Topic: When Hometown Pride Meets Professional Integrity：Journalists’ Strategic Reporting about Hometown Firms under Misconduct Investigations
Speaker: Qian LIU
Date & Time: 10:00-11:00 March 19, 2026
Online Venue: 245 Room Quanxue Building
Organizers: School of Accounting, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics; Liaoning Province Capital Market Finance and Accounting Graduate Innovation and Academic Exchange Center
Abstract: This paper investigates how journalists navigate the dilemma between hometown favoritism and professional duty in their coverage of hometown firms under financial misconduct investigations. We find that, following the investigation announcement, journalists born in the firm’s headquarter city (i.e., home journalists) exhibit a decreased propensity to report on the implicated firm. However, conditional on the coverage decision, they employ a subtle framing strategy to deflect public attention from the scandal without explicitly violating professional codes of conduct. In particular, home journalists become more positive in their reporting on aspects of the firm unrelated to the misconduct, while maintaining a similar level of coverage of the misconduct itself compared to non-home journalists. This positivity is more pronounced among journalists with stronger place attachment to the hometown, but is mitigated by professional reputation concerns. Furthermore, their coverage hinders market price discovery regarding misconduct severity. These findings provide novel evidence on how the competing influences of hometown.
Introduction of Speaker:
Qian LIU, Ph.D. candidate at the School of Management, Xiamen University, expected to graduate in June 2026. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Shandong University. His research interests primarily focus on corporate finance and corporate governance, supply chain, innovation and entrepreneurship, and information disclosure. He has published papers in journals such as the Journal of Quantitative & Technological Economics and Accounting & Finance. His working papers have been accepted and presented at the 2023 Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (HARC) and the 12th Annual Conference of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER).
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