We examine the disclosure choices of firms involved in influential negative events that are readily observable by the public (e.g., catastrophes, major industrial accidents). We present large sample, cross-event evidence that managers are less likely to release information regarding these events, and that any information provided is less timely, less frequent, and less specific, when managers might be blamed for the event relative to when they are likely to be perceived as blameless. We use three proxies to capture the extent to which managers might perceive an event as blameless: sudden versus smoldering events, externally-caused versus internally-caused events, and dismissed versus non-dismissed litigation cases. By identifying economic events separately from disclosure events, our study sheds light on what kinds of events are more likely to be disclosed and subsequently are more likely to be included in the studies that identify only disclosure events.