Do the Media Bow to Foreign Economic Powers? Evidence from a News Website Crackdown

By exploiting a large-scale media crackdown in May 2019 in China, in which multiple influential UK- and US-based news sites were blocked, we find that media outlets, after being blocked, published more politically sensitive news on China and adopted a more negative tone in those coverages, compared to those with no access change. However, reporting on non-sensitive economic topics remained unaffected. Further evidence suggests that these findings are aligned with the interpretation that news media compromise their reporting to maintain access to China, but not with the conjecture that they retaliated against China or responded to the changed readership.