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We introduce a model in which a benevolent news outlet decides
whether to report the realization of a state to a consumer, who
pays a cost to receive it. A simple statistical rule, called a proper
scoring rule, describes when the outlet should be more likely to
report the realization. Using data from the US television news,
we show that a particular scoring rule successfully predicts many
salient features of news reporting. We show how to use this rule
as a control variable to discipline tests of reporting bias, and we
show that controlling for it matters in our applications.
