Media, Ethics and the Law: Semester-IV: Unit 5
Economic Pressures on Media
Disclaimer: The note/s given below is/ are a compilation of information taken from various sources. The references to the sources are provided at the end. The views expressed in the note/s are those of the concerned student/s/ intern/s. The blogger or the compiler will not be responsible in any manner whatsoever regarding the authenticity of the information provided in the note/s.
Relevance of economic independence
The Indian media have grown rapidly in scale, reach, influence, and revenues. But all stakeholders must realize that the ethical underpinning of professional journalism in the country has weakened and that the corrosion of public life in our country has impacted journalism.
We have been witness in recent years to rapid, and unprecedented, changes in our society, economy, and polity. These have also transformed the Indian mass media system. The growth in its scale, reach and influence, however, has not been matched by corresponding sensitivity towards non-commercial and non-market dimensions.
Economic sustainability and independence of the media cannot be jeopardized neither by the state, nor public or private companies or organisations. Threatening economic sanctions is unacceptable in democratic societies and the state must protect the media from economic pressures and/or attempts of “blackmailing” through public financing, marketing or paid advertising. Private companies have to respect the independence of the media and refrain from exerting pressure or blurring the line between journalism and advertising.
This aspect is of relevance because the media is the fourth estate in a democracy. It plays a major role in informing the public and thereby shaping perceptions and through it the national agenda. Its centrality is enhanced manifold by increased literacy levels and by the technological revolution of the last two decades and its impact on the generation, processing, dissemination, and consumption of news.
Some suggest that when profit motives compete against altruistic motives, commercial interests always prevail. Profit is not immoral. The problem occurs when commercial interests are allowed to dominate social obligations. Economic Pressures come from Financial Supporters, the competition and the public. These are interdependent. Economic concerns in one area can impact other areas.
Economic Pressures in the Digital Age
Media platforms and devices for consumption today vary between traditional, non-conventional, and the experimental. They span traditional print, audio-visual, and digital modes. Convergence between news media, entertainment and telecom has meant that the demarcation between journalism, public relations, advertising and entertainment has been eroded.
The news industry is transforming under several constraints, economic models and digital technology. The role of traditional media and journalism is changing, with more pressure on journalists to produce news quickly and to focus more on soft (entertainment/infotainment) than on hard (political affairs) news, thus leaving little space for investigative journalism.
The 24h news cycle puts requirements on journalists to search quickly for information to publish, sometimes without verification. Digital platforms represent an additional pressure, taking away the traditional source of income via advertising. There is an increasing need for democratic governments to support quality media production.
Types of Economic Pressures
Journalists are professional people, trying to work within a code of professional ethics.However, journalists cannot operate in a vacuum, doing what they think is right without pressures being put on them. Journalists face pressure from a variety of sources, all trying to make the journalist behave in a way which is not the way the journalist would choose.
It is important that you try to resist all these forms of pressure, as far as possible. Some of these economic pressures include:
Employer
Your employer pays your salary. In return, they expect to say how you will do your job. This can lead to ethical problems for journalists.
If you work for a government-owned news organisation, then your government will be your employer. This could make it very difficult for you to report critically on things which the government is doing.
Ministers will often put pressure on public service journalists to report things which are favourable to the government (even when they are not newsworthy) and not to report things which are unfavourable to the government. They can enforce public service discipline, to make journalists do as the government wants. This is especially difficult to resist in small developing countries, where there may be little or no alternative employment.
It is not only government-owned media where such pressure exists, though. Commercial media are paid for by a mixture of advertising and sales. To increase sales, newspapers, radio and television stations sometimes sponsor sporting or cultural events, and then publicise them. Your boss may demand more coverage for the event than it is worth, in order to promote the event as much as possible. You will need to persuade them of the danger of this - that other events will have to be neglected to give extra coverage to your sponsored event, and that this will risk losing readers or listeners.
Advertiser
Advertisers can also bring pressure to bear upon owners and editors. A big advertiser may threaten to stop advertising unless you run a news report of something good which the advertiser has just done; or, much worse, it may threaten to stop advertising unless you ignore a news event which is unfavourable to the advertiser.
Ideally, any news organisation should dismiss such threats, and judge each story only on its news merits. However, this is easier in a large community with a diverse and developed economy than it is in a small country with a developing economy. When a commercial news organisation is operating on a tiny profit margin, it will not be easy to turn away a big advertiser, and its owners may feel forced to give in to the pressure.
In some cases, the advertiser may even be the government. In many countries the government is the biggest advertiser - with job advertisements, calls for tenders, public announcements and so on - and this can be a way in which governments bring indirect pressure to bear upon commercial news media.
What should you do about this kind of pressure? The first thing which any junior journalist should do is to report it to their editor. It will be for the editor to decide what to do. He or she will need to resist the employer as far as possible, pointing out the dangers of failing to report the news fully and fairly. The main danger is that readers or listeners who already know of the event which is being suppressed, realise that it is not being reported and so lose confidence in the newspaper, radio or television station involved. This may, in the long run, result in more serious problems for ministers than some short-term embarrassment, and may do more long-term damage to your organisation's finances than the loss of one advertiser.
Bribes
Journalists may be vulnerable to bribery - somebody offering money (or goods or services) in return for a favourable story being written, or an unfavourable story being ignored.
To accept a bribe is dishonest. Your honesty can only be lost once. Once you have accepted a bribe, you can never again be trusted as a professional person. E.g. Operation Westend.
Gifts and freebies
Commercial companies sometimes try to buy journalists' friendship by giving them small presents or by giving them the opportunity to travel at the company's expense (sometimes called freebies).
Often this travel is legitimate. An airline which is introducing a new route to and from your country may well offer you a free seat on the first flight. You will then have the opportunity to write from first-hand experience about the service and about the destination. If the airline is confident that its service is good, and that the destination is interesting, they will be satisfied that whatever you write will be good publicity for them.
As long as it is understood that you are free to write whatever you like, without the company that provides the free travel having any influence, such an arrangement is acceptable. However, if you are offered a ticket in return for writing "something nice" about the company, this is not acceptable. Poor newspapers, radio and television stations may be grateful for charity to top up inadequate travel budgets, but they should never be so poor that they sell their professional honour.
In any case, such offers should never be accepted or negotiated by a junior journalist. Only the editor should do so, and any offers must be referred to the editor. The editor can judge whether or not the terms of the offer are acceptable.
Gifts are a difficult area. Small gifts may be acceptable, but the gift should not be so big as to buy your loyalty. People need to know that you and your news organisation have moral and ethical standards, and are prepared to live by them.
It is as bad to run a story which is just a free advertisement, or to suppress bad news, as a favour to a friend, as it is to do the same thing in return for a bribe.
Some journalists accept contracts to advertise products, as a way of earning some extra money. If you are seen by your readers or listeners to be in favour of a particular product, they will not believe that you are impartial if you later report a story about that or any rival products.
It is important for journalists to be impartial. You may know that you have no special liking for the product which you advertised - you only did it for the money - but your readers or listeners will not know that.
Conclusion
It is very hard for a journalist to remain truly impartial and fair under the many economic pressures that they are put under. But a true practitioner of the profession must strive for integrity in their work, even under these circumstances. A journalist's foremost commitment is towards maintaining the ethical standards of their work.
References
https://safejournalists.net/vadi_faq/economic-pressure-on-the-media/
https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/foresight/media-under-pressure_en
https://www.thenewsmanual.net/Manuals%20Volume%203/volume3_58.htm
Compiled by:
Batch of 2024
Department of Journalism
Lady Shri Ram College for Women
Delhi University
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