We study how social connections between top executives of media and listed firms affect the properties of media reporting. We find that socially connected media are significantly more likely to cover a firm than their unconnected counterparts. Their reporting is significantly more optimistically toned and contains significantly less information, and both of these effects are significantly mitigated when the firm has better information environment as represented by greater analyst coverage and larger firm size. Additional analyses show that characteristics of the underlying news, firm, or media also affect the effects of social connections on media reporting properties. Collectively, our evidence suggests the impairment of media independence when media and firms have social connections and the importance of alternative information sources in mitigating this effect.

中文翻译：

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媒体与公司高管之间的社会联系以及媒体报道的性质

我们研究了媒体高管与上市公司之间的社会关系如何影响媒体报道的性质。我们发现，与社交媒体无关的媒体比没有社交媒体的媒体更能覆盖一家公司。他们的报告的色调明显更乐观，所包含的信息也少得多，而当公司拥有更好的信息环境（以更大的分析师覆盖范围和更大的公司规模为代表）时，这两种影响都将大大减轻。其他分析表明，潜在新闻，公司或媒体的特征也影响社交联系对媒体报道属性的影响。总的来说，