What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: In a time of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, honesty in the free press is more important than ever. As citizens search for transparency from their governments around the world, we want to know:
How useful is the press and traditional media in fighting corruption?
Overall, [a] study finds that state media ownership and influence is far higher under autocratic governments—regimes where the press is likely used as a means of propagandizing and controlling the population. If an authoritarian regime decides to make a priority of fighting corruption, as is currently the case in China, perhaps state ownership of the media can act as one tool for exposing corrupt officials. More often, as the researchers write, state ownership of the media acts to “suppress public oversight of the government and facilitate corruption.” Indeed, they find that state media ownership is also associated with higher corruption. Independent media operating outside of the safe umbrella of government protection can face potentially fatal risks. Russian journalists are particularly familiar with the dangers of digging up dirt on the government. One recent casualty, the late Boris Nemtsov, was an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin. In a 2013 report, Nemtsov claimed that as much as US$30 billion had been stolen from funds allocated for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Nemtsov was shot four times in the back on a bridge near the Kremlin in February 2015. There is a Wikipedia page devoted to murdered Russian journalists, and it comprises a lengthy list. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a third of the victims covered the corruption beat.
Because the media can be so powerful, it is hard to keep it out of the hands of thieving dictators. The exposés from Canal N, Tehelka, and others give us a glimpse of the enormous impact that an independent media can have in bringing about reform. The importance of an independent media is twofold: it conveys accurate information that citizens might not otherwise receive, and it creates a community of knowledge, one in which everyone knows that everyone else in the country has the same information. Whether people are willing or able to act on the information is a separate matter, but without it, the public cannot respond to corruption.
[Pages 251-253, Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know by Ray Fisman and Miriam A. Golden]
Image: Newspaper by stevepb. CC0 public domain via Pixabay.
