including an experiment to check the validity of our technique of classifying news. We conclude in Section THE RELATED LITERATURE The first question of this paper-was the overall media coverage for internet IPOs different from the overall media coverage of non-internet IPOs-belongs to a growing literature on bias in the financial media. How do the financial media choose which stories to cover? Of the stories they choose to cover what is the slant given? And why is there a slant? Shiller(2000)writes: The role of the news media in the stock market is not, as commonly believed, simply as a convenient tool for investors who are reacting directly to the economically significant news itself. The media actively shape public attention and categories of thought, and they create the environment within which the stock market events we see are played out. He believes that the financial media strive to enhance interest by attaching news stories to stock price movements that the public has already observed, thereby creating a positive feedback effect Dyck and Zingales(2003a) note that there is a pro-company bias in the financial media, which is stronger during a boom, and is weaker and is sometimes reversed during a bust. They argue that this is because of incentives. Reporting good news during booms allows media access to the company, but this access is not important during busts because the company does not want to share news. Dyck and Zingales(2003b) find empirical support in that media spin affects the stock market response to earnings announcements Mullainathan and shleifer(2003)demonstrate that the media can slant the presentation of the news to cater to the preferences of their audience. Baron(2004)explains why persistent media bias can exist in competitive equilibrium; in his hypothesis, bias originates with journalists who have a preference for influence and are willing to sacrifice wages to exercise it Our second research question - did the differential media coverage have any effect on the difference in risk-adjusted returns between the two samples- extends from a large literature on how media news affects returns. According to classical asset pricing models, news will affect returns if it affects expectations of future cash flows and/or expectations of the discount rate. By filtering, aggregating and5 including an experiment to check the validity of our technique of classifying news. We conclude in Section VII. II. THE RELATED LITERATURE The first question of this paper – was the overall media coverage for internet IPOs different from the overall media coverage of non-internet IPOs – belongs to a growing literature on bias in the financial media. How do the financial media choose which stories to cover? Of the stories they choose to cover, what is the slant given? And why is there a slant? Shiller (2000) writes: “The role of the news media in the stock market is not, as commonly believed, simply as a convenient tool for investors who are reacting directly to the economically significant news itself. The media actively shape public attention and categories of thought, and they create the environment within which the stock market events we see are played out.” He believes that the financial media strive to enhance interest by attaching news stories to stock price movements that the public has already observed, thereby creating a positive feedback effect. Dyck and Zingales (2003a) note that there is a pro-company bias in the financial media, which is stronger during a boom, and is weaker and is sometimes reversed during a bust. They argue that this is because of incentives. Reporting good news during booms allows media access to the company, but this access is not important during busts because the company does not want to share news. Dyck and Zingales (2003b) find empirical support in that media spin affects the stock market response to earnings announcements. Mullainathan and Shleifer (2003) demonstrate that the media can slant the presentation of the news to cater to the preferences of their audience. Baron (2004) explains why persistent media bias can exist in a competitive equilibrium; in his hypothesis, bias originates with journalists who have a preference for influence and are willing to sacrifice wages to exercise it. Our second research question – did the differential media coverage have any effect on the difference in risk-adjusted returns between the two samples – extends from a large literature on how media news affects returns. According to classical asset pricing models, news will affect returns if it affects expectations of future cash flows and/or expectations of the discount rate. By filtering, aggregating and