Poor ethics not just an Indian problem
Shady practices blight the media not just in India but in many other countries, says a new study.
ABHISHEK CHOUDHARY reports on the findings.
In the last five years or so, Indian journalism has witnessed some of its most serious ethical violations, from the Niira Radia controversy of 2010 to the Essar leaks scandal last month -- and much else in between. But it turns out that journalism is generally having a tough time everywhere.
A report published this month by Ethical Journalism Network, called Untold Stories: How Corruption and Conflicts of Interest Stalk the Newsroom, looks at problems facing journalism in 18 diverse countries across the world, including India. More or less everywhere, the report says, there are “people doing deals with advertisers to carry paid-for material disguised as honest news; reporters accepting bribes; or any of a multitude of dodgy practices which are kept hidden from the audience.”
According to this report, while the major threats are from governments and corporations, some of the media’s woes are its own making. “Some media owners have their own business and political agenda and many journalists and editors go along with newsroom practice that encourages unethical journalism.”
On some occasions, these practices grab public attention and do lot of damage to the media’s credibility. The EJN report also gives recommendations on how to improve the state of affairs.
We in India often think of paid news, or bribery in the newsroom, as unique Indian malaises. The fact is, while there are differences based on the political and economic structure of different countries, the basic paradigm of paid news remains the same everywhere.
In Nigeria, the paid-for or commercial news takes significant airtime in the state media - anywhere from 40 to 50 per cent; the same is true for the print media, too. And, according to a researcher, no attempt is made to let the audience or readers know that these spaces are paid for.
While the media in Mexico is vibrant as compared to its neighbours, the problem there is that journalists are paid very low wages compared to other professions in the country.
“Paid journalism has become sophisticated,” the report says, “Journalists are appointed directly as government advisors, and those who publish columns or news websites or have radio or television programmes often receive government advertising money or a financial contribution from a government official.”
Egypt’s print media has a design element in the form of a black zig-zag line, “meant to (subtly) indicate that the content below it - whether an article, or photos and headlines - is advertising, or sponsored material. In reality, readers are encouraged to think they are just another article, or editorial content. They are sometimes crafted in the same font and style of the paper’s regular content.”
But if this report is to be believed, nowhere is paid news as similar to India than in Ukraine, a country currently embroiled in a conflict with Russia. In April 2014, in the lead-up to Ukraine’s presidential elections, almost 20 per cent of articles in the print media showed bias.
As mentioned earlier, paid news almost always has something to do with poorly-paid journalists. In Ukraine for example, “There is a choice between to take money and to pay journalists for their daily work. Or not to take money and just to close the newspaper.” The same is true of Nigeria, the Philippines and Colombia.
In all of these countries, government advertising acts as extortion currency. In Colombia for example, “It’s a form of pressure because it works as an unwritten rule: those who speak well about the government will receive substantial contracts for advertising. Those who don’t, will not get funding.”
On the other hand, in a country like Turkey, the shifting ownership structure of the media in the last three decades, where new investors entered the industry from other sectors, established the current ‘corporate mentality,’ even though the media business back then was not yet a profitable market.
Today, the report says about Turkey, “irrational market conditions and a patronage relationship have resulted in a climate of self-censorship and unethical journalistic practices in the media.”
While western democracies such as the United Kingdom and Denmark fare better than the rest, nonetheless in the UK’s changing media environment, “a commercial imperative has superseded the journalistic one, and corrupted the process of news-gathering and dissemination.”
For example, there was a furore last month when Peter Osborne of the Daily Telegraph resigned accusing the management of censoring stories about HSBC and tax evasion. The report implies that the corruption might run much deeper.
Of late there have been very serious issues related to the expansion of the digital media: “News organisations know their ownership of a particular story will last only until the moment it is published online. It could be argued that this ‘plagiarism’ is a form of dishonesty/corruption or in fact just a reality of today’s relentless news cycle, but what is undeniable is that the level of checks applied to scrutinise the veracity of cannibalised stories is extremely low; a story having appeared in one publication is in and of itself a verification of its truth and accuracy. The role of many journalists is changing from uncovering something new for their audience to re-packaging second-hand content.”
In such a scenario, the report adds, a narrow set of “assumptions dictate how stories are framed, and to break away from this framework is difficult. Such work may be considered sub-standard, or poorly conceived, and fail to make it in to print.”
In Denmark, which generally scores high on transparency, a recent media-related scandal created shock waves. It was the story of how weekly news magazine Se og Hoer was allegedly “paying an inside source with access to bank details from credit cards during the years 2008-11.”
By getting these details, the weekly magazine was able to publish exclusive stories about the Danish royal family and celebrities. The media in Denmark is also, as in any other western country, struggling with a reduction of revenues in the print format and an inability to figure out the revenue model for the digital format.
The eight-point recommendations of the report are:
1. Commitment to transparency of information related to the political and financial interests of owners, managers, editors, etc.;
2. Adoption of rules to prohibit undue interference in the work of journalists and establish full disclosure of contacts and transactions between the media and state officials;
3. Agreed standards on the allocation public advertising;
4. The creation of independent and transparent systems for assessing the circulation and ratings of the media;
5. The introduction of internal systems for disclosing potential conflicts of interests at all levels;
6. Providing contracts and employment conditions for journalists that meet international labour standards;
7. Agreement on internal rules and procedures to ensure full disclosure of all paid-for content and to separate them from editorial and journalistic work;
8. Launch debates at the national and international level on the need for structures to provide public assistance to encourage the provision of pluralist and ethical journalism without infringing editorial independence.
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