Reputation and news suppression in the media industry

This paper proposes a new argument to explain why media firms silence information that may be relevant to consumers and why this behavior varies across firms. We build on the literature of career concerns and consider firms that seek to maximize their reputation for high quality. Crucial to our results is the idea that media firms can affect, with their reporting strategy, the probability that consumers learn the true state. Reputational concerns dictate that a monopoly firm suppresses scoops, even when evidence is strong. With competition, precise private information is published but weaker though informative signals are silenced. We obtain that silence is higher in media firms with high levels of initial reputation and/or great social influence. We draw predictions on a firm's optimal choice of an editorial standard, the persistence of news suppression when consumers believe one state to be more likely than another and the possibility that silence may be socially beneficial.