Media attention and the Toxics Release Inventory

- This paper explores the relationship between print media and toxic releases.
- It first studies the role of socio economic factors in media reports to pollution.
- It then studies whether facilities with media attention behave differently.
- There is no significant correlation between race or income and media attention.
- Facilities with media attention show significant decreases in toxic releases.

This paper explores the relationship between the print media and toxic releases in the first wave of Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) filings. It first studies the degree to which neighborhood characteristics like racial composition and income status associate with the number of newspaper articles written about a TRI establishment, controlling for the volume of toxic releases, industry and observable establishment characteristics. It follows up to study whether establishments that receive media attention reduce toxics releases more than those that do not. Neither a qualitative review of the articles nor regression results show any significant correlation between race or income and the likelihood of being included in media reports. A difference-in-difference approach shows a statistically significant decrease in the toxic releases of establishments that received media attention compared to those that did not.