Media attention and choice of major: Evidence from anti-doctor violence in China

•One additional article on violence against doctors leads to a 0.6% decrease in the number of students enrolled in medicine-related majors, and this effect is more pronounced for physician and nursing majors.•An instrumental variable approach that exploits plausibly exogenous variations in local political turnover and province-wide violent incidents helps establish causality.•Exposure to violence-related news reduces the quality of medical students, measured by their rank in the college entrance examination.•These findings suggest that media reporting can change individuals’ perception of career risks and affect their educational choices.