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Title: Media Gravity: The Production and Political Effect of Watchdog Journalism in China

Abstract: This paper examines the provision and accountability effects of watchdog journalism in China. Based on the coverage of over 2000 highly visible events by 120 general-interest newspapers during 2001-2020, we document that Chinese local newspapers report more negatively on adverse events outside their jurisdictions, and this negative reporting is more intensive where the home market size is larger and where the political barriers in the event source cities are lower. This outside watchdog journalism significantly pressures local governments to reduce corruption, increase responsiveness to citizen complaints, and improve fiscal allocation towards public services. Our findings are consistent with a spatial model of media capture, where the divergence of economic benefit and political control drives investigative reporting and jurisdictional spillover improves local accountability. We derive and estimate a production-location media gravity equation such that investigative journalism is generated from strong economic markets and targets regions with weak political links.