Abstract
The news media are in an increasingly vulnerable state today; and their weakness seriously affects the wellbeing of our democracies. The problem is not only that the shrinking advertising market is killing off several media outlets. That alone would be bad enough, but at the same time the surviving newsrooms are getting increasingly dependent on interest groups—and their impact can be clearly identified in news agendas and coverage. If the trend goes on, the Chinese Wall between editorial and advertising (or other powerful interest groups) will join the ranks of imaginary creatures such as Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and the likes.
Anya Schiffrin's edited book is a showcase of the different forms of pressure and dependencies on media of the 21st-century experience. Apart from Joel Simon's breath-taking description of some of the bravest “vanguard journalists” (p. 277) in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and other (from a journalist's point of view) dangerous parts of the world who continue working despite the imminent threat of being killed by drug cartels, mobs, or other subjects of their investigations, the book's main focus is on some of the soft, yet extremely effective forms of pressure that are commonly used against today's media. The key term of the book, media capture, refers to a situation in which newsrooms become so dependent on powerful entities that losing their goodwill would endanger their immediate survival. It is in fact one of the most acute problems that scholars of the political economy of the media face in the context of current media market challenges.
Perfectly independent news media rarely exist, as they always need to appeal to advertisers and consider the tastes of audiences. For a long time, media conglomerates were mentioned as a key challenge to an informed and critical public. Still, throughout the 20th century media outlets managed to maintain their financial viability and please their readers while sternly keeping those in power accountable. The new millennium, however, exposed the fragility of the two-sided markets in which media publishers not only sold news to their audiences (for a price well below the production costs), but also audiences to advertisers. Against this background, it is no wonder that most threats outlined in the book stem from the digitalization-induced vulnerabilities of the 21st-century newsrooms: the loss of old revenues (chiefly advertising and classifieds, but also the sale of print copies) and the increasing dependency on online platforms—the two most influential of them being Google and Facebook.
Case studies of Narendra Modi's India and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey, as well as a brief excursion to Viktor Orbán's Hungary, show that market failures are commonly exploited by politicians with authoritarian tendencies. While shutting down newsrooms, imprisoning journalists, or blocking content is still part of the toolkit in some authoritarian regimes, these measures are only utilized when leaders believe that their political survival might be in danger. In calmer times and more democratic contexts, media capture provides an alternative that is less visible and does not openly violate human rights—thereby decreasing the chances of protests and international criticism, or sanctions. In captured environments, the largest media owners are cronies of leading politicians, or at least financially dependent on public contracts, at the same time favorable coverage of the government gets rewarded with selectively distributed state subsidies and state advertising. And thus, a media landscape is created whose key players are technically in private ownership and market-financed, but in practice dependent on the goodwill of the most powerful political groupings.
Increasingly media owners in old democracies are joining in the capture of media. Mary Fitzgerald and her co-authors recount a story that starts with Russian-born tycoon Evgeny Lebedev making former Tory minister George Osborne the editor of his London-based daily Evening Standard. In turn, Osborne—who had no prior experience in journalism—figured that the best way for the formerly respected paper to make money is selling favors to private companies. In the United States, under the ownership of Jeff Bezos, founder of “tax avoider” (p. 8) Amazon, there are increasing doubts about the abilities of The Washington Post to hold firms accountable for tax avoidance or to provide fair coverage of tax reform. What is more, the chapter by Andrea Gabor shows that even philanthropic funding—a possible remedy to financial vulnerabilities—can lead to capture. She shows that some powerful donors with strong policy agendas (especially related to education or healthcare) expect from their grantees to adapt their news agenda or even editorial line to their interests and priorities.
Although the book is not specifically focused on the EU, many of its insights are relevant for European media landscapes. Aside from the most extreme example of Hungary, where private owners of news media willingly donated their outlets to a state-run foundation, we can see former elected officials owning the largest national news media in the Czech Republic or Italy, a state-controlled company buying a publishing house in Poland or the state defunding the main news agency in retaliation for its critical coverage in Slovenia. In addition, there are multiple cases of selectively distributed state ads and subsidies, strategic lawsuits, and even physical threats. All these justify further research on the topic in the EU context.
Besides governments and self-serving owners, the other villain of the book is big tech, which, as Rana Foroohar puts it, has “both disrupted and captured” (p. 24) the news media. While Google, Facebook, and other large platforms (none of them content-creators) have siphoned off most advertising revenues from the media market, news outlets have no choice but to use their services—thereby contributing to the financial success of these already extensively powerful companies. How vulnerable newsrooms can get in this context was illustrated by the examples of alternative news sites losing large chunks of their readership in the aftermath of tweaks in platform algorithms. According to Josh Marshall, Google is a “monopoly at every conceivable turn and consistently uses the market power to deepen its hold and increase its profits” (p. 87). He shows through the example of his own publication Talking Points Memo how the platform's services became essential (and very hardly replaceable) for the work of journalists: Google offers a service for running ads through DoubleClick (now Google Marketing Platform); it is the main purchaser of ads through AdExchange (Ad Manager); provides reader data through Analytics; helps audiences find news content with its search and news services, and provides an email service that many newsrooms rely on. Nikki Usher adds that platforms themselves are subject to pressure: the sheer threat of being regulated—and thereby losing precious revenues—makes them bend their knee for specific political interest groups. Especially antidemocratic groups try to use this form of leverage. This leads, for example, to the decision not to take down disinformation content if it is created by politicians holding or running for office. And this is just the countries where platforms have business interests. The situation gets even worse in cases when the government has effective control over social media, such as Yandex and other home-grown online platforms in Russia.
The final part of the book looks at possible solutions: as it can be expected, all of them put the emphasis on financing. In fact, there seems to be a consensus among the authors that journalism, as a public good, needs to receive some form of public of private subsidy, instead of hoping for redemption by memberships, subscriptions, or other audience revenues. But as appealing as the idea might sound, its short-term feasibility is at least questionable.
Dean Starkman and Ryan Chittum recommend that policymakers look at Hungary's one percent law—a remnant of the pre-Orbán times that allows taxpayers to donate one percent of their personal income tax to a non-governmental organization of their choosing. In recent years non-profit media outlets, among them highly respected investigative newsrooms, successfully utilized this source of revenue to complement grants and donations by readers. Andrew Sullivan highlights the need for more media development support that would come from governments and private foundations, as well as fines imposed, and assets seized thanks to revelations of journalistic investigations. Mark Nelson adds “policy reform, knowledge gathering, and coalition building” (p. 228) to the activities that democratic governments should invest in as part of media development efforts.
The efforts are all relevant, and there might be some indication that policy makers understood the severity of the issue. During the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic, the need for strong and independent watchdog media was made painfully clear, triggering a number of proposals on the EU level, the most popular being the European Media Freedom Act. Australia already introduced its News Media Bargaining Code that forces online platforms to support local media—how this will in fact improve the sustainability of independent news media is still to be seen. Often the proposed solutions come with caveats: their introduction takes a lot of time and compromise, while making journalists dependent on the goodwill of the political class. Especially at times when populist or outright authoritarian politicians get elected to the highest offices in old democracies, it is hard to envision that the right kind of support could arrive at the right time. Emily Bell convincingly shows in her closing article that technology companies do not care much about quality journalism. Google's charitable efforts, for example, must be seen as PR stunts with the intent of appeasing larger newsrooms and improving the company's image in the context of looming antitrust measures or platform regulation. In the same vein, it is questionable whether key players of the policy-making process—among them politicians and political appointees—would be more enthusiastic to rush to the rescue of news media, especially when a state of capture means less scrutiny of the dealings of high politics.
This does not mean the solutions promoted are not good. Many of them were pragmatic enough to provide an assessment of the money that can be generated and outline some safeguards that make sure the support process will not get captured by politics or misused by disruptive pseudo-journalistic actors. Moreover, it is very likely that some form of public or charitable subsidy regime will be inevitable to guarantee the financial sustainability of news media; but if we want to combine this with independence and legitimacy, the audience component should not be disregarded either. All in all, the book is a recommended read for both academics and the general audience, and strongly advised for policymakers who wish to help independent media.