The effect of media coverage on earnings management: Evidence from Brazilian companies

Abstract

This study aims to verify the effect of media coverage on the earnings management of Brazilian listed companies. A sample of 284 Brazilian non-financial companies listed on the B3 was used, with quarterly data for the period 2011-2022. Media coverage was measured by the natural logarithm of the number of news stories released about the firms, and for earnings management, a detection model with accruals was used (Collins et al., 2017), estimated using an unbalanced panel in GMM 2SLS. The results show a negative association between media coverage and earnings management, indicating that managers tend to manage earnings less in the presence of media visibility, in order to avoid negative effects on the deviation from the real value of earnings. The research reveals that the Brazilian media acts as an external agent of governance, inducing the improvement of accounting information by monitoring management actions. Given the importance of the role played by the media, especially through the rapid dissemination of information, the results show that media coverage contributes to reducing the noise generated by earnings management. This finding could have implications for managers and the capital market, as it shows that the media is an agent that interferes, albeit indirectly, with corporate actions. Therefore, the media influences various organizations, with implications for management practices that seek to improve transparency. The study seeks to fill a gap regarding the effect of Brazilian media coverage on earnings management, shedding light on the media as an external element of corporate governance that contributes to an environment of better accounting information.