We study how government control affects the roles of the media as an information intermediary and a corporate monitor. Comparing a large sample of news articles written by state-controlled and market-oriented Chinese media, we find that articles by the market-oriented media are more critical, more accurate, more comprehensive, and timelier than those by the state-controlled media. Moreover, only articles by the market-oriented media have a significant corporate governance impact. Subsample analyses, interviews with journalists, and a survey of university students suggest that the market-oriented media’s superior effects are explained by their operating efficiency and independence.

We study how political capture affects the corporate governance role of the media. Relying on a unique media market in China that is characterized by the prevalence of both state-controlled and market-oriented media, we manually construct a comprehensive financial news sample containing 80,008 articles during the 2004–2010 period and provide evidence that negative coverage by the market-oriented media significantly increases the chance of forced top executive turnover, whereas similar coverage by the state-controlled media has no such impact. A multi-pronged approach that includes an instrumental variable test, an exogenous event, firm fixed effects, and change-in-change specifications provides positive evidence of the casual link. Further analysis reveals that the disciplinary effect of the market-oriented media is stronger for firms that are less likely to be influenced by political capture, such as non-state-owned firms or firms located in provinces with good institutions.