Decline of the Media? Decline of Democracy?

Abstract

The media play a leading role in democracies. Their task is to enable citizens to make informed decisions by providing them with a balanced picture of the complex world. However, amongst journalists, the general knowledge of and interest in politics and EU affairs seems somewhat poor, which means that the media are not doing their job, and this is reflected in society. Media reporting on the EU is predominantly negative and therefore cannot give a balanced view to the public in order to promote a healthy European democracy. Instead, the changes taking place in the media landscape seem to promote entertainment and market values over political content, a development which benefits politicians suited to this arena, such as populists.

Introduction

The media are considered to be the fourth power or estate in our societies, after the executive, legislative and judicial powers. Democracy needs an informed public and the media feed us their opinions, so that what is being written in the press or broadcast on radio and television is of great relevance. In this article I focus on changes in the media landscape and how they affect reporting on politics and especially on EU affairs.

The relationship between the media and politics is one of the most powerful and at the same time one of the most controversial public relationships. It's filled with parities: trust and suspicion, dependency and impartiality–-almost love and hate. The two sides need each other but sometimes make each other's lives impossible. Publicity and the skills to master it are essential for a successful politician, a reality that might not always be easy or fair: a politician who is politically talented but not a good media performer might be left in the shadows. How many historic statesmen would have made it in today's limelight? For those who know how to use them, the media are useful tools for promoting chosen policies. But the media are also tools for those who want to take advantage of their darker side. A pretty politician can conduct a successful campaign via women's magazines without even mentioning politics. A charismatic populist can get away with one-liners and not be challenged by journalists who think mainly about the potential headlines.

Political journalism is facing multiple challenges. The Internet is an even bigger revolution than radio and television were, and this transition is only beginning. The competition is tougher than ever, and to a large extent speed and market value have become more important than content.

At the same time politics and party structures are going through a similar transformation. It's not enough to report local, national and European politics separately anymore as everything is interlinked, and what happens in Brussels or even further away has an impact at national and local levels. The world is getting more complex and political decisions are made on several levels and by numerous actors. The media are responsible for taking this change into account. And since not everyone likes the inevitable changes in the world, some are doing their best to hinder them, or at least are opposing them in public debate.

Journalists and populists seem to get along nicely; they share a passion to criticise those in power. The media's role is to be sceptical, to challenge the powerful and to serve the public as a watchdog, but this has now reached the point where journalists tend to have a relentlessly pessimistic approach to authorities and the EU. They take a very critical approach as if to prove their independence, and are seldom open to the idea that some officials might even have the public's best interest at heart.

The media revolutions

The use of the Internet is now more common on a daily or almost daily basis than the use of the written press (48% compared to 38%), while the radio and, most prominently, television are still in the lead. Sixty-four per cent of Europeans use the Internet at least once a week, and even though there are still slightly more people who trust the written press than those who trust the Internet (43% vs. 37%), at the same time there are a lot more people who distrust the written press than those who distrust the Internet (51% vs. 39%). Television and especially radio are trusted by a majority of people, but those media also have their sceptics. The number of people who don't know whether to trust or not to trust a medium is noticeably largest with the Internet. (European Commission 2012b, 5, 10, 13).

The Internet introduces several threats to quality journalism. As use of the Internet and social media has risen, sales and resources in traditional media have shrunk. This, along with the economic crisis, has caused a major transformation in the media industry. Media outlets across Europe have laid people off by the hundreds or even thousands, gone solely digital, or filed for bankruptcy. In Germany they use the term ‘Zeitungssterben’ (newspaper death) for this.

Online anyone can claim to be a journalist or an expert. The increased blogging and writing online does bring more perspectives to the table and democratises the ownership of information. Distrust of the media may well be one of the reasons for this increase in citizen journalism. But here lies a huge danger: What is information? Are these writers responsible in their use of it? For professionals there are limiting factors such as journalistic ethics and the responsibility of the writer or, in the end, the editor-in-chief. But who can be sure that information in blogs or tweets is accurate? Or that the ideas or even the identity are the writer's own? The Internet is also a very useful tool to spread false information and propaganda and to connect with others with the same agenda.

As a result of economic stress, and of the fast pace of the online world, the media face accelerated internal competition and reporting is done faster than ever. Striving to be the first to get the news online means journalists have less time to investigate the background information, to think and analyse, or even simply to check the facts. Journalists cite–-and copy and paste–-each other's work, and sometimes resort to plagiarism.

With the commercialisation of the media it's often what sells–-in other words, what advertisers decide–-that determines the content. It's the catchy headlines that make people buy the product, and this is especially the case online, where it's the number of ‘clicks’ that produce the revenue. So headlines become more tempting, sexy, controversial, scandalous and often misleading or even false. False accusations and exaggerations are made, and they attract far more attention than the small corrections printed afterwards. This can have serious consequences for individuals’ lives and even for diplomatic relations. In the midst of the economic crisis, for instance, several media outlets reported that Finland was demanding the ownership of Greek islands or of the Parthenon as collateral for the Greek bailout, threatening to leave the eurozone and refusing to accept some of the crisis mechanisms. These claims were simply not true but they spread in the media anyway, unchecked. It seems that the basic principles of journalism are sometimes forgotten, such as this one: ‘respect for truth and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist’ (International Federation of Journalists 1954). The thinking of the industry has changed: the work used to be about what was important; now it's about what sells.

This also affects politics. To get the attention of the media, many politicians sell their private lives to magazines and take part in entertainment shows on television. The attempt to keep politicians in the media eye has a regrettable consequence: the media's increasing emphasis on entertainment and controversy has decreased the credibility of politics and in that way helped the populists. It seems it's no longer a virtue to be responsible and stick to what is factual and realistic; rather it's laudable to turn politics into a show, in the style of the Finnish populist Timo Soini or the Italian Five Star Movement leader Beppe Grillo.

If the media are not doing their job, the Internet can surely help to provide information to those interested in politics. However, first the information is scattered over various sites, relevant information is sometimes hard to pinpoint, and even politicians do a lot of communicating via blogs and tweets and not just through the official channels, so it's difficult for a regular citizen to keep up. Second, tweets and Facebook posts are short and tend to simplify complex issues. Third, online information doesn't reach everyone as not everybody seeks it. A growing number of people don't follow relevant societal developments anymore and we might soon face a new division in our democracy with the decline of the traditional media, a new version of ‘the haves and the have nots’: those who have reliable information and those who don't. For instance in Finland, considered to be a country of excellent public education and top-level information technology, a recent poll revealed that a third of responders can't list the parties in the current government (fair enough, since there are as many as six, but a third also thought the main opposition party was in government) and they also mixed up the portfolios of the most prominent ministers. The correlation between knowledge and social status and education was evident in this survey (Luukka 2013). We cannot become only a self-service society when it comes to information. The media and especially the public service providers need to continue gathering relevant information, analysing it and reporting it to people.

Just blame it on Brussels!

Reporting on the EU doesn't fit the current market-oriented media landscape very well, as EU news doesn't seem ‘hot’ to most people. Here we have a vicious circle: If there is not enough information on EU politics in the media, people will lose interest because they don't realise its importance. And if people don't show interest, the media will cut down even further on reporting. Or if the media feel they have to report something, they will do it in a way that sells rather than a way that provides balanced information.

Unfortunately ‘bad news is good news’ is not just a slogan but a reality, especially with the EU. Press counsellors have tried to offer positive EU news to the media, but it has often been ignored as unsellable. According to a Eurobarometer survey (European Commission 2012b), notwithstanding the fact that a majority of Europeans still feel that EU reporting by their national media is objective, the feeling that the media are too negative in their EU coverage has increased slightly over the past few years.

Negative news contributes to a negative, even cynical, opinion climate. The media have even been accused of worsening the economic crisis by offering speculation on interest rates, on the inadequacy of bailouts and crisis mechanisms, and on some countries’ exit dates from the eurozone. A lot less reporting has been done on why the measures were important, what was at stake and what actually would happen if a country was allowed to fall into bankruptcy. For the media the crisis has been a soap opera of a possible divorce, not a crisis of Europe's future.

Because confrontation sells, domestic media often set Brussels and the home country, Brussels and the Member States, and also the home country and the rest of the EU in opposition to each other, even when there is no need. This easily leads to the idea that all good results are achieved by the home government and all bad decisions are the EU's fault. This attitude is naturally fuelled by national politicians, who like to have someone to blame when elections approach. Back home the national leaders are seldom held accountable for EU decisions, even though all 27 Member States are included in the decisionmaking process, as are all other EU actors. Blaming the EU has contributed to nationalistic views that have increased during the crisis. The success of populist parties has made some traditional parties, such as the Conservative Party in the UK and the Social Democratic Party in Finland, jump on the bandwagon with the populists for fear of losing voters.

To some extent this confrontational approach arises out of journalism's comfort zone. Journalists feel more at ease with the familiarity of national politics, whereas the EU is the scary unknown, the big faceless machine, distant and alien, something that can easily be projected as ‘the other’. There are summit pictures with men in suits, demands from the European Commission and speeches in the European Parliament in foreign languages. The EU is seen as something that happens far away, and not at home. Both the media and national politicians are to blame here for selling this vision, because the EU is indeed an integral part of our national politics. To help make news seem closer to people, the media should simply make the link visible–-what does this decision mean for us?–-without forgetting the big picture. Why not report on the EU according to the same principles as with national news: who, why, what and when? Instead it's often reported that the EU has decided something-•• and not who or what institution has decided it and in which context. Very often something blamed on Brussels has actually come as a request from a Member State or an interest group, as it did, for instance, when the vegetable producers themselves asked for the directive for straight cucumbers, because it helped with packing and was cheaper for consumers. Nonetheless, Brussels got the blame for setting ridiculous rules. Sometimes the media intentionally report in a way that gives the wrong impression; the British media are notorious for this.

Do we matter?

One of the major factors behind the feeling that Brussels is at a distance is simply that the general understanding of the EU and its crucial national importance is still very poor. An alarming 73% of Eurobarometer respondents feel that people in their countries are ill-informed about European matters, and only a third feel that they themselves are well-informed. The worst reviews come from crisis-hit Spain, Greece, Cyprus and France. Only a narrow majority think that media coverage is generally adequate; however, the feeling that the national media are not providing enough coverage of the EU has declined (European Commission 2012b, 21, 32). The lack of awareness is well noted by the institutions: a European Parliament report states that ‘it is certainly not putting it too strongly to speak of ignorance of the institutions’; more than one-third of respondents to the European Parliament's Eurobarometer cannot name three European institutions and a third were unable to name any (European Parliament 2012, 5, 9).

Even though about 80% of national legislation is based on decisions made in Brussels, this is not reflected in the division of media resources between home and EU quarters. Take Finland, for example: there are fewer than 10 accredited correspondents in Brussels but in the Finnish Parliament there are 125 journalists and 75 photographers. Are the proportions correct? Are the decisions that concern our lives important to our media at all? Do we matter?

Economic challenges and structural changes in the media are also visible in Brussels. This might be the result of reduced resources in general, but also of prioritising: as one media chief put it ‘why have two correspondents in Brussels when with the same money we can hire five reporters in our own capital?’ Due to the economic crisis there has been a lot of interest in Brussels meetings (to the extent that some reporters say it's difficult to sell any more euro crisis stories to their editors), but some of these reporters are sent from capitals to follow a specific summit and are not necessarily EU experts. The written press represents most (46%) of the EU media in Brussels, and its numbers have gone down significantly. According to an EU source, speaking confidentially, in 2002 there were 263 written EU media represented, peaking at 304 in 2005, but in 2012 the number went down to 183. At the same time the number of freelance reporters has increased significantly, indicating that media outlets are more reluctant to hire permanent staff with the attendant housing and work facilities costs. Moreover, the number of news agencies in Brussels has almost doubled (from about 30 to about 60) in a decade, which could mean that national press are outsourcing to the agencies, although the big agencies themselves, such as Reuters and Associated Press, have also laid off staff. The agencies and other quality media, such as the Financial Times, are cited extensively, which is not necessarily a negative phenomenon, but gives them a very powerful position and doesn't give the story the added value that a national correspondent can give. As a result of the increased number of freelancers and agencies and the steady development of television and radio, the total decrease in media representation seems to be only 6% in a decade, and the number of accredited journalists has actually risen. But the feeling in Brussels is that this number doesn't really describe the greater changes in the industry.

Of course, some very good journalism on the EU can be done and is being done in the Member States. And as EU institutions are now very present online, more and more media houses are counting on this as an access point for journalists in the home country, and might even use it as an excuse for not having a Brussels correspondent. But outside Brussels one cannot talk to EU officials off the record, ask questions directly of EU leaders, talk to EU colleagues and get the sense of what's happening–-one cannot, in short, have the advantage of the EU bubble in which people talk and generate more information among themselves. So at least some on-site presence is needed in Brussels, as having data and having an understanding are two very different things.

Media outlets no longer encourage their journalists to specialise; everybody does a bit of everything. And especially in the case of EU reporting this means that there is not the expertise that would allow a genuine understanding of the reality behind the decisions. EU correspondents used to be senior journalists, with a lot of expertise. A post in Brussels was considered an achievement. They held their positions for a long time, became a face of Europe for the people back home and often took on the role of advancing the cause of Europe. Now the job is less desirable–-the issues are complex, the meetings last until dawn and giving a face to the EU nowadays doesn't necessarily make you very popular back home.

The correspondents that remain do not always have it easy. They have to cope with following all the institutions, which sometimes have important meetings at the same time in three different countries–-Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Strasbourg's parliamentary plenary session, which involves a 10-hour round train trip and a very expensive stay, is usually the first on the list to drop. There are several levels of EU news, and the summits and emergency meetings are of course reported, but the ordinary legislative work often goes unnoticed. The Members of the European Parliament appear very rarely on national television, even though they are directly elected by the citizens, they are recognised by many national ministers to have more power than the national ministers themselves and an absolute majority of Europeans believe that the European Parliament is the institution that ‘best represents the EU’ (European Parliament 2012, 10).

The media give even less attention to the role of European political parties than to the EU institutions, despite the fact that the parties’ status is being strengthened (European Commission 2012a) and they are becoming more important as political actors. They are doing their share for democracy. For instance the European People's Party (EPP) has organised EPP ministerial meetings ahead of summits and councils, which offer a good opportunity for the media to get informed. The media should start paying attention to European-level politics with a whole new impetus and enable European-level election campaigning by providing due media coverage, as now even parties other than the EPP are coming up with their own candidates for the European Commission president. At the same time as the European Parliament has gained more powers, the turnout in the European elections has decreased, from 62% in 1979 to 42% in 2009 (European Parliament n.d.), so the media have to do their share. In order for the EU to become a true political union, the media must assume their role in the debate about Europe's future and help to develop a better European democracy.

Conclusions

The media can be very critical of others in power, but can they be critical of themselves? Quis custodiet ipsos custodies: who guards the guardians?

There is a risk that the media, in seeking controversies and sales, will forget their real task: to inform people so they can make informed decisions. We should be able to trust that what we receive from the media is accurately reported as it is significant to our lives.

Or are we taking our democracy for granted? Are we increasingly lazy or indifferent towards politics and especially the EU?

Reporting on EU issues needs to be more responsible. If the EU and national governments are always set against each other, will anyone win in the end? It seems strange to wish for Brussels to lose, as wouldn't the defeat of Europe also mean a defeat for its Member States? And its people?

One might ask if there is a correlation between the insufficient and negative EU reporting and the rise of populism in Europe. As we face bad economic circumstances and an ever-complicating world, information and fact-based political discussion is the best cure for the insecurities and fears that feed these movements. But easy and straightforward placebos are more comfortable to receive and to sell.

The EU is increasingly important for us and an integral part of our lives. However this is not reflected in the media. Politicians, civil authorities and the education system have their roles to play in this, but the media, too, carry a heavy responsibility–-the torch of our democracies. With enlightened media, the citizens cannot make informed choices and there can be no real democracy.