Reforming the Media: Influences & Suggestions

Media Corporations are getting bigger and bulkier than before, as they try to capture market share of multiple platforms of radio, print, television, movies and internet. The competition is high, margins are small and their business cycles are dynamic. There is so much stress and competition that today news reporting can be easily influenced in cash or kind. Let us see the various mechanisms of influence

1. Direct ownership: In many of today’s media corporations number of companies or interest groups have stakes in ownership and management. Shifting their focus to shareholders satisfaction and biased news coverage at times.
2. Influence of Advertising companies as clients: To keep their shows and prints running, media companies need advertisements. Thus media companies have to service their relationship with clients and that does imply a favour here and there.
3. Knowledge & data processes: You may have seen on business channels on tv, smartly dressed people with big company banners sharing their thoughts on the markets, which are as volatile as the market itself. Media needs these industry thinkers to lend credibility to their shows, but then it makes the audience credulous to their views.
4. Pre-existing political influence: Media thrives on the news makers and politics is very much intertwined with media coverage. Barack Obama showed us the power of social media in the US Presidential elections last year and I feel all of our Indian politicians are no less then drama queens. It is very well prevalent observation that India’s biggest print newspapers are lenient towards different ideological political parties.

Moreover, large advertisers can influence even competing media outlets by threatening to withdraw their advertising; numerous small advertisers can exert influence if they share a common interest and can coordinate (e.g., when represented by an advertising agency). As a result, media competition alone is not always sufficient to prevent commercial media bias.

The Possible Solutions

There maybe many more ways of influence, present but what is more important is to see what all can be done to improve news reporting, specifically financial journalism. I have certain measures in mind, radical they may seem but radical change is the need of the hour.

Firstly, removing advertising from public TV stations as imminent in France and Spain. This reduces commercial bias of their content and pressures their competitors to reduce bias; it also shifts ad revenues to private media, complementing plans to subsidise media consumption and media entry.

Secondly, making the consumer or viewer or reader more aware that certain views and opinions of this show or column maybe biased. This can be done by running a disclaimer before or during the programme, reminding viewers that it is just an opinion, not advice.

Thirdly, moral suasion is what is most required and most practical. Readers should advocate more investigative journalism, especially in business and finance. This should prevent scams like Enron or Satyam to ever happen again. Most importantly nip improbable frauds and thefts in the bud, and prevent full blow ups in the future.

Another important step would be to remove views or suggestions from the main report and keep them collected on a few pages or a different show. An easy example is the ‘Times View’ section in India’s leading English daily, which comes along with the news event; at times even on the front pages. This is bad journalism, as it induces the reader to opinion of the newspaper, rather than give him time to formulate his own. Opinion sections like these should be put in separate pages of the editorial.