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Ownership Ties, Conflict of Interest, and the Tone of News

Additional information

Authors
Raimondo C., Bajo E., Bigelli M.
Type
Journal Article
Year
forthcoming
Language
English
Abstract
This paper investigates the tone newspapers use in reporting information on a company that it is linked with through an ownership tie. Our empirical setting is Italy, a country characterized by dominant national industrial groups’ high ownership of newspapers. Based on a sample of about 123,000 articles, we document that newspapers’ coverage of firms in conflict of interest is greater, with significantly fewer negative and uncertain words. We also document that the slant increases with ownership stakes and decreases with the newspaper's reputation.
Journal
European Financial Management
Start page number
1
End page number
19
Keywords
conflict of interest, media, ownership structure