Accounting quality and media attention around seasoned equity offerings

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how media coverage affects the quality of accounting information for seasoned equity offering (SEO) firms. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes SEOs completed between January 1993 and December 2014 in the USA that are available from Thomson Financial’s Securities Data Company. The FactSet database was used to measure the amount of media coverage. The paper considers two types of earnings management: accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management. Findings This study finds that the media serves as a watchdog for real earnings management but does not affect accrual manipulations. These findings hold when endogenous factors affecting firms’ earnings management choices are controlled for and also when alternative time windows for media coverage are examined. Originality/value This paper is the first to demonstrate that media attention affects the quality of accounting information during equity offerings, as it successfully reduces real earnings management.