Abstract: In theory, the disclosure of corporate social responsibility may mitigate or increase the stock price crash risk. As an important carrier of social responsibility disclosure, news media may weaken or strengthen the effect. These problems above become hot issues in the field of corporate finance in recent years. The bidirectional mechanism of social responsibility disclosure on stock price crash risk is first derived in theory, and then news media is introduced to study its possible transmission path. Based on the panel data of all companies in Chinese A-share market from 2010 to 2018, the research show that companies can reduce the risk of stock price crash by disclosing corporate social responsibility index. CSR fulfillment will increase the number of media reports, and the increasing number of media reports will decrease the risk of stock price crash. In other words, media reports play an internal role in the process of CSR affecting the risk of stock price crash. Further research shows that shareholders’ responsibility in the CSR index has the greatest influence on the risk of stock price crash, while the influence of suppliers’, customers’ and consumers’ rights and interests and social responsibility is not significant. The mediating effect of positive media reports and negative media reports is stronger than neutral media reports.

Key words: crash risk; corporate social responsibility; media coverage; mediating effect; price of the stock