Using Internet donations after the 2004 tsunami as a case study, we show that media coverage of disasters has a dramatic impact on donations to relief agencies, with an additional minute of nightly news coverage increasing donations by 0.036 standard deviations from the mean, or 13.2 percent of the average daily donation for the typical relief agency. Similarly, an additional 700-word story in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal raises donations by 18.2 percent of the daily average. These results are robust to controls for the timing of news coverage and tax considerations.
From “Media Coverage and Charitable Giving After the 2004 Tsunami,” by Philip H. Brown and Jessica H. Minty.
