by this first story. As a consequence, the nage will stick, compet ition notwit hst anding To formalize this int uition, suppose we are in a setup where there are a N newspa- pers wit hout any ideolog y. Now suppose there is a third party, called the source, who can leak informat ion to one of these newspapers. The source receives a payoff if the reader believes a posit ive value. The source knows his signal value as well as the true value of the parameter. For simplicity, suppose that he can choose which newspaper t release the informat ion to. The chosen newspaper receives no ot her signal that period In this framework, the following is true Proposition 6 If the signal is too negative, the source never releases it. if the sign al is posi tive, the source releases it to the first newspaper.aggregate information away from the truth. 3.3 Interaction between Spin and Ideology In a competitive environment, spin and ideology interact in interesting ways. First, when agents are categorical, the bias from ideology can be exaggerated by spin. Con￾sider the case where the rst newspaper reporting the story has an ideology and other newspapers do not. The rst newspaper knows that, by manipulating its story, not only is it aecting beliefs today, it is also aecting future reporting. The following proposition formalizes this idea. Proposition 5 Suppose that there are two newspapers, one of which has an ideology and the other of which does not. If agents are categorical thinkers and each newspaper receives only a smal l bit of news, then the aggregate bias is more in the direction of the ideological newspaper if it reports rst. This result emphasizes the case where a single ideological newspaper can bias stories in a particular way and exploit later newspapers' desire to be consistent with priors. Proposition 5 has one important implication, namely the opportunity for politicians themselves to control spin. If a politician can get out his story to a friendly newspaper rst, and thereby create a particular image of himself or his proposals, future newspa￾pers will be in uenced by the priors created by this rst story. As a consequence, the image will stick, competition notwithstanding. To formalize this intuition, suppose we are in a setup where there are a N newspa￾pers without any ideology. Now suppose there is a third party, called the source, who can leak information to one of these newspapers. The source receives a payo if the reader believes a positive value. The source knows his signal value as well as the true value of the parameter. For simplicity, suppose that he can choose which newspaper to release the information to. The chosen newspaper receives no other signal that period. In this framework, the following is true. Proposition 6 If the signal is too negative, the source never releases it. If the signal is positive, the source releases it to the rst newspaper. 15