Media councils in the EU: an effective weapon against fake news?
With the recent events surrounding the storming of Capitol Hill in the US, the misinformation surrounding Covid-19 vaccines and, twitter’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump’s account for the spreading of false information regarding the US election, accountability in media has been at the forefront of modern debate. Although these are some more recent examples surrounding the importance of fact-checked and accountable media, we’ve been seeing the effects of a steadily decreasing and clouded jurisdiction in terms of verity in journalism for quite some time. This tendency coincides with the ever-increasing importance of social media in political discourse, the 2019 European elections are a perfect example of the dangers and the triumphs of a more digitized election process. This election saw one of the highest turnouts in European history with more than 3 million euros spent in social media campaigns, which should be considered a win for the Union’s credibility, but it’s important to look at where that money was being spent: most of the money invested was by populist parties in campaigns which peddled sensationalized news that in no way resembled critical and fact-checked reporting.
The term “fake news” is the unequivocal star of journalism’s paradigm shift towards more partisan and eye-catching reporting that is necessary to survive in such a saturated news market. Because of fake news's growing importance in the world of information and its ability to radically influence citizens’ decisions and opinions, The European Joint Research Centre published a report in an attempt to understand how fake news is influencing modern journalism. The report develops a double definition for fake news, on the one hand, it can be considered “verifiably false information” which can easily be exposed by fact-checking, on the other hand, it can also be defined as a “deliberate attempt at disinformation and distortion of news”. The JRC ties the growth of this phenomenon to “the shift from a linear business model in offline news publishing to a multi-sided market or platform business model in online news publishing”, which, in layman’s terms, means that because of the sudden transition to online media consumption news outlets saw a serious decline in income, which inevitably led to cuts in the news production process (many newspapers like Huffington Post now count on outsourcing part of their content production). The predictable side effect of this shift was a drop in quality which was further worsened by the never-stopping news cycle that online news production enabled. As a result of these many factors, news publications often resort to “click-bait” titles or “slanting” articles to attract a particular kind of audience in an attempt to increase profits, often slipping into what we may define as fake-news.
The report further analyses the phenomenon by taking into account citizen’s perception of fake-news in media and its recent increase. Several surveys made by the European Broadcasting Union reveal a lack of trust in modern media, although traditional media is generally more trusted, Newman & Fletcher found that two-thirds of respondents were concerned about bias and hidden agendas in media, this was especially true for countries with high levels of political polarisation like Italy, and Hungary. Continuing this trend of mistrust Reuters also uncovered that trust in traditional media is generally lower in central, eastern, and southern European countries because media is considered to be too close to the government.
We can therefore see how citizens are aware of the misinformation that is spread through social media and online in general, however, unbiased news is still necessary to bridge the gap between people and the world, and citizens’ awareness of the existence of fake news can still fall short and perpetuate false beliefs. This is where media councils are supposed to come in, as the European Commission defines them, media councils are “a way for journalistic media to regulate journalistic conduct […] it provides an opportunity for anyone to lodge a complaint against a specific publication in the media when they feel that a journalist or editor has breached a deontological principle in a particular report”, in short, they are a powerful tool for European citizens to hold the media accountable for any misinformation they might spread.
Nevertheless, media councils’ operations throughout Europe is incredibly varied and inhomogeneous, which consequently makes the restriction of fake news throughout Europe a lot more difficult. This report on media councils in Europe attempts to explore these disparities across European member states, the three starkest differences surround the funding of the councils, the variety of press that they cover and account for, and their size and budget. Many media councils like those in Germany or the UK have high numbers in terms of staffing which provides citizens with a more rounded and efficient control on all kinds of media, these kinds of councils are usually those which are indirectly supported by the government and rely on decent amount of funding. On the other hand, media councils like the Hungarian one can only survive through the work of volunteers and the financial support of NGOs which proves to be an issue when it comes to the consistent review of media outlets, this is because NGOs tend to only subsidize specific projects and no long-term work. Another issue that splinters the modus operandi of media councils is the scope of their work, not all the councils have the same definition of journalism, which means that not every council will be willing to fact-check the same sources, this is especially true when it comes to online media outlets like social media platforms, some councils decline to deal with content like comments or posts and will only deal with content produced in the function of journalism.
Media councils are therefore extremely fragmented when it comes to the type of work they produce and their overall structure, but they can become an essential tool in distinguishing accountable and unaccountable media in an ever-changing and opaque journalistic landscape. Many independent actors are trying to homogenize their existence, a great example is the Alliance of Independent press councils of Europe (AIPCE) which strives to create a network of independent content regulators as a way to achieve minimum standards for European and non-European media councils so to ensure the compliance with the deontological code for the journalistic profession.
If you’re interested in learning more about hoe media is regulated in the European Union you can find your national telecommunications regulatory authority here, and to know more about media councils in Europe and how they work I suggest checking out the European media council’s union website here.
Sources:
Harder, Knapen, Media councils in the digital age, Vereniging van de Raad voor de Journalistiek, 2020
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/pilot-project-media-councils-digital-age-0
European Commission, Media accountability and transparency in Europe, 2013
European Federation of Journalists, Media councils publish first-ever review of journalistic self-regulation in Europe, 2020
Martens, Agular, Herrera, Langer, The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news, JRC Technical Reports, April 2018
Andrea Lezzi, Comunicazione social dei partiti e narrazione euroscettica nelle europee 2019, «Documenti IAI», n. 19/15, Roma, Istituto Affari Internazionali, agosto 2019, https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iai1915.pdf
