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Who Watches the Watchmen? Local News and Police Behaviour in the United States

• Researchers:

  • Nicola Mastrorocco (University of Bologna and TIME) with Arianna Ornaghi (Hertic School and CEPR)

• Partners:

  • TBA

• Location:

  • United States of America

• Sample:

  • 8.5 Local TV News Stories in 300000 Newscast

• Timeline:

  • 2017-2020

• Theme:

  • Political Economy, Urban and Migration

• Description:

  • Do U.S. municipal police departments respond to news coverage of local crime? We address this question exploiting an exogenous shock to local crime reporting induced by acquisitions of local TV stations by a large broadcast group, Sinclair. Using a unique dataset of 8.5 million news stories and a triple differences design, we document that Sinclair ownership decreases news coverage of local crime. This matters for policing: municipalities that experience the change in news coverage have lower violent crime clearance rates relative to municipalities that do not. The result is consistent with a decrease of crime salience in the public opinion.