Death and the Media: Infectious Disease Reporting During the Health Transition
研究19世纪末欧美城市传染病死亡率下降期间，报纸如何报道这一趋势，发现新闻报道与政府公布的伤寒死亡率正相关，且对死亡率意外上升的反应强于下降。
In the late 19th Century, cities in Western Europe and the United States suffered from high levels of infectious disease. Over a 40 year period, there was a dramatic decline in infectious disease deaths in cities. As such objective progress in urban quality of life took place, how did the media report this trend? At that time newspapers were the major source of information educating urban households about the risks they faced. By constructing a unique panel data base, we find that news reports were positively associated with government announced typhoid mortality counts and the size of this effect actually grew after the local governments made large investments in public water works to reduce typhoid rates. News coverage was more responsive to unexpected increases in death rates than to unexpected decreases in death rates.