Who Watches the Watchmen? Local News and Police Behavior in the United States
利用辛克莱广播集团收购地方电视台造成犯罪报道减少的外生冲击，研究发现地方新闻减少会降低暴力犯罪破案率，表明新闻对警察行为有监督作用。
Do US 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.