Corporate fraud, political connections, and media bias: Evidence from China

This article empirically examines how political connections (PCs) affect a firm's media reaction after corporate fraud. Using data for Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2021, we find that the media reports more positively for firms with PCs than for others that do not possess such advantages after the enforcement against fraud. The results are robust to a series of robustness checks and endogeneity corrections. When decomposing media reports, we find that PCs only facilitate positive media coverage but do not impede negative media coverage, which is more pronounced in state-controlled media. This suggests that PCs protect firms’ branding by facilitating positive media reports rather than withholding bad news. Moreover, we find this protective effect is more pronounced in firms with stronger PCs, weaker anti-corruption regulation, lighter punishment for fraud, private ownership, and more donations. Further, the consequences analysis shows that this kind of protective effect significantly increases the probability of future fraud and stock price crashes. Our findings present a new perspective on the role of PCs and provide evidence for political bias in media coverage.