and hence it s incentives to bias its news report In the model the bias of the news media is due not to the personal preferences of those in the news organizat ion but is instead due to the objective of serving the int erest of the public. That is, the media provides information about a market failure and a collective choice that benefit s the public as a whole but is not preferred by a sufficient majority to overcome the st at us quo advant age in pivot al politics. This comes at the expense oftrut hful I. ime Line and information structure Figure 2 identifies the sequence of act ions in the game. In the information st age the ac- tiv ist and the firms search for informat ion about the issue, and in the communication st age they send messages to the news media. The media then set s a price for a subscription, and izen consumers who expect to benefit subscribe to the media reports. The media decides Thet her to conduct invest igat ive journalism, and if it does, it searches for informat ion The media then provides a report. Citizen consumers next collect ively choose whet her to regulate the product, and given that decision, the firms set prices for their product s, and cit izen consumers make their consumpt ion decisions A state of nature 0 can take on two values 0 E (01, 0H, 0L<OH, and the common knowledge prior probability is p= Pr(0=0H. The interpretation is, for example, that OH corresponds to global climate change being very serious, whereas Or means it is not serious. The state OH is favorable to the activist's cause of dampening demand and obtaining regulation of the externality, and the state Or is favorable to the interests of the firms. n the information stage the activist and the firms search simultaneously for informa- tion about the state, and each search is successful with probability q E(0, 1)and unsuccess- ful with probability 1-g. For the news media, investigative journalism is successful with probability qM. A successful search provides hard information that is conclusive evidence that the state is cessful search vields no inf tion which will b denoted by g. The cast to the public of verifying hard information is assumed to be high, Journalists may also have individual preferences that influence news stories. Pat- terson and Donsbach(1996), for example, survey ed journalists in five countries and con cluded there is a significant correlation between journalists' personal beliefs and their news decisions”and hence its incentives to bias its news report. In the model the bias of the news media is due not to the personal preferences of those in the news organization but is instead due to the objective of serving the interest of the public.6 That is, the media provides information about a market failure and a collective choice that benefits the public as a whole but is not preferred by a sufficient majority to overcome the status quo advantage in pivotal politics. This comes at the expense of truthful reporting. IV. Time Line and Information Structure Figure 2 identifies the sequence of actions in the game. In the information stage the ac￾tivist and the firms search for information about the issue, and in the communication stage they send messages to the news media. The media then sets a price for a subscription, and citizen consumers who expect to benefit subscribe to the media reports. The media decides whether to conduct investigative journalism, and if it does, it searches for information. The media then provides a report. Citizen consumers next collectively choose whether to regulate the product, and given that decision, the firms set prices for their products, and citizen consumers make their consumption decisions. A state of nature θ can take on two values θ ∈ {θL, θH}, θL<θH, and the common knowledge prior probability is p = P r(θ = θH). The interpretation is, for example, that θH corresponds to global climate change being very serious, whereas θL means it is not serious. The state θH is favorable to the activist’s cause of dampening demand and obtaining regulation of the externality, and the state θL is favorable to the interests of the firms. In the information stage the activist and the firms search simultaneously for informa￾tion about the state, and each search is successful with probability q ∈ (0, 1) and unsuccess￾ful with probability 1 − q. For the news media, investigative journalism is successful with probability qM. A successful search provides hard information that is conclusive evidence that the state is θH or θL, and an unsuccessful search yields no information, which will be denoted by φ. The cost to the public of verifying hard information is assumed to be high, 6 Journalists may also have individual preferences that influence news stories. Pat￾terson and Donsbach (1996), for example, surveyed journalists in five countries and con￾cluded “there is a significant correlation between journalists’ personal beliefs and their news decisions.” 10