Brexit should get us thinking about Indian media

To those who followed it closely, the venomous campaign around Brexit has made Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage household names. Johnson is the stiff upper lip equivalent of Donald Trump and Farage, well, let’s just say he’s not a statesman. Both these men were cheerleaders and organisers of the Leave camp, prepared to lie and scare the public into voting for Brexit at every step of the way. However, has anyone heard of the likes of Tony Gallagher, Paul Dacre, and Hugh Wittow – people equally, if not more, instrumental in making Brexit happen? The answer would almost certainly be a no.

That’s because these are the editors of British tabloid newspapers such as Daily Mail, The Sun, and Daily Express, people hidden from public view who enjoy untrammelled power in influencing, and often forming, public opinion without accountability.

Readers might be aghast that the newspapers they access in the privacy of their bedroom to sneak a peek at celebrities’ wardrobe malfunction could have such sway over the public opinion of one of the most highly educated nations on the planet. Unfortunately, it’s true.

These papers have played a defining role in not just helping the voices of Leave leaders like Johnson and Farage reach the people, but have also concocted uncountable acerbic lies of their own, largely related to immigration, to mould the clay-like minds of the public. Taking the tabloids’ large readership into account, an analysis shows that of all the articles on Brexit published in British newspapers, pro-Leave occupied 82 per cent of the space. Moreover, the tabloids enjoy far more readership among the working class and the unemployed, which have swung the vote in favour of Leave.

The above is not the only example of media’s clinching influence on public opinion. A 2006 study on the impact of Fox News finds “a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000.” Needless to say, the nationalism-stoking, lost-pride-evoking Fox News favours Republicans. Fox has also been found to be an influential denier of climate change.

The insidious influence of such bigoted media outlets, TV or print, carries crucial and urgent lessons for India – a nation with innumerable fault lines of its own, and one whose people are considerably less educated than their Western counterparts.

India is a melting pot of tens of English newspapers and channels, and countless media in Hindi and vernacular languages. In their race to the top of TRP ratings and eyeballs, most of them are engaged in a competitive race to the bottom of the pyramid of truth, fairness, logic, ethics, and sobriety. Influenced by Fox and the tabloids, these media channels and newspapers seem to have uncovered the golden principle of being the most influential, and thus the richest – if you repeat a lie often (and loudly) enough, it becomes the truth.

Already, paid media and private treaties (media’s unethical favours to business houses) are big problems in India. The issue became dinner table discussion most notably during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, on which paid media could have had significant influence.

However, such blatant lies and malpractices have often trivialised the debate over media regulation in India into a reductive discussion of what should and should not be banned. The debate is far more complex than that. Extensive media regulation, such as recommendations by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on barring ownership by political parties and religious organisations, conflate opinion/editorial bias with malpractice, and would ruin freedom of expression in the country. After all, several newspapers in India advocate free market economics. Couldn’t they be accused of bias? Who’s to draw the line between “good” and “bad” bias? Proscribing a media outlet for advocating a certain view is no better than an individual being jailed for a Facebook post. The essence of being a human being lies in favouring one opinion over another, and editors aren’t above that.

Looking at the other side of the debate on freedom of expression, doesn’t the financial heft of big businesses and political parties skew the playing field in their favour – a view subscribed to by most Western European countries but not by the US. Should there be limits on spending by media outlets, as there are on election spending by parties in most countries in the world? There are no easy answers.

Thankfully, not everything is so complex. What does need to be proscribed and punished is malpractice, which differs from editorial bias. Malpractice could range from pushing forward opinions for ulterior motives – such as quid pro quo or money – to outright lies or airing doctored videos. For this, Indian media urgently needs an effective self-regulatory body free from conflict of interest, instead of the current “eye wash”. It’s also crucial to limit vertical and horizontal integration to prevent monopoly.

Far more crucial than external regulation is regulation from within the newsroom, in the form of improving governance structures and developing a culture that values truth, scrutiny, objectivity and sobriety. Too often, erroneous stories by negligent or corrupt reporters sneak through because of lack of editorial oversight. No media outlet in India, except The Hindu, has appointed an ombudsman. Media houses must also take the lead in fully disclosing their owners, sources of revenue, sponsors, advertising rates and so on. Such disclosures must be made in bold on the front page of a newspaper or on the home page of a website, and in the form of a news ticker for TV channels.This practice is even more imperative for ‘advertorials’, which blur the line between news and advertisement. To know why, carefully check out this link.

Ultimately, any regulation must strike at the root of the problem – compromise of editorial independence owing to meddling by advertisers and/or owners. The interference by owners, if done for the nefarious purpose of pushing forward their political and/or business interests, calls for insulating structures between the editor and the owner, such as The Guardian’s trust fund. Germany’s Der Spiegel is owned by the employees themselves. More egalitarian structures of media houses have also been explored. Outright pressure on editors should invite intervention by a powerful regulator.

The more intricate subject to be dealt with is compromise of editorial independence due to media outlets generating insufficient revenues. Media outlets, especially print, have run into financial difficulties because of broken, advertising-dependent business models. The shift to online journalism and the difficulties in monetising this medium have far exacerbated problems. News aggregators like Google and Facebook walk away with most of the revenues generated from content produced by media outlets. Frantic attempts are being made to come up with something that works, but just like media ownership structures, it’s still work in progress. A better business model will also help raise salaries of reporters, who are being too easily bought over by their wealthier PR cousins.

Perhaps government funding is an answer to lack of revenues. In mature democracies such as Finland, which tops the Press Freedom Index, extensive government support for private media has been a boon to preserving media independence and promoting competition. However, looking at BBC versus DD, and given the levels of favouritism involved in a far more trivial thing such as distributing government ads to media outlets, state-funded private media, just like state-funded elections, is possible in India only in a utopian parallel universe.

Going forward, with most media houses, especially the ones in print, struggling to stay afloat, dependence on advertisers and rich and influential owners is only set to increase. That doesn’t sound good. So far, media is, and remains, the fourth pillar of democracy. Tabloid and Fox-like media too has its place, but more for entertainment purposes than for credible information purposes. Hopefully, for the sake of Indian democracy, the consumers will use their good judgement to not let that line blur.