Claudia Marangon (Harvard), "Identity in Journalism: Evidence from News Reporting of Violence Against Women"
Does the identity of journalists shape the news, and through it, readers' behavior? I study this question in the context of reporting on violence against women in Italy. Using the universe of murders with female victims from 2006 to 2022 matched to newspaper articles, I construct indexes for two reporting narratives: victim-centered narratives, which contextualize the crime and point to support resources, and perpetrator-centered narratives, which focus on motives such as jealousy or a fit of rage. I show that female journalists use more victim-centered and fewer perpetrator-centered narratives, exploiting the conditionally random assignment of reporters to crimes within newsrooms to account for selection in the stories and topics covered. Combining reporter assignment with province-level readership in a staggered difference-in-differences design, I show that greater exposure to female reporters after a murder raises calls to the national helpline for violence against women. An online experiment identifies the mechanism: victim-centered narratives shift norms around help-seeking. It also reveals potential engagement costs, as these narratives decrease engagement among men but help retain female readers. Reporter identity is thus a consequential supply-side determinant of both news content and reader behavior.
LOCATION:Baker Library/Bloomberg Center, Classroom 102 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260910T190000Z DTEND:20260910T201500Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR