OXFORD – In most industries, a quality product is easy to identify, thanks to markers like price, brand, and reviews. But in journalism, discerning quality is becoming increasingly complicated, not least because, in the digital age, trusted brands like the BBC or The New York Times, which can be expected to adhere to long-established journalistic standards, are vastly outnumbered by upstart publications, blogs, and community reports.
Not surprisingly, therefore, as claims of “fake news” have proliferated in recent years, trust in news media – established and otherwise – has plummeted. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, those who regularly consume news do so with significant skepticism. Only about 50% of users trust the media brands they choose to consume; far fewer trust outlets that they do not use. With too many options and too little confidence in media, nearly one-third of people have given up following the news altogether.
But news journalism is not an expendable luxury. It is a critical public good, enabling citizens to make informed decisions, while helping to hold those in power accountable. It can serve that function only if it is a quality product – and people know that. Delivering such a product, however, is no straightforward task.
The first problem is that there is no clear definition of what constitutes quality journalism, which raises the risk that the standard of “quality” will become a tool of censorship. When Adolf Hitler wanted a book burned, he would assert that it did not meet the “standards” of Nazi ideology. Similarly, a government today could cite quality issues to attack critics’ credibility or to justify denying them journalistic credentials.
Some organizations concerned with the future of the media are trying to circumvent this danger by developing trust indicators. Most notably, the Journalism Trust Initiative, led by Reporters Without Borders, is creating voluntary guidelines and a best-practice framework that will evolve into an official certification process. Some organizations champion traffic-light indicators, like those used in food labeling, while others argue for an ISO 9000 system reminiscent of industrial quality management.
But what, exactly, would these systems be certifying? The most logical answer might seem to be media organizations. But even first-class newsrooms produce plenty of second-class content, owing to factors ranging from a lack of available sources to simple human error. This implies that not all content from a given organization can be trusted equally.
Of course, some organizations have a proven track record of following certain procedures to minimize mistakes and respond to errors that do slip through. But these are likely to be the same organizations that already enjoy significant public trust. Whatever trust they have lost in recent years will not be offset by a new label affirming their quality.
As for the publications that would benefit from such a label, they are more likely to be smaller, newer, and thus poorly equipped to deal with the extra layer of bureaucracy that a certification procedure would entail. Organization-level quality certifications could thus hurt new entrants, while helping incumbents.
The alternative to organization-level certification would be to focus on individual pieces of content. But this would be a herculean task in terms of volume; worse, it could create perverse incentives, as journalists chase certifications in much the same way they now may chase awards, sometimes to the detriment of the work. The German reporter Claas Relotius won multiple awards for his brilliant storytelling before it was revealed that the stories he was telling were not true.
In any case, the question remains what exactly constitutes a quality piece of content. Does it simply have to be fact-based? Does it apply only to serious political and business news, or does it include lifestyle, entertainment, or human-interest stories? These questions are complicated further in the digital ecosystem: some blog posts may count as journalism, but that certainly isn’t the case for all of them.
Journalism will never be like, say, the airline industry, where strict standards and procedures apply to every action and product. But, until recently, it didn’t need to be: journalists adhered to codes of professional and ethical conduct, and were overseen by bodies that took action in the event of a breach. Doing it right was the default – even though the concept of “right” has always been open to interpretation.
That is how societies work. An individual does not need a “trust certification” to participate in a family or community (though China’s government would like to change that). The social contract establishes certain behavioral norms with which people generally comply; labels are needed only when trust is broken.
This is the status quo to which journalism must return. That means, first and foremost, individual organizations taking responsibility for the quality of their content and adhering to a set of rules, including oversight and editing, to ensure it. When this cannot be done within the organization itself – say, when a citizen journalist is operating in an anti-democratic environment – external bodies could do the job.
In establishing such systems, lessons could be learned from collaborative reporting projects like the one that covered the Panama Papers, in which researchers enjoyed individual freedom – ensuring a plurality of voices and healthy competition – but had to meet certain standards. As technology advances, automated fact-checking could also be introduced, especially in less-resourced newsrooms.
In an age of unprecedented access to information, true and otherwise, people of all ages must improve their media literacy. But that does not let media organizations off the hook. With the help of an aware and critical audience, they must monitor themselves and one another, as they have done in the past.
OXFORD – Depending on where you get your news, your view of how the impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump is unfolding may be very different from that of your friends, relatives, or neighbors. You may also think that any version of the story that conflicts with yours is simply untrue. This lack of consensus on basic facts – largely a byproduct of social media – carries serious risks, and not nearly enough is being done to address it.
In recent years, the need to improve “media literacy” has become a favorite exhortation of those seeking to combat misinformation in the digital age, especially those who would prefer to do so without tightening regulation of tech giants like Facebook and Google. If people had enough media savvy, the logic goes, they would be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and quality journalism would prevail.
There is some truth to this. Just as it is dangerous to drive in a place where you don’t know the traffic laws, navigating the new digital-media environment safely – avoiding not only “fake news,” but also threats like online harassment, nonconsensual (“revenge”) porn, and hate speech – requires knowledge and awareness. Robust efforts to improve media literacy globally are thus crucial. Free, credible, and independent news media are a pillar of any functioning democracy, essential to enable voters to make informed decisions and to hold elected leaders accountable. Given this, media literacy must be pursued within a broader campaign to improve democratic literacy.
Since its invention in ancient Greece more than 2,500 years ago, democracy has depended on rules and institutions that strike a balance between participation and power. If the point was simply to enable everyone to speak up, platforms like Facebook and Twitter would be the pinnacle of democracy, and popular movements like the 2011 Arab Spring would naturally produce functioning governments.
Instead, the objective is to create a system of governance in which elected leaders bring to bear their knowledge and experience, in order to advance the interests of the people. The rule of law and the separation of powers, guaranteed by a system of checks and balances, are vital to the functioning of such a system. In short, mobilization means little without institutionalization.
And yet, today, public institutions are suffering from the same lack of trust as news media. To some extent, this is warranted: many governments have failed to meet their citizens’ needs, and corruption is rampant. This has fueled rising skepticism toward democratic institutions, with people often preferring ostensibly more egalitarian online platforms, where everyone’s voice can be heard.
The problem is that such platforms lack the checks and balances that informed decision-making demands. And, contrary to the early expectations of some Internet pioneers, those checks and balances will not emerge organically. On the contrary, tech companies’ algorithm-driven business models all but preclude them, because they amplify voices according to clicks and likes, not value or veracity.
Populist politicians have taken advantage of the lack of checks and balances to obtain power, which they often use to please their supporters, ignoring the needs of opponents or minority groups. This type of majority rule looks a lot like mob rule, with populist leaders trying to overrule legislatures and courts to fulfill the desires – often shaped by lies and propaganda – of their constituents. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent attempt to suspend Parliament, in order minimize its ability to prevent a no-deal Brexit, is a case in point.
In a democracy, all people must be able to trust their leaders to uphold their rights and protect their basic interests, regardless of whom they voted for. They should be able to go about their daily lives, confident that public officials will dedicate their time and energy to making informed decisions – and that those who don’t will be checked and balanced by the rest. Credible independent media support this process.
In Johnson’s case, the judiciary fulfilled its duty to check the executive. But with every assault on democratic institutions, accountability is weakened, people become more disillusioned, and the legitimacy of the system declines. Over time, this reduces the incentive for talented people to work in fields like journalism and politics, eroding their effectiveness and legitimacy further.
Breaking this vicious circle requires the rapid expansion of media and democratic literacy, including how the system works and who owns and shapes it. And yet, as a forthcoming study by the Council of Europe’s Expert Committee on Quality Journalism in the Digital Age (on which I served) shows, most existing media-literacy programs are limited to teaching schoolchildren how to use digital platforms and understand news content. Very few target older people (who are most in need), explain who controls media and digital infrastructure, or teach the mechanisms of algorithmic choice.
Democracies all over the world are enduring a stress test. If they are to pass, their institutional underpinnings must be reinforced. That requires, first and foremost, an understanding of what those underpinnings are, why they matter, and who is trying to dismantle them.
This commentary was published by Project Syndicate on November 28, 2019