Media Self-Regulation: Can the UK Inspire Central and Eastern European Countries?
by Dumitrița Holdiș
In a post-Brexit world, the UK media is still relevant for Europe. This discussion series brings issues brought forward by our Media Influence Matrix reports and asks media experts in our network to reflect on them. The topic explored today is “media self-regulation” and we asked Cristina Lupu, Executive Director of the Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ) in Romania and Marius Dragomir, the Director of the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) to share their thoughts on self-regulation with the UK case as a discussion starting point. Their expertise on the media systems in Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic informed their answers. The interviews were edited for clarity.
Debates taking place in the UK media around topics such as media regulation, ownership and the future of journalism have not lost their relevance for EU countries in general or for Central European countries, in particular. The UK has a diverse, if often contested, media system where influential public service media like the BBC co-exist with tabloid newspapers notorious for their intrusive, sometimes illegal, reporting practices. Nevertheless, recently, even the BBC faced criticism over an older interview with Princess Diana on the Panorama show. The BBC apparently presented fake documents and facts to Diana to persuade her to accept the invitation.
Feeding into these debates, a new report published by CMDS in cooperation with the Media Reform Coalition and Goldsmiths, University of London, thoroughly analyses the media regulatory framework in Britain. One aspect of media regulation that really stands out in the UK is self-regulation, or the profession’s attempt to have ethical codes in place that are followed by the journalistic community and media outlets.
How Self-Regulation Looks Like in the UK
As in most countries in the world, the UK’s broadcast media is regulated by the state through the Communication Act passed in 2003, which also established Ofcom, the main media regulator in the country. Digital platforms, the press and online media are not regulated by an equivalent act or a regulatory authority, however there are attempts by policymakers to extend Ofcom’s responsibilities to print and digital media. Some experts believe that self-regulation is as a “safer” alternative than having the state regulate the written and online press.
Calls for the regulation of the press and of online media are not new, but they have intensified during the pandemic. Often, they are linked with increased concern about online harms and disinformation.
After the 2012 phone hacking scandal in the UK, when both public figures and every day citizens have been illegally surveilled by journalists working for papers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., a formal inquiry was launched into these practices. What became known as the Leveson Inquiry recommended the establishment of the Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press, to set out standards of adequacy for press self-regulation after the previous press self-regulator failed to prevent not just breaches of ethical standards but largescale criminality as well.
As a result, two professional associations were set up to enforce media self-regulation: Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), involving mostly established, center and right-wing media organizations, and the Independent Monitor on the Press (IMPRESS), consisting mostly of local papers and new online media. Each IPSO and IMPRESS has its own code of ethical practice. Major publications like The Guardian and The Independent rejected membership in both associations claiming that they reject state oversight over press self-regulation.
UK Versus Central and Eastern European Countries
Requests for media regulation are not uncommon outside of the UK, as Dragomir explains: “Following the blocking of Donald Trump by Facebook in early January 2021, some governments in Eastern Europe began to call for regulation of social media, arguing that they [tech platforms] should not be allowed to make such decisions. Prominent ones were Hungary and Poland, but I haven’t seen anything in Slovakia or Czech Republic.” In the Czech Republic, on the contrary, the Prime Minister Babis right after the Trump Facebook incident removed Trump-inspired social media profile.
Lupu says that in Romania calls for a press law are often linked to arguments that self-regulation does not work: “I think the state should not be involved in self-regulation, because this is an escape and an acknowledgement from the profession that it cannot solve its own problems. This very often comes up in Romania; there are proposals for a “press law” that would regulate the press, arguing that self-regulation doesn’t work.”
Self-regulation practices are generally lacking in Central and Eastern Europe. Although journalistic standards and ethical codes are in place in most countries in the region, enforcement is arbitrary and episodic.
In Romania a Deontological Code was introduced in 2004 by a coalition of around 40 media organizations under the umbrella of the Convention of Media Organizations (COM), which unified and standardized a number of professional codes used until then. COM nonetheless stopped functioning after a while, depriving the industry of the organizational infrastructure that would allow for oversight and enforcement of ethical codes.
The economic crisis of 2007–2008 and changes in the labor code adopted in 2011 that made labor organizing increasingly difficult had a negative effect on attempts to introduce self-regulation in most areas, including journalism. Lupu said: “We used to have professional associations, at some point we had around 40 in Romania, but once the economic crisis hit, this thing started, it was every man for himself. Self-regulation and the associative infrastructure were the first ones to die. They were not very strong to begin with (…) And there was another problem: journalists are often being paid on authors’ rights and this does not allow any form of unionizing to take place. Your chances of getting sacked and of losing your [employment] contract without a right to dispute the decisions are very high and this doesn’t make it very enticing to defend your rights (…) An owner who wants to control its newsroom will never hire people who are attached to professional standards or who are recognized for their ethical principles because they know that this will create trouble.”
Slovakia and the Czech Republic have their own self-regulatory mechanisms although enforcement of ethical rules can be also sporadic, argues Dragomir: “There are relatively good self-regulatory bodies in Slovakia. For example, the Press Council of Slovakia (or TRSR) has played quite a significant role in the media in Slovakia. (see more about their role here). In the Czech Republic, there are various self-regulatory bodies, but the problem there is that they are too fragmented […] How these codes are enforced really depends on the period we talk about. Sometimes they are. Also, it depends on the media outlets, some do follow them, but only because they follow overall principles of journalism.”
The Role of the Internet
Editorial standards that once applied only to print media have now migrated to the online portals. Legacy media organizations like The Guardian had editorial standards and deontological codes long before they launched their first website, but digitally born media outlets do not have the same history. Many have embraced new funding models that have implications for reporting practices, as Lupu warns: “As long as the business model in the online space is centered around this area of excess and click bait, and of continuous posting of content without any quality and ethical assurance, and when this type of content becomes viral, we cannot speak of self-regulation without speaking of regulating platforms.”
Dragomir sees both danger and opportunity online: “What is visible, though, is that self-regulation became more important in recent years mostly because of the rise of disinformation. A good example of that is the site Konspiratori.sk, which was created as a tool to fight disinformation. What happened was that media outlets noticed that their readership and, as a result, their revenues were affected by the disinformation sites that began to steal ad money away from the media companies. Hence, most of the publishers came together (something quite unique in the Slovak media market) to create a tool that would map and expose these sites. The initiative has grown into something really big with many professional organizations joining in (most of the advertising and marketing lobby groups and more than a dozen of digital media agencies). The main purpose of the newly created body is to blacklist fake news websites as a way to guide advertisers on whom to fund. The effect was great: numerous, even large, advertisers stopped spending on those websites.”
Can Governments Play a Positive Role in Media Regulation?
Tech companies already have immense regulatory powers over content without yet suffering from much regulation themselves. The role of the state in creating rules for content production online, is however, not desirable, according to Dragomir: “There is a big danger that the state will play an increasing role in the regulation of online media, and I strongly believe that its role should be diminished or zero. We already have a lot of examples of governments getting involved in regulating the media with disastrous consequences for the independence of the media. I know, on the other hand, that tech companies have disproportionate power, and they tend to impose regulatory models on the communication space. Their power should be kept in check, but that should be done through structural regulation (anti-competition rules and regulations, etc.) and not through content regulation. Tech companies started to change, and they have recently involved more the civil society and expert community in regulating content on their sites, which is great. However, in regulating content, self-regulation (by the industry) should be the main pillar, and media outlets should be encouraged to join in such an effort.”
Lupu concludes by pointing to how broadcast media has been regulated as a warning against putting too much hope in state regulation: “If you look at the audiovisual media, you can see that, in Romania, for example, we have a pretty good regulatory framework. You have the normative frame, you have the instrument of enforcement, the punitive measures. But it doesn’t work.”
Ethical standards do not work unless there is a professional culture that fosters them and an organizational infrastructure that ensures their implementation. The UK case shows that a journalistic culture built around universally accepted professional standards takes time. In such a culture, a newspaper like The Guardian can choose to reject membership in professional organizations promoting self-regulation without losing its legitimacy because the newspaper has a history of enforcing professional standards with relatively high success. Adopting such models in Central and Eastern Europe is difficult because news organizations in this region do not have the history and organizational infrastructure of legacy media in Western countries. Many of these outlets are digitally born, operating in a very different environment in which self-regulation is needed to provide them a strong associative infrastructure that would help them stave off attacks from the government and market forces.
This article is part of the UK component of the Center for Media, Data and Society’s Media Influence Matrix, set up to investigate the influence of shifts in policy, funding, and technology on contemporary journalism. The UK component is coordinated in partnership with the Media Reform Coalition and Goldsmiths, University of London and is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. It is due to report in Summer 2021.
