20 Sep 2024 | News and features, Newsletters, United Kingdom
News – or more specifically the ownership of newspapers – has featured strongly in the headlines this week.
Last Friday, The Jewish Chronicle (JC) – the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper – issued a terse statement saying it had removed articles written by freelance journalist Elon Perry from the paper’s website and ended its association with the writer.
In the aftermath, four long-time JC columnists – David Aaronovitch, David Baddiel, Jonathan Freedland and Hadley Freeman – resigned over the scandal.
Aaronovitch, a former Index chair, wrote on his Substack that he was leaving the periodical after 20 years. He said he “really did not want to stop writing for The Jewish Chronicle” but cited the Perry case as the main reason.
He explained: “For six weeks Perry – who no one had ever heard of – broke a series of front-page exclusives supposedly involving captured Hamas information, most of which managed to justify a current twist in Bibi Netanyahu’s Gaza policy. Eventually journalists in Israel managed to establish that the security services believed these stories to be fake and that Perry himself was a fraud. It was a monstrous failure of editorial standards.”
Aaronovitch has also, along with other writers, asked for more clarity on the paper’s ownership. The JC recently announced the creation of a named board of trustees, but did not identify them. Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wrote a piece in Prospect trying to shed some light on this and in particular the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, a member of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.
In the article Rusbridger writes, “Sir Robbie Gibb, who, in his November 2023 BBC Declaration of Personal Interests stated that he was the 100 per cent owner of The Jewish Chronicle. As far as I’m aware, he does not have the funds to be the actual owner of the paper, so we might think of him as the frontman for the funder(s). Whoever they are.”
People become newspaper proprietors for many reasons but being able to use them as megaphones for your own views is usually high on the list, and has been for the past few centuries.
Following on from the JC appearing in its own headlines, we learned that Tortoise Media, the slow news company, was in talks with Guardian Media Group to buy The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper.
On Tuesday, Tortoise issued a statement in which the company’s editor and founder James Harding said: “We think The Observer is one of the greatest names in news. We believe passionately in its future – both in print and digital. We will honour the values and standards set under The Guardian’s great stewardship and uphold The Observer’s uncompromising commitment to editorial independence, evidence-based reporting and journalistic integrity.”
The company said it would invest £25 million over five years into ”the editorial and commercial renewal of the title”.
According to the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), journalists at both The Observer and The Guardian oppose the plan.
This week also saw the publication of the last ever daily edition of the 200-year-old Evening Standard in London. Like the JC, The Evening Standard is a “local” newspaper with influence that goes way beyond its region.
The paper will now be replaced by a weekly publication, called The London Standard, each Thursday.
Editor-in-chief Dylan Jones writes that the paper “doubles down on the newspaper qualities the title is known for: sharp opinion, analysis, interviews, deeply researched features, scoops and the strong record in campaigning that is now part of its DNA”.
Writing in The Guardian, former Evening Standard opinion editor James Hanning wrote, “Often the Standard really did provide the first draft of history. If it thought something important, rightly or wrongly, other papers would follow.”
He added, “Politicians wanted our good opinion, to write for us, to have lunch with us. We seemed to know what was going on, were able to make the right calls and had a mild bearing on which way stories ran.”
It was this influence that appealed to proprietor Evgeny Lebedev, who now appears to have bowed to pressure over the daily title from Saudi investors brought into the paper six years ago.
Ownership is a key thread between these stories but they also show the dwindling influence of newspapers in a world dominated by the internet and social media in particular.
In countries where press freedom is cherished, newspapers are a vital part of the system of checks and balances that supports democracies. The best newspapers, which are driven by their journalists rather than their owners, have always held their politicians, businesses and individuals to account for actions that affected their readership.
Newspapers are in a worrying death spiral, due to falling circulation figures and loss of revenue. Research by UK media publication Press Gazette earlier this year revealed the precipitous decline of regional media in the UK.
In 2007, the nine companies that made up the majority of the UK’s regional media generated revenues of £2.4 billion and employed 9,000 journalists. By 2022, revenues had plummeted to £590 million and the number of journalists slashed to just 3,000. Adjusting for inflation, the size of the sector is just one seventh of its size 15 years earlier.
If newspapers continue to disappear, who is left to hold the powerful to account?
10 Nov 2016 | Ireland, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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The Republic of Ireland has seen a steady decline in media plurality, according to the authors of a new report.
The recent Report on the Concentration of Media Ownership in Ireland, published on 19 October, concludes that the country has one of the most concentrated media markets, with wealthy media owners possessing the influence to skew the news report for personal gain. According to the report the The authors — Caoilionn Gallagher and Jonathan Price at Doughty Street Chambers, Gavin Booth and Darragh Mackin at KRW Law, and commissioned by Lynn Boylan MEP– drew on a variety of studies to compile the report including research from the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom’s Media Pluralism Monitor (2015). Based on the source material, the report examined how diversity in viewpoints and opinions are reflected in a nation’s media content.
CMPF created a Media Pluralism Monitor to measure whether a country is a “high risk territory” on a scale of 0% to 100%, with “high risk” countries falling at 74% or above. Researchers based in the 19 countries covered by the monitor collect data points that include protection of journalists, number of media outlets, political independence and social inclusiveness among other indicators.
In 2015 Dr. Roderick Flynn, of Dublin City University, generated a report on Ireland for CMPF’s Media Pluralism Monitor which found there was a “medium risk” (54%) of market plurality, and specifically “very high risk” (74%) in relation to the “concentration of media ownership”. Based on Flynn’s research it was concluded that, largely, the media concentration stemmed from businessman Denis O’Brien, founder of Communicorp, owner of a significant minority stake in Independent News and Media and a large portion of the commercial radio sector. The October report called O’Brien’s ownership and influence in media outlets a concern. Additionally, Doughty Street Chambers and KRW Law highlighted the Irish defamation law as a key issue “which threatens news plurality and undermines the media’s ability to perform its watchdog function”.
Though Flynn’s study and the Doughty Street Chambers and KRW Law report clearly point out significant issues, which have been further discussed with organisations such as the National Union of Journalists and the EU Commission, it also proposes ideas for revisions. The report states the “firm view that there must be detailed multi-disciplinary analysis and careful consideration before any steps are taken”. The authors of the report suggest that the Irish should “establish a cross-disciplinary commission of inquiry”, which would “examine the issues closely and make concrete recommendations.” Additionally the authors ask the Council of European Committee of Experts on Media Pluralism and Transparency of Media Ownership to work within the parameters of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a treaty that “the right to [business] property is heavily caveated under”. Consequently, by utilising the ECHR, the committee could spur a decrease in the media power of business moguls such as Denis O’Brien. Along with further modifications, the study indicates that these alterations are necessary to maintain media plurality in Ireland.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1479382383515-ed0923d1-1fb7-1″ taxonomies=”76″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
25 Jul 2013 | Volume 42.02 Summer 2013
The media’s infatuation with a single narrative is drowning out the country’s diversity, giving way to sensationalist reporting and “paid for” news. But, says Bharat Bhushan, moves towards regulation could have a chilling effect too (more…)
23 Jul 2013 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features, Politics and Society
As talk in India turns to media plurality and regulation, attention is turning to murky ownership structures and monopolistic practices. But some see the government’s moves as attempts to muzzle the press.
In May 2012, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India got a new boss – a retired bureaucrat named Rahul Khullar, who has the unenviable job of not just sorting out 2011’s 2G scam that hit Indian telecom sector hard, but also trying to ensure that the growth of the Indian media is “plural and diverse”.
In what has become a controversial interview, Khullar suggested bringing regulation to control cross-media ownership in India, suggesting that a single entity should be restricted to owning only one or two types of media carriage. “We are not talking about content but carriage.” he said in an interview to The Hindu.
India’s largest media houses, including Sun TV, Star India and the Essel Group, own multiple media platforms. In fact some media houses are so huge, with complicated and largely hidden ownership structures, that it can be unclear who really owns the company. The Indian media has been covering this subject heavily since the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asked channels to disclose their equity structures as a results of the Saradha scam in West Bengal where businessmen were running news channels at the behest of politicians. Independent news portals have been trying to disclose ownership details on their sites, revealing that many politicians partly own the news channels/papers that report on them, as do big industrial houses, mostly unknown to citizens.
Khullar’s suggestion has been drawn from telecom regulator TRAI’s recent consultation paper on cross media ownership which has suggested that media houses investing in all forms — television, print, and radio — has led to “horizontal integration,” and asked whether there ought to be safeguards to curb this monopolistic growth. The lack of these checks, it believes, is the reason why broadcasters have become “politically backed entities for distribution of their channels in that region.”
Overwhelmingly, the media industry has reacted negatively at the suggestion of being regulated. In an passionate argument, the Times of India’s Executive Editor, suggests that this latest move by TRAI is part of a larger play by the government of India to muzzle the media following its active role in exposing many scams in the last few years – some which have ended with cabinet ministers in jail. Drawing a line between regulating ownership and accountability, the article points out that India has over 80,000 plus publications and 800 channels, thereby showing extreme plurality already.
Others, such as the opinionated online magazine Firspost – owned by Network18 which is partly funded by the corporate giant, Reliance Group – has argued against this move from a media freedom point of view. It argues that corporate houses have the constitutional right to own media houses and that, “one reason why corporate houses enter the picture relates to the non-viability of many traditional media houses. If they didn’t bankroll the media, many journalists would lose their jobs. So to label corporates as villains when they are actually white knights in some cases is wrong.”
In another interview with Mint, the TRAI chairman clarified that, “in many countries you have absolute bans. Some people just cannot own a newspaper, for instance, an advertising agency cannot own a newspaper. There are pure entry issues. Then there are safeguards—like the 2×3 rule. In virtually all jurisdictions, if you own a newspaper and a TV station, you cannot own radio stations.”
However, the most compelling argument against this suggestion, made by Firstpost, but also others, is the question of the internet; that TV and print are fast merging with the internet, and in that in reality, it would be tough to restrict media ownership to only two platforms. While TRAI has no ready answers, its consultation paper on cross media ownership stipulates that any future rules on the subject must include broadcasting, print and new media.
At the same time, the crux of the matter — “It is, therefore, important that an arm‘s length distance is ensured between the media and organs of governance, political institutions and other entities which have a profound sway over public opinion” – is addressed in the paper, by suggesting that political bodies, religious bodies, government departments and ministries, urban and local bodies and state governments should not be permitted to enter the business of broadcasting and/or distribution of TV channels.
There can be no doubt that in India, corporate and political interests have invested heavily in the media. The Economist carried a story in June 2013 about the condition of TV news in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, stating – “every large party in the state now has an affiliated station, often owned or co-owned by the party leader’s followers or relatives.” It talks of the Sun Group, a Chennai-based conglomerate with 32 TV channels and 45 radio stations. Sun, which is run by former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi’s grand-nephew, and also owns one of the more lucrative parts of the television industry—a cable-distribution network. This is exactly the kind of media monopoly TRAI is looking to break, or at the very least, limit.
However, is the way forward to diverse news to limit the growth of media empires, even if they do tend to be monopolistic? How does the state broadcaster, both over TV and radio, fit into this model? Is it better to focus on regulating ownership or content to ensure citizens get a plurality of voices? There is already a parallel debate on media regulation in the country to ensure that the content reaching Indians is not paid for by vested interests and is clearly identified when it is. And finally, is TRAI’s solution take away corporate control and hand it over to the State?
These are questions India must grapple with very carefully, if it aims to retain press freedom – already perilously at 140 on the Press Freedom Index, 2013.
Mahima Kaul is a New Delhi-based writer and a Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, India. She tweets @misskaul
