Controlling the Media’s Narrative: the Coordination and Disciplining Role of the People’s Daily in China

Abstract: In this paper, we examine whether politicians in China use the Community Party of China’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily, to coordinate the reporting of corporate news in China. We posit, and find, that the People’s Daily is more likely to publish an article about a firm when there is a material degree of disagreement in the sentiment of recent domestic news articles about that company, ceteris paribus. This effect is more pronounced if the articles are published in commercially-oriented newspapers, during periods of heightened political sensitivity (years of a National Congress), and following President Xi’s highly visible state media visit in 2017. More importantly, we find that this disagreement dissipates / is attenuated following the publication of a positive PD’s article, consistent with subsequent news reporting implicitly anchoring their articles upon the PD’s message.