Using a sample of listed companies from Shanghai Stock Exchange, this study mainly explores the impact of close attention given by the media on listed companies’ behavior in social responsibility by using index method and entropy weight method to measure the performance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Besides that, we also study how government intervention plays a role in the media governance effect, and the relationship between the industry characteristics and CSR. It is found that the supervision from the media can improve the level of CSR, and considering the economic motives such as advertising reputation, it’s more significant in competitive industries, highly sensitive environment industries, as well as highly sensitive consumers industries. However, over control on the media from the local government will greatly weaken the effectiveness of the supervision of media. This study provides empirical evidence for the effect of media in corporate governance, and proposes new paths to promote CSR and the sustainable development of corporate