CIRS Dialogue | Lamis Kattan | Strategic Timing in the Appearance of News | February 12, 2023

In this CIRS Dialogue, Lamis Kattan, Assistant Professor of Economic at Georgetown University in Qatar, examined whether politicians uncover their misconducts at a specific time when newsworthy events are distracting the public, arguing that politicians may strategically manipulate the timing of “bad news” release. She relied on a novel list of misconducts and aimed to examine the strategic timing of scandals’ appearance in the United States. Her main findings were:
Positive relationship between scandals appearance and foreseeable newsworthy events for all politicians
Evidence of strategic timing is absent for unpredictable newsworthy events
Republicans seem to time the appearance of sex and political scandals to predicted events
Likelihood of loss/resignation is lower for politicians whose scandal appeared on high news pressure
Lamis Kattan received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Ottawa in Canada. She is an applied micro-economist and her fields of research broadly fall under labor economics, political economy, public economics, and population economics. She joined Georgetown University in Qatar as an assistant professor of Economics in Fall 2022 where she has been teaching various courses including statistics, econometrics, and research methodologies.
Connect with CIRS:
CIRS Website: cirs.georgetown.edu
Facebook: CIRSGUQ
Twitter: / cirsguq
Instagram: cirsguq