Media Ownership and Bias: Evidence by the Washington Post’s Reporting after Amazon’s Acquisition in 2013

Abstract

This study examines the impact of ownership change on media coverage by investigating the impact of Jeff Bezos's (Amazon's owner) purchase of the Washington Post (WP) in October 2013. We collect all articles that have Amazon mentions published by WP and the New York Times (NYT) for 12 months before and 12 months after the acquisition. Then, we use the difference-in-differences method to compare changes in sentiment, length, and time of publication of the articles reported by WP compared to NYT. From the comparison, we show that Amazon's acquisition has posed a certain extent of influence on the publication time of the articles. Our findings highlight that ownership change limits the media's ability to fulfill its role as a watchdog without interference.