Fewer newspapers means good news for corrupt public officials: results from a US panel data study

Purpose When there is freedom of press, newspapers provide prying eyes that investigate and report the malfeasance by public officials. More prying eyes together with more newspaper readership make monitoring of public officials by the public easier and cheaper. This paper aims to investigate the role of newspapers in helping the public observe the conduct of local officials fearful of discovery of malfeasance by the newspaper readers in the USA during 1978 – 2008 when the internet was still a fledgling source of news. Design/methodology/approach A model that recognize that corruption is an agency problem that thrives in the absence of monitoring of public officials is used. The estimation technique used address problems issuing from the subjective nature of measures of press freedom and perception of corruption, and the persistence of corruption over time. Findings More newspapers and newspaper readers help to alleviate the agency problem that underlies public corruption in the USA and elsewhere. More newspapers (i.e. more journalists) act to deter corruption at the margin, and, ceteris paribus, higher readership works on exposing corrupt acts and helps to convict the errant officials in larger numbers. Research limitations/implications The paper provides a timely context to consider the implication of sharp fall in local newspapers as well as newspaper readership all across the USA. Originality/value This paper extends the literature by considering press freedom, the number of newspapers and size of newspaper readership as joint determinants of public corruption.