Newspaper reports of food safety scandals: evidence from an online take-out application in China

摘要

This article provides empirical evidence that marketization or deregulation of newspapers might help improve timely media supervision. Newspaper reports of the food safety scandal of an online take-out application 'Eleme' were here used to analyse heterogeneity between the attitudes of politically controlled party newspapers and marketized independent newspapers. OLS regression results indicate that, before official exposure of Eleme's food safety scandal on World Consumer Rights Day, local independent newspapers showed more supervision and concern about the local potential food safety scandal. However, the government newspapers only followed up after official exposure, and presented attitudes similar to those expressed in marketized newspapers.