Abstract: As an important emerging force in the capital market in China,the media plays an increasingly important role in the dissemination of information and supervision of public opinion.This paper selected listed companies in the heavy pollution industry in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2009—2021 as the initial research sample,which examined in depth the impact of media attention on ESG performance of heavy pollution companies and its intrinsic mechanism of action.The empirical results showed that there was a significant positive relationship between media attention and corporate ESG performance,the higher the media attention,the higher the corporate ESG performance.This finding still held after series of endogeneity tests and robustness tests.Further research showed that media attention could effectively improve the internal governance of firms and increase the external monitoring of heavily polluting firms by institutional investors,thus enhancing the ESG performance of heavily polluting firms.