Awakening the dragon’s and elephant’s media: Comparative analysis of India’s and China’s journalism ethics

Abstract

As the unipolar military world order has shifted to a multipolar economic world order, China and India have emerged as major actors in global geopolitics. While there is substantial scholarship available in areas of political science and finance about the relationship between China and India, little research has been conducted comparing the two countries’ journalism and media content and practices. This study provides a comparative analysis of how globalization, commercialization, and massive expansion of quasi-governmental media (in China) and privately owned media (in India) have impacted ethics of journalism practices. Interviews with Chinese and Indian journalists reveal that the two most important ethical issues for journalists in the two countries are corruption in media signified by practices of red envelope journalism in China and paid news in India and media’s declining credibility.

Keywords

China corruption credibility ethics India journalism paid news red envelope journalism

As the unipolar military world order has shifted to a multipolar economic world order, China and India have emerged as major players in global geopolitics. While there is a huge body of literature now available in areas of political science, international relations, economics, and finance about the relationship between China and India and the evolution of ‘chindia’ in the global world order, very little research has been conducted comparing the two countries’ journalism and media content and practices (Engardio, 2006). This article will provide a comparative analysis of how globalization, privatization, and commercialization, that is, massive expansion of quasi-governmental media (in China) and privately owned media (in India), have impacted ethics of media practices by critically addressing two areas of concerns for journalists in the two countries: (1) corruption in the media signified by the practices of red envelope journalism (China) and paid news (India) and (2) decline of media credibility. The analysis in this article is macro and will focus on similar ethical concerns of Chinese and Indian journalists.

The contemporary states of India and China have enjoyed a brief period of amicable relations as, for the time following their nearly simultaneous inceptions, there was anticipation around the world that the great anti-colonialist states of Communist China and independent India would, by virtue of their shared legacies and seemingly shared interests, form a strong alliance in the name of nonalignment (Manson, 2010). However, from the beginning, the disputed border shared by the two states, left undemarcated by the British in its haste to leave the region, created frictions between the two nations, leading to the 1962 war. It is through the lens of this conflict that each nation has regarded the other during the subsequent decades of antagonistic relations. Today, the stakes are different, but observers, once again, are attempting to come to terms with the sheer scale of change unfolding in these two countries’ developmental path as necessary and sustainable.

Over the past three decades, China and India have embarked on large-scale economic reforms toward a market economy underpinned by global economic integration which has generated robust economic growth in both countries. With a growth rate average of 9.5 percent per year between 1980 and 2004 and 7 percent between 2005 and 2010, and endowed with a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$1.6trillion, China is now the second largest economy in the world (Shirk, 2010). China’s image of an Orwellian landscape of austere monotony with men and women in their drab Mao jackets cycling silently have long melted into obscurity as streets of China’s cities and towns today are congested with Audis and Toyotas and bustling with people dressed in a kaleidoscope of the latest designer clothing. Although not as spectacular as China’s, India’s post-1991 economic reforms have helped the economy grow at more than 6 percent per year, on average, since 1992. India’s average annual growth in GDP reached 7.3 percent in 2003 and has fluctuated between 8.5 and 9 percent ever since. If, as expected, India maintains this growth momentum over the next several years, it will propel the country’s 80 billion dollar economy into the third largest in the world by 2020 (Sharma, 2009). These economic reforms have impacted every facet of the two societies, including journalism and media practices.

Post-reform journalism in China and India

Gone are the days of the Chinese media industry under siege focused on the struggle between the ‘foreign wolf versus the Chinese industry as the weaker lamb figure’ (Wang, 2010: 59). The fear of the survival of Chinese culture in the face of foreign media entry has given way to China’s substantial potential in globalization and exporting its own cultural products (Tan, 2012). The political and market imperatives of Chinese global expansion have become increasingly acute in light of success stories like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Alibaba.com . Global expansion has become a key plank of the Communist party’s cultural reform project, for example, notwithstanding the Chinese state’s opposition to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, CCTV (Chinese State Television) hoped to exploit the commercial potential of war coverage to become ‘China’s CNN’ (Sharma, 2009: 89). Most recently, CCTV expanded into the North America by establishing CCTV America. Such attempts, scholars agree, are a way for China to establish itself as a global superpower and have their media presence in the way they perceive the overwhelming presence of American, Japanese, and European media in the international arena (Public Broadcasting Services Newshour, 2012).

The Chinese media, including CCTV America, continues to be plagued by accusations of censorship and state control with content geared more toward state propaganda. The globalization and expansion of media have caused alarm and consternation among Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders who strongly believed controlling the public agenda was critical to maintaining social stability and the CCP’s hold on power. The best example would be of Rupert Murdoch’s thwarted ambitions to enter the Chinese media market which began in 1993 and ended in 2014 (Tseng, 2014). At first, China’s fast-growing market’s allure proved irresistible, and Murdoch invested heavily in launching Star TV, but by 2005 the Chinese government tightened restrictions on foreign media companies seeking to do business and by 2010 Murdoch had started selling out of China entirely, refocusing his ambitions on the equally massive, but what he referred to as a ‘much more agreeable’, Indian television market (Tseng). While actively encouraging media to operate on market principles instead of relying on government subsidies, the CCP also continues to resist a redefinition of the role of journalists, whom it still regards first and foremost as promoters of the party’s agenda (Xiaobo, 2004).

Media commercialization and the growth of new media, however, are combining to erode the CCP’s monopoly over the public agenda and to open a limited public sphere (Tong, 2011). The resulting tension between control and commercialization has altered the relationship between the CCP and the media, prompting CCP to adopt new tactics to uphold its influence on news. Despite the fact that the CCP continues to punish editors who step over the line and the media formally remain a part of the party-state apparatus, China’s leadership is beginning to treat the media and Internet as the voice of the public and to respond to it accordingly (Lo et al., 2005). Investigative journalism is on the rise and journalists who have successfully produced influential investigative reports are perceived as heroes.

No doubt, India has shed its image as a land of grinding poverty, starving children, sacred cows, holy men, and snake charmers. New media stories are about its legions of ‘techies’, savvy entrepreneurs, list of billionaires and brand name multinationals moving or outsourcing their operations to Bangalore, and extravagant Bollywood films. Examples of India’s success float around the world in newspapers and magazines: Mittal steel merged with Arcelor, Mittal Arcelor became the largest steel maker in the world; Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla group purchased the American firm Novelis, the world’s leading manufacturers in aluminum products; and Tata Motors bought from Ford Motors two of its highly valued brands, Jaguar and Land Rover. These men were celebrated as conquering heroes – symbols of new India. In media, when Reliance communication quietly acquired 50 percent distribution rights to DreamWorks SKG, an iconic movie studio, India emerged not only as a regional media giant but as a global media powerhouse.

Even in context of a rapidly expanding media, such as India, the role of a journalist cannot be separated from the key role journalists play in strengthening the democratic system. Recent scholarship about journalism in India has focused on the connections between the consolidation and success of democracy and democratic institutions and the press. Some scholars have argued that commercialization of news has created a facade of media plurality when in fact it was ‘contributing to a democratic deficit in the world’s largest democracy’ (Thussu, 2005: 65). Others argue that privatization, globalization, and commercialization of media have, alternately, increased access to and coverage of stories evaded by government-controlled news, about serious social and political issues such as caste oppression and gender discrimination (Rajan, 2007; Rao, 2008). Despite the obsession with celebrities and urban life dictated by profit considerations, some journalists have ventured into the villages and among ordinary people, who grapple every day with caste, class, and gender biases. Recent research, however, shows that most formidable threat to media freedom comes not from the state – although increasingly the state, too, is directly and actively getting involved in acts of censorship – but from media owners (Guha Thakurta, 2014). Lack of cross-media ownership laws and regulations and pressure of advertising revenues have created an environment which is obsessively focused on ratings and profits. The daunting challenge for journalists and media owners has been to balance the pressures of capitalism with the need for democracy.

There is a growing and substantial body of comparative research focusing on India’s and China’s global soft power (Kurlantzick, 2007; Thussu, 2013). However, the ethics of journalism practices has never taken center-stage in discussions and comparisons between the two of the largest media in the world. While both countries have been dramatically impacted by rapid commercialization which has made the media in these countries rich and influential, some argue, it has not resulted in increased professional integrity and, if anything, journalists often find themselves in ‘morally ambiguous situations with conflicting responsibilities’ (Junren, 2013: 197). This is not unusual that in the midst of a socio-economic transformation, the existing fabric of ethics and values may be under challenge or even erosions and journalists may find themselves pressed to renegotiate meaning or stipulation of their professional codes. The media systems of China and India are different as is their political configuration. Chinese media has commercialized without press freedom where journalists are expected to ‘tow both the party line and bottom line’ (Polumbaum, 2014: 178). In India, although press freedom exists, market-driven journalism has become increasingly influential to the point that advertising revenues have come to dictate all media content. While there are some ethics guidelines provided to Indian journalists and media owners by the statutory quasi-judicial administrative body of Press Council of India (PCI), no such guidelines exist in China.

This article will focus on practices in these countries which should be of concern to journalism scholars: corruption of the media signified by practices of red envelope journalism in China and paid news in India and declining credibility of media.

Method

Findings are based on face-to-face interviews with journalists in Beijing and Delhi. In China, the first set of interviews was conducted in Beijing in April 2014 of eight journalists, five men and three women, followed by additional interviews for 2 weeks in October 2014. A total of 26 men and 14 women were interviewed in October 2014. Seven of the interviewees were no longer working as journalists but were enrolled in a graduate program in journalism and communication in Beijing. In India, a total of 28 journalists, 20 men and eight women, were interviewed over a period of 2 weeks in January 2015. A total of 47 Chinese journalists and 28 Indian journalists were interviewed. The Chinese journalists ranged in age, industry experience, and seniority, but as a group had worked in newspaper or television for, on average, 5 years. The journalists had or were working for People’s Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, CCTV (Chinese State Television), BTV (Beijing Television), and China News Service. Indian journalists were all senior reporters and editors, and all worked for private Hindi and English newspaper or television news channels such as NDTV (New Delhi Television), India TV, Zee TV, The Times of India, and Hindustan. Indian journalists, at an average, had 12 years of industry experience, and six had worked both in newspaper and in television. Only journalists who covered hard news were included; entertainment and sports journalists were excluded. Potential interviewees were formally contacted, in most cases, via introductions made by third parties. The participants were informed, at first contact, of the general topics to be covered in the interview. These included, but were not limited to, their opinions about professional ethics of media and concerns they had about journalism ethics in their own country. The respondents were not asked comparative questions since none of the Chinese journalists had worked with an Indian counterpart and had ever visited India. Only one Indian journalist had visited China as part of a media delegation, and none had worked closely with a Chinese journalist or in a Chinese media organization. Interviews lasted 2 or 3 hours. Some respondents were later contacted via email for more clarification on what they had stated at the face-to-face meeting. The general tone of the interview was open-ended, although, at times, it was necessary to ask more pointed questions to elicit certain responses and examples from their own day-to-day work. The participants were guaranteed anonymity in any published work to arise from the interviews, and therefore, pseudonyms have been used. Interviews were conducted in Mandarin and English in Beijing and Hindi and English in Delhi. Service of a graduate student interpreter from Beijing was used to translate the interviews from Mandarin to English. The Hindi to English translation of the interviews conducted in Delhi is by the author.

Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using clustering method of thematic and discourse analysis where certain themes in the responses were grouped and categorized. Using Deuze’s (2005) method of clustering themes provides the reader a series of plausible suggestions about ethical practices in journalism for individual journalists in particular contexts. Journalistic interpretations are more than the production of cultural talk. For scholars, such information can act as a sounding board for and contribute to systematic, contextually, and theoretically informed textual analysis about newsroom practices. The findings include the general themes discussed in the semi-structured interviews and provide extracts where pertinent. The extracts are sometimes part of a longer conversation. I do not suggest that everything each respondent said is to be understood as objective truth or a definitive statement applicable to all Chinese and Indian journalists, or to Chinese and Indian media as a whole. Given the breadth and scope of each country’s media, more field and ethnographic work needs to be done in order to reach comprehensive comparative analyses.

Findings

Corruption in media: Red envelope journalism and paid news

Corruption has become one of the most discussed policy issues in China and India in recent years. This is not surprising since China and India have been consistently ranked by global Transparency International as two of the most corrupt countries in the world. India ranked 85th and China ranked 100th among 175 nations in the organization’s 2014 report (Transparency International, 2014). Even with large anti-corruption state-sponsored efforts (in China) and civil society movements (in India), there has been no decline in corruption, ‘indicating a general weak or ineffective leadership to counter corruption, posing threats for both sustainability of their economies and, in case of India, somewhat fragile democracy’ (Meng, 2013: 51). Lack of transparency, crony arrangements, bribes, and misuse of public funds have caused significant damage to these two countries’ social and institutional fabric. It is, then, not surprising that corruption in media is as endemic as corruption in the rest of society. While there are a number of ethical issues which plague Chinese and Indian journalism practices, when asked which ones they consider to be most troubling, respondents of this study focused most on two corrupt practices: red envelope journalism in China and paid news in India.

Red envelope journalism

On eve of the financial reforms, all media in China was owned by the state and all aspects of media business operations and finances were administered by the state. The staff did not need to be concerned about newspaper management or finances and distribution, of newspapers and magazines, was handled by post offices. Broadcasting and publication industry received sufficient state subsidies to work efficiently albeit under strict state control. As the government pursued economic decentralization, it led to redistribution of wealth from the central government to local governments, entrepreneurs, and individuals. As a consequence, the share of revenues coming from the government dropped to about 9 percent at an average for publishers and broadcasters (Stockmann, 2013). At the same time, the demand for media grew enormously as more consumers were interested in information and entertainment. The economic reforms also created a growing demand by foreign and domestic enterprises for effective advertising channels. As media economics changed, paying for news coverage and paying to have news go unreported came to be referred to as ‘red envelope journalism’ and became a common practice. Such envelopes, which traditionally contain money and are given as gifts usually for Chinese New Year, are now routinely handed out at business press conferences to guarantee positive coverage (Wedeman, 2012). Among other cases, respondents of this study pointed to the case where eight people connected with the Chinese business news website 21st Century Net were arrested and charged with taking payoffs from financially vulnerable companies in exchange for flattering coverage. According to news reports, the website’s top leaders had accepted more than US$50 million by brokering backroom deals with 100 companies (Buckley, 2014). Like many commercial and advertising supported media, 21st Century Net was under considerable pressure to garner advertising. By colluding with public relations firms to identify image-conscious companies on the verge of preparing for their initial public offerings, 21st Century Net would bury unfavorable reports, thereby misleading potential investors, if the companies agreed to buy between US$30,000 and US$50,000 worth advertising contracts. Earlier cases of red envelope journalism, interviewees discussed, included the case of two journalists from China’s official news service, Xinhua News Agency, who accepted gold bars to cover up coal mine accidents. In 2009, 10 journalists were charged with collecting more than US$300,000 for not reporting such an incident, which killed dozens. The case garnered national attention after a photographer who took photos (and made those photos available online) of a long line of journalists at the scene of a mine accident who were standing there to receive hush money.

Respondents identified red envelope journalism to be the single most threat to media credibility in China:

[Red envelope] is now common. Some journalists will turn away from press briefings if they don’t get enough cash. How will the public trust a media where there such open bartering? (X.U.)

There is little substantive research available on the practice of red envelope journalism and, therefore, difficult to identify one reason why this practice has flourished in post-reform media. Some of the reasons identified by the respondents are economic decentralization, ineffective laws, lack of ethics training, lack of journalism education, and poor pay of journalists. In recent years, the survival of any given publication, with the exception of CCP organs like People’s Daily, has come to depend largely on its ability to attract advertising. Because the government no longer subsidizes commercial publications, the thousands of newspapers and magazines must scramble to find their own sources of funding. The asymmetry of economic liberalization and globalization, economic but not political, has rendered traditional journalists, whose poor pay has earned them the moniker ‘news laborers’, more susceptible to bribery (Zhang, 2014: 118). Rather than being guaranteed stable salaries, writers and editors are hired on a contractual basis, with little or no job protection. Some scholars have argued that much of China’s undeclared wealth appears in the form of, what the Chinese call, ‘gray income’. Gray income includes ‘proceeds from corruption, whose origin is not clear, or whose legality cannot be confirmed’ (Kuhn, 2014). Practices like red envelope journalism fall into the gray income category but become a necessary source of income when pay for journalists are poor – and declining – across the board. Research has shown that the average income of Chinese journalists, working for an advertiser-supported media outlet, hovers annually at US$8000 (Fan, 2014). The low salary, respondents stated, forced them to accept ‘travel allowances’ which can add up to US$150 additionally per month to their salary. Some respondents called this as ‘extra budgetary revenue’ which allows them to have some spending money beyond taxi and food.

Some journalists openly lamented the lack of ethics training and existence of professional standards as cause of such practice:

Ethics is not a topic for media people. It is not taught in college. We are expected to learn it from society and from family. I know other countries there are professional societies which manage ethics for all journalists. In China there is no such requirement. We are walking in the dark. (Z.B.)

I cannot remember talking to a good professor in college about ethics. No such subject was discussed. I regret this. Now every day I feel that there is ethics in the situation I am encountering. (X.E.)

Some suggested that while ethics training is not likely to eliminate practice of red envelope journalism, it might influence the profession as a whole:

It is not one journalist who says no to red envelope, everyone has to say no. (Z.B.)

The lack of professional ethics education, journalists suggested, leads to normative practices which are unethical but appear to be acceptable. Z.B. notes, ‘If unchallenged, red envelope becomes the norm and you think if everyone is doing it must it right but that is not the truth’.

Some scholars have cynically referred to the state of Chinese media as suffering from ‘pandemic media corruption’ and that the red envelope journalism was a natural outcome of such a corrupt environment (Meng: 114). Respondents state that rise in ‘fake’ news stories is a direct outcome of red envelope journalism. Respondents gave examples of many ‘fake’ news stories which were heavily covered by the media but ended up being untrue. A frequently mentioned story from the China News Agency was about the number of youngsters dying each year from respiratory diseases caused by indoor pollution. In a story in 2011, it was reported that the national disease control center had announced at a news conference that about 2.2 million infants died from respiratory diseases each year because of indoor pollution. But investigation revealed that the Chinese ministry of health had never held a news conference to release such information and, in fact, were not in possession of such information. China news agency later wrote on its website that the news had come from public relations material the reporter received at a seminar held by a private air filter manufacturing company which was promoting a high-tech product to reduce air pollutants in individual households. Another fake news example discussed by the respondents was where Xinmin Evening News reported the rape of a woman at the World Shanghai Expo in 2010. The news spread rapidly on many social-networking platforms including Weibo. The victim, it was stated, had been raped while trapped in a huge crowd trying to get a ticket to watch a performance by a South Korean band. The rape lasted only a few seconds, her mother was quoted as saying, leaving the woman no time to scream for help. Shanghai police later found that there had been no reports of rape as described in the story, and the alleged victim herself refused to discuss the matter when approached by police officers. It has never been clear or established, respondents said, whether an actual rape occurred or that the story had simply gained media currency given the importance of Shanghai Expo to the country’s global image. Some journalists discussed the spread of such fake news as an outcome of inadequate journalism education:

Journalists don’t always know the difference between news and public relations. They will publish information from such materials as facts. They have never learned about good journalism at university. It is treated as a job rather than public service. (M.Z.)

M.Z.’s point resonated with others who testified to working with journalists who had never received any professional training. X.X., a senior editor, was clear in identifying what he thought was the biggest problem:

Teaching ethics is on the side. When ethics is not taught, practice is not possible. We have one million journalists without any knowledge of ethics. They go to work and have to understand how to decide. Many just follow the bosses. This is a difficult situation we have found with the opening of China’s media which has many cases of red envelop and fake news. (X.X.)

Given the confusion of China’s press environment, Xie (2014) writes,

where controls and propaganda crisscross with the worst commercial appetites, it is often difficult to tell which articles are real fake news, which are officially sanctioned falsehoods, and which are fake fake news, branded as such by government officials who have an active interest in suppressing the truth. (p. 7)

Fake stories make it difficult, suggest respondents, for truthful news stories to be reported. One respondent described his experience:

A reader asked me when I wrote a story on a toy manufacturing company and pollution, if it was fake or real story and how much bribe I got from a competing toy company. With all the fake stories, real stories are suspicious.

Paid news

Like red envelope journalism, paid news in India has been one of the most overt symptoms of media corruption. Like China, India’s media has exploded since the early 1990s. Currently, the Information and Broadcasting ministry boasts of more than 200 round-the-clock news channels broadcasting in 16 official languages, along with the publication of 80,000 newspapers. A media-saturated environment has not, by its very presence, led to ethical practices. While there have been cases of bribery and attempts at extortion by media, especially of the business houses who are looking for favorable media coverage, it is paid news which is recognized by the respondents as the most damaging and unethical practice of media.

Paid news is a phenomenon where media outlets accept money from politicians, celebrities, and businesses in exchange for giving them positive coverage especially during election season. In coverage of politics, paid news has been signified by practices of advertorials where editorials, which are paid by businesses or politicians, appear on newspaper pages. Such advertorials are not limited to editorial pages. In many instances, the advertorials appear on the front page or inserted next to hard news stories. Like red envelope journalism in China, paid news is now considered a common practice. The practice has, in fact, gained legitimacy as politicians openly admit that they approach leading newspaper of their states with money for ‘positive stories’ or agree to ‘package deals’ where, along with positive stories about themselves, the newspapers print negative stories about their rivals. Guha Thakurta and Reddy (2010) write, ‘It [politicians talking of such deals] can only mean that the selling of editorial space has become both blatant and institutionalized, and that neither the print nor the electronic media are immune to the malaise’. One respondent told of the following story he had heard from his news producer: ‘Some channels were negotiating prices for an hour of “live” television coverage and told the politicians we can even arrange for crowds if you organize a rally’. Packages for print and television for 3-day coverage, during elections, he disclosed, ‘varied between 12 million INR and 20 million INR’. During the 2014 national elections, some news channels were accused by politicians that the reporters and salespeople had threatened them that they would ‘deliberately project lesser tally for [politicians and party] in opinion polls if the politicians did not pay for coverage’. Respondents knew of or had seen the owners and management train salespeople in collecting paid news. The Indian Election Commission identified 1400 cases of paid news between 2010 and 2014 in 17 different states (Vyawahare, 2014). These numbers suggest how widespread this practice had become.

While the most known cases of paid news concerned political news reporting, there were cases identified by the respondents which involved ‘treaties’ or unwritten agreements with private companies, businesses, and even individual celebrities to give them positive coverage (Mudgal, 2015). The ‘private treaties’ scheme pioneered by Bennett Coleman Company Limited (BCCL), parent company of the English language and historically revered newspapers, Times of India and The Economic Times, involved giving advertising space to private corporate entities and advertisers in exchange for equity investment. The company officially denies that it provides favorable editorial coverage to its ‘private treaty’ clients or blacks out adverse comment against its clients. However, journalists interviewed for this research pointed out that ‘private treaties’ lead to commercialization of news reports since the same would be based on the subscription and advertising agreement entered into between the media group and the company. Respondents felt that such brand-building strategies of media groups, without appropriate and adequate disclosures, are not in the interest of investors or media consumers. A senior journalist described the situation as follows:

Owners don’t care about ethics. The treaties are signed and we are told that any investigative story cannot violate the conditions of treaties. I go into shouting matches with the marketing department which has told me what story I cannot cover. This is not news. (S.A.)

A critical problem identified by the respondents was one of enforcement regarding the existence and practice of paid news. The issue with advertorials and private treaties was not in defining what these practices entail but in trying to establish that money has changed hands and that a payment has been made by a political candidate or a businessperson to a representative of a media company that has published or broadcast the so-called ‘news’ in his or her favor. Since such payments are invariably made in a clandestine manner, in cash and in person and without any evidentiary written record, and since official records (in the form of receipts or invoices) are deliberately not kept in the concerned media company’s balance sheet or statements of accounts, the only way such transactions can be uncovered, if at all, is if search-and-seizure raids are conducted by the Income Tax Department or members of the police force. Like the gray economy in China, paid news flourishes in a cash economy which cannot be accounted for and, thus, difficult to uncover and prosecute. One senior journalist stated,

You hear [from politicians] this media channel or that newspaper has asked for money but when you ask them to name the media, they shut up and say I can’t name anyone. Press has become an extortion agency but the politicians do not want to offend the media … they need the media. So the practice keeps continuing.

Credibility

If corruption in media is a direct outcome of the commercialized and privatized media in China and India, readers and viewers also, journalists believed, have started to question media credibility and increasingly demand more accountability from journalists. In other words, media content is under intense critical public scrutiny in China and India. Scholars have argued that an unethical media is less credible and is less likely to be perceived as effective and working in public’s interest (Gunther, 1992; Kiousis, 2001). It is difficult to conclude whether corruption of media leads audiences to believe that media is less credible, but respondents suggested that they themselves consider commercial media in China and India to be less ethical and credible.

The general rationale of China’s media policy has been that commercialization, corporatization, and conglomeration will change the rigid government-subsidized soviet-style propagandistic media apparatus to a flexible and prosperous market-oriented modern business and that such change will lead to a media which will be ethical, credible, and sensitive to public opinion. The question scholars have asked is whether media reform featuring state-sanctioned commercialization as part of the party-state’s capitalist market agenda has led to increased media credibility or was it only ‘rhetoric and illusion’ (Zhang et al., 2014: 158)? The respondents believed that most commercial media in China was sensationalistic and did whatever was necessary to increase circulation and viewership and were less ethical and less credible than state-owned media such as CCTV and People’s Daily. Public trust in state-owned media, Zhang, Zhou, and Shen argue, could be in the history of CCTV and People’s Daily which had been the accepted official source of news for half a century in China but also because of the perception that commercial media is viewed with suspicion and functioning merely within market logic.

The respondents gave numerous examples including some from the media companies they themselves had worked for, where such sensationalism was prevalent. One example is of the baby boy who was flushed down the toilet pipe by his mother in Zhejiang province in 2013. Photographer from a local newspaper arrived on the scene to take the first photos of the newborn, still stuck in the sewer, and with his umbilical cord attached. One journalist wrote in an email about this case:

This photo is bloody. Do we need to be putting the bloody baby without clothes stuck besides the pipe of the toilet to attract eyes? When the baby grew up someday and sees the photo reported by the journalist, how will he feel? I think this should be a journalist’s concern. Reporting such news is important indeed but the professional ethics should be the first aspect of all. (X.P.)

Respondents acknowledge that these cases were instances of ‘real news’ which required media’s attention, but it is the kind of attention that the media gives which leads to charges of lack of ethics. Disaster reporting, such as coverage of earthquakes, industrial accidents, and reporting about terrorism, was given as an example of unethical reporting which furthermore impacted media credibility. The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines 370 and the photos and interviews of grieving families, though powerful, were most often given as examples of sensationalism and insensitivity. MH 370 departed from Beijing for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 8 March 2014 and disappeared that very morning. On board were 153 Chinese citizens. Some journalists argued that the photos of the family, crying and mourning, were broadcast and published by the media every day the first few weeks of the disaster. One journalist who covered the MH 370 case for Beijing Global Times in the days following the disappearance of the flight said,

In some videos we can hear and see from the picture that the reporter is taking photos without permission from the victim’s relatives and even when the mother who has lost her son begs the cameraman not to shoot, the reporter is heard saying that he didn’t have the camera on. Besides, video also shows that the reporters surrounded the relatives who had great difficulty in finding a way out. One relative is heard complaining, ‘Why all the journalists ask the relatives for further information rather than the Malaysian authority?’… One reporter asked a sobbing relative coolly about how many family members she has lost without showing at race of empathy. Who can trust this [media] reporting? (L.T.)

Media credibility is further diminished by some of the most common unethical practices identified by the journalists: use of social media sites such as Weibo without confirming the veracity of the information; using unreliable sources such as eyewitnesses; use of sensationalistic language; lack of research especially in medical malpractice cases, terrorism, and environmental disasters; and lack of sensitivity to subjects being covered.

Unlike China, pre-reform print media in India had a long and well-respected history of investigative journalism and one which constantly and critically addressed abuses of power by the state, police, and judiciary. Ironically, all the journalists believed that the credibility of media has declined in the post-reform era. Many pointed to the lack of a culture of investigative journalism and news being dominated by what Drèze and Sen (2013) describe as ‘breathless gossip about cricketers, billionaires and Bollywood stars, and point-scoring among the political elite’ (p. 263). The rise of media branding and treating news as commodity has given way to advertiser-focused news rather than hard news about politics, business, and culture. Some interviewees, who had been journalists for more than 20 years, reminisced about ground-breaking investigative stories about policy brutality and caste violence in the 1970s and 1980s. One respondent joked, ‘The only investigative reports today [are] about [media] such as paid news and extortion’. Some referred to this development as ‘page three journalism’ where news content has shifted to reportage of parties; meeting celebrities; write-ups about food, fashion, fun, and travel; and pages of glamorous photos of foreign and Indian models and stars. One respondent noted, ‘In-depth reporting on social problems has all but disappeared’. A comparative example was given by one respondent from the 1970s from the daily newspaper, The Hindustan Times:

[In 1970] the village Chhatera became a familiar column in Hindustan Times. For months the problems faced by the residents of this village were reported. Reporters associated with this column articulated the feelings of rural India. It was a unique experiment by a daily newspaper to positively impact society and [we] called this journalism of hope. [Now] journalism of hope has been replaced by journalism of rich. (Q.A.)

The respondent is referring to the column ‘Our Village, Chhatera’ which ran in The Hindustan Times Sunday magazine for 8 years starting 23 February 1969. This column described, over a period of 8 years, the changes taking place in a small Indian village and how life of rural people was impacted by development and change. Mudgal’s (2011) research complements the observations of Indian journalists that news about rural and social issues is marginalized in the post-reform media landscape. His study on three of India’s highest circulated English and Hindi dailies found that they devote only a minuscule proportion of their total coverage (about 2%) to rural India’s issues. One respondent concluded, ‘I cannot even imagine that a column [like Chhatera] could be published in any of today’s newspapers’.

Beyond lack of investigative reporting and any focus on socio-economic problems, the interviewees also shared concern about the practice of extortion by journalists. The case which garnered the most media attention and was mentioned frequently by the respondents was the case of two senior news editors from the Hindi news channel, Zee TV, who were caught on hidden camera demanding US$100million of advertising from the CEO of Jindal Steel and Power Company, Naveen Jindal, in return for suppressing negative stories about his company. While these two editors were arrested for criminal conspiracy and extortion, such practices, say respondents, is increasingly becoming common among the cash-strapped news channels and newspapers who are always struggling to find new revenue streams. One journalist said, ‘The truth is that there is a strong stench coming from inside media now. If proven true, Zee News will sink the credibility of the entire TV news business’. While some media outlets, such as the newspapers The Indian Express and The Hindu, Outlook magazine, and New Delhi Television (NDTV), continue to garner respect for their news stories, there is generally a belief that credibility of media is at its lowest.

Conclusion: Boom time with ethical deficit

Comparisons between China and India are inevitable. Since the late 1940s, both countries have embarked on an enduring rivalry (Rao, 2011). Recent policy changes suggest to the old Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai (India and China are brothers) era as India has become the biggest trading partner of China. These two countries, and their news media, have leapfrogged into two of the largest in the world. Such expansion, however, has not resulted in a media cognizant of journalistic ethical precepts. This article highlights clear similarities in media environments where the media boom has taken place without the evolution of ethical professional norms and best practices and has resulted in corruption and declining credibility of journalism. Journalists in China and India are equally concerned about the ethics of each country’s media practices. Practices such as red envelope journalism in China and paid news in India stem from the changed political economy, poor ethics training, and lack of journalism education. Journalists of both countries are also concerned about the declining credibility of media. According to the Chinese journalists, media credibility is impacted by sensationalism of news, lack of verification of sources, and fake news. Declining credibility of India’s media, journalists say, is because of lack of investigative and meaningful journalism and incidents of blatant extortion and blackmailing.

Future research on India and China’s media must focus on the neoliberal nexus between government, corporate world, and media owners and how such relationships impact journalism ethics. These stakeholders have worked together to produce and expect political submissiveness from journalists. A lack of strong and established history of ethical norms and ethics training of journalists exacerbates the situation. In China, state-based censorship along with the introduction of market-oriented revenue generation approach has resulted in deep corruption of media. In India, media owners, with their neoliberal agenda of maximizing profit and cross-ownership interests and with the equally zealous support of the democratic state (similar to CCP in China), have started to engage in practices such as paid news and extortion.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Shakuntala Rao’s teaching and research interests are in the areas of global media, journalism ethics, and popular culture. She has published extensively and influentially in both communication and interdisciplinary journals. Her most recent book, co-edited with Herman Wasserman, is Media Ethics and Justice in the Age of Globalization, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

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