Intergovernmental Conflict and Censorship: Evidence from China's Anti-Corruption Campaign

Abstract

I study how local Chinese newspapers report on the national anti-corruption campaign by collecting a large-scale dataset of newspaper articles, internet searches, and comments on social media. Despite greater reader interest, local newspapers underreport, and deemphasise corruption scandals involving high-level officials from their own province. Underreporting is greater when a corrupt official is well connected, and a newspaper does not rely on advertising revenue. City-level newspapers report less about corruption in their own city but are more likely to report about corruption within the provincial government. I present suggestive evidence that this type of localised censorship reduces the accountability of local governments.