“Corporate misconduct increases when local newspapers close down, according to a US study.
The new research said the local press is an ‘important monitor’ of facilities and potential environmental, labour relations, employment discrimination, securities fraud, workplace safety and consumer protection violations.
The study, published by the Journal of Financial Economics, found increased violations and penalties in the three years after a local newspaper closed down …
The study used a dataset from the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First’s Violation Tracker which collected more than 310,000 examples of civil and criminal cases brought against firms that resulted in enforcement action since 2000. This was analysed alongside a sample of 33 US daily newspaper closures in 45 counties between 2003 and 2015.”
Read the full story at Press Gazette.
Read the study at the Journal of Financial Economics.