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The Press as a Watchdog for Accounting Fraud
GREGORY S . MI L L E R ∗
Received 27 January 2004; accepted 2 June 2006
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the press’s role as a monitor or “watchdog” foraccounting fraud. I find that the press fulfills this role by rebroadcastinginformation from other information intermediaries (analysts, auditors, andlawsuits) and by undertaking original 代写留学生论文investigation and analysis. Articles basedon original analysis provide new information to the markets while those thatrebroadcast allegations from other intermediaries do not. Consistent with adual role for the press, I find that business-oriented press is more likely toundertake original analysis while nonbusiness periodicals focus primarily onrebroadcasting. I also investigate the determinates of press coverage, findingsystematic biases in the types of firms and frauds for which articles are published.
In general, the press covers firms and frauds that will be of interest
to a broad set of readers and situations that are lower cost to identify andinvestigate.
∗Harvard University. I thank an anonymous referee, Jeff Abarbanell, Mary Barth, SudiptaBasu, Brian Bushee, Fabrizio Ferri, Stu Gilson, Cristi Gleason, Michelle Hanlon, Paul Healy,
Jack Hughes, Amy Hutton, Bruce Johnson, Bob Kaplan, Tom Lys, Michael Maher, MaureenMcNichols, Doug Skinner, RossWatts, GregWaymire, and JoeWeber as well as workshop participants
at Boston College, Emory University, Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Instituteof Technology, Notre Dame University, The Ohio State University, University of Iowa, University
of Michigan, University of Texas-Austin, the 2004 Duke/UNC Fall Accounting Camp, andthe 2003 Stanford Summer Camp, and several anonymous members of the press for commentson earlier versions of this paper. I thank Sarah Eriksen, Anne Karshis, and Kathleen Ryan forresearch assistance. I am grateful for the funding of this research by the Harvard Business School.
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Copyright C , University of Chicago on behalf of the Institute of Professional Accounting, 2006
1002 G. S. MILLER
1. Introduction
This paper examines the press’s role as an early information intermediaryin the public identification of corporate financial malfeasances. Priorliterature regarding the press is limited and presents a conflicting view of itseffectiveness as an information intermediary. On the one hand, there arearguments that the press caters to the lowest common denominator, doesnot provide in-depth research or analyses, and focuses on sensationalizing issues
in order to sell papers (Jensen [1979], Core, Guay, and Larcker [2005],DeAngelo, DeAngelo, and Gilson [1994, 1996]). On the other hand, thereis evidence that a free media is related to country-level economic growthand that pressure created by press coverage can play an important role inthe corporate governance of firms (Djankov et al. [2002], Dyck and Zingales[2002a], Dyck, Volchkova, and Zingales [2005]). The later studies suggestthe press plays an important informational role, but do not examine howthis is achieved. While a few studies do examine the impact of specific information,they have focused on rebroadcasting of information created bymanagement or other information intermediaries (Huberman and Regev[2001], Dyck and Zingales [2003], Dyck, Volchkova, and Zingales [2005]).Thus, even for studies that suggest the press is an important informationalsource, there is limited evidenc