Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bovens Et Al Watchdog Journalism - 20170621
Bovens Et Al Watchdog Journalism - 20170621
Bovens Et Al Watchdog Journalism - 20170621
The watchdog role of journalists
Rottweilers, alsatians, or poodles?
Pippa Norris
Harvard University and the University of Sydney
For the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY Edited by MARK BOVENS, ROBERT E.
GOODIN & THOMAS SCHILLEMANS (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Synopsis: The notion of watchdog journalism as a mechanism for strengthening accountability in
democratic governance has long been advocated by liberal theorists. Despite the popularity of this
notion, however, several questions surround these idealized claims, not least what is the evidence that
reporters around the world subscribe to this normative vision of their role? Do the news media actually
serve as watchdogs of the public interest in practice, through their coverage of public affairs? If so, do
the news media serve as effective mechanisms of accountability, triggering public outrage and effective
actions by policy‐makers, thereby fulfilling these lofty democratic principles? This chapter reexamines
these issues and the conclusion considers the implications for public policy.
Bio: Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University and Laureate
Fellow and Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Related
publications include Cosmopolitan Communications (Cambridge 2009), Public Sentinel (World Bank
2010), and Making Democratic Governance Work (Cambridge 2012).
[1st draft, 7,743 words, 4th Jan 2012]
1
The watchdog ideal reflects the long‐established liberal conception of the news media as the
fourth estate, an independent guardian located in civil society and counterbalancing the power of
executive, legislative, and judiciary branches in government. Muckraking reporting has deep historical
roots in the Anglo‐American journalistic tradition; its origins can be traced back to early radical political
pamphlets, cartoons and posters in Britain and America, as well as the development of the modern
newspaper during the 17th century. The crusading role of investigative journalism expanded with the
growth of mass circulation newspapers in 19th century America, tackling a range of social ills, including
expose reports about the poor, slavery, public health and safety, prison conditions, women's rights, war,
and criminal justice. A long series of newspaper investigations into corruption in Tammany Hall and
machine party politics contributed to the reforming zeal displayed during the progressive era. The
contemporary wave, seizing the popular imagination, followed release of the Pentagon Papers and the
dramatic events of Watergate, unleashing forces capable of toppling an American President (Serrin and
Serrin 2002, Shapiro 2003). Investigative journalism continues to be actively promoted in Anglo‐
American cultures through journalism education and training, and to be glorified in popular accounts,
reflecting deep‐rooted liberal values (Berry 2008, de Burgh 2008).
Classical liberalism, ever skeptical about the trustworthiness of government and powerful
leaders, advocates that journalists should be watchdogs of the public interest. Through fulfilling this
role, independent media are believed to strengthen the accountability of powerful decision makers. The
core notion of ‘watchdog’ journalism can be understood to encompass both a direct primary role, when
investigating the behavior of the powerful and instigating reports about alleged malfeasance, as well as
a more diffuse and weaker secondary role, when disseminating general information about public affairs
which was previously hidden from public attention, such as reporting hearings from public inquiries or
court prosecutions. When fulfilling these twin functions, watchdog journalists question the accuracy of
information, interrogate officials, and investigate whether conduct reflects high standards of public life.
Through this process, the news media is thought to help safeguard the public interest, spotlighting cases
of misinformation, incompetence, scandal, corruption and criminality in the public or private sector
(Donsbach 1995, Schultz 1998, Cammaerts and Carpentier 2007, Norris 2010).
[Figure 1 about here]
As well actively the primary role of instigating stories about the abuse of power, secondary news
coverage can also strengthen other accountability mechanisms and institutions. As illustrated
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schematically in Figure 1, it is helpful to distinguish analytically between the potential direct and indirect
effects of watchdog journalism upon public opinion.
Political information provided by independent media helps citizens evaluate the performance of
their elected leaders, both individually and collectively. In multiparty liberal democracies, informed
citizens have opportunities to ‘throw the rascals out’ at regular intervals, ensuring the electoral
accountability for legislative representatives and, indirectly, the bureaucratic accountability for public
servants.
In the private sector, as well, documentaries and news reports ‐‐ exposing events such as the
Enron scandal or the risks to consumers arising from the fast food or tobacco industries ‐‐ can
potentially strengthen corporate governance and the managerial accountability of CEOs to stockholders
and consumers. The media can give whistleblowers a voice, spearhead the downfall of powerful
executives, and expose widespread corporate corruption.
The news media can also reinforce legal accountability; through catalyzing or reporting official
hearings, whether by the legislature, courts of audits, ombudsmen, inspectorates and regulatory
agencies; investigative reports conducted by civil society organizations; or formal inquiries by the police,
courts, prosecutors, and judiciary.
As the Nieman Foundation (2010) expressed the general argument: “The premise of watchdog
journalism is that the press is a surrogate for the public, asking probing, penetrating questions at every
level, from the town council to the state house to the White House, as well as in corporate and
professional offices, in union halls, on university campuses and in religious organizations that seek to
influence governmental actions. The goal of watchdog journalism is to see that people in power provide
information the public should have.” Public disclosure and transparency, though not sufficient by itself
to stamp out corruption (Lindstedt and Naurin 2010), is assumed to bring government and corporate
misconduct to the attention of the public and the courts, and deterring others from similar behavior.
Therefore liberal theories claim that news coverage of official accountability bodies and regulatory
agencies can inform the public and official bodies, can catalyze electoral, managerial, or legal sanctions
against transgressors, and can thus provide incentives for better performance in future. For all these
reasons, watchdog journalism is widely believed to be intrinsically valuable for accountability.
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The watchdog role in practice
(i) Reporters around the world accept this normative vision of the role of watchdog
journalism;
(ii) The news media actually serve as active or reactive watchdogs of the public interest
in practice, through their coverage of public affairs; and that, by so doing,
(iii) The news media serve as effective mechanisms of accountability, triggering public
outrage and effective actions by policy‐makers, thereby fulfilling these lofty
democratic principles?
Several critiques are common, replete with canine metaphors throughout the literature (Donsbach
1995). In practice, reporters can prove to be timid lapdogs, the poodle breed, if restricted by autocratic
state controls and repression, or even actively engaged in promoting state propaganda. Or they may
prove subservient by pandering to the interests of powerful political and corporate elites, becoming
guard‐dogs (Donohue, Tichenor and Olien 1995). A common criticism of American news media is that
reporters are busy chasing ‘soft’ news, typically about glamorous celebrities, sensationalist crime, and
infotainment (Patterson 1993), in which case they may thereby become inattentive or indifferent to the
hard slog required to instigate serious investigative reporting about public affairs. Alternatively,
journalists may have become attack‐dogs, the Rottweiler’s of public affairs. Videomalaise theories,
originating with the Kurt and Gladys Lang (1966) and Michael Robinson (1976), suggest that bellicose
talk show commentary, exposé reports, and hostile interviewing of public officials has undermined trust
in government institutions and fuelled public discontent with the workings of democracy (see, Norris
2000). Or it is also possible that the old‐fashioned notion of watchdog journalism as the primary
instigator of stories revealing scandals has simply become as redundant for democratic governance
today as the ticker‐tape machine, the shepherd‐dog of the modern world, with the reporter’s primary
function fading away to irrelevance in the digital world of instant blogs, Wikileak websites, Facebook
pages, You Tube phone videos, and Twitter feeds. Of course these scenarios need not necessarily be
regarded as alternatives, since complex tendencies may be operating simultaneously, in different parts
of the world and in multi‐platform, diverse and fragmented communication industries.
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Do the news media accept the normative role of watch‐dog journalism?
What empirical evidence allows us to throw light on these rival interpretations? One common
approach to monitor perceptions about the importance of diverse journalistic roles and functions has
been to conduct surveys of news professionals and the public. The results largely confirm that the ideal
of watchdog journalism is widely endorsed by journalists in the United States, although this is only one
of multiple roles (Johnstone, Slawski and Bowman 1976, Weaver and Wilhoit 1986, Weaver 2007, Beam,
Weaver and Brownlee 2009). Several distinct role conceptions of journalists have been identified by
successive studies, including those of disseminating information, interpreting complex problems,
mobilizing audience members, and being ‘adversaries’ of business and government officials.
Nevertheless these empirical measures often map poorly to the underlying concept of ‘watchdog’
journalism; to publish stories revealing malfeasance in public life, and to report official hearings from
regulatory bodies and court prosecutions, does not necessarily imply the adoption of an adversarial
stance per se. The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) surveyed a representative sample of
American newspaper staff to monitor the perceived functions of newspapers.1 Overall the importance of
‘investigating claims and statements made by the government and political candidates’ was endorsed
as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important by eight out of ten journalists. The role of ‘investigating claims and
statements made by businesses and other institutions’ was also endorsed by seven out of ten journalists.
Nevertheless this measure also poorly captures the more complex notion of watchdog journalism. The
ASNE survey also found, not surprisingly, that other journalistic roles, including interpreting events and
providing information, were regarded as equally important.
In other journalistic cultures, however, evidence suggests that the role and practice of watchdog
reporting is often less widely endorsed by reporters, even in many established democracies within
5
continental Europe (Köcher 1986, Deuze 2002, Hanitzsch 2010). For example, comparative surveys by
Deuze (2002) found that the proportion of journalists agreeing that it was ‘extremely’ or ‘very’
important to investigate claims of government was widespread in Anglo‐American news cultures
(endorsed by 88% of journalists surveyed in Britain, 81% in Australia, and 67% in the United States) but
it was not widely supported in Continental Europe (endorsed by just 25% of journalists surveyed in the
Netherlands and only 12% in Germany). Chalaby (2004) suggests that investigative journalism in France
has been a relatively recent development, starting only in the 1980s. Support for the normative value of
watchdog journalism, and reporting practices, vary substantially among low‐income societies in many
global regions (Norris 2010). In Latin America, Waisbord (1996) argues, investigative reporting used to
be marginal and clandestine under the dictators but it developed during the 1980s, accompanying
broader processes of democratization, so that it is now mainstream in newsrooms. The broadest
comparison is based on a recent survey of journalists conducted by the World of Journalism project
covering 18 diverse nations by Hanitzsch et al (2011). 3 The study demonstrates varied cross‐national
support for the idea that journalists should ‘act as watchdogs of government’. Overall among all
journalists in the countries under comparison, this item proved the 3rd highest ranked of all the
institutional roles listed in the survey, ranked below the roles of ‘providing citizens with information’
and being ‘an absolutely detached observer’. Endorsement for watchdog journalism was particularly
high in contemporary liberal democracies, including the United States, Brazil, Australia, and Germany.
But this item was far less widely endorsed by reporters in countries with more autocratic regimes,
including China and Russia, as well as, perhaps more surprisingly, in places such as Israel, Mexico,
Romania, and Chile. There was also little consensus in the 18 countries under comparison about
whether journalists should also act as watchdogs of business elites. On balance, the evidence suggests
that many news professionals in liberal Anglo‐American democracies, skeptical of powerful elites,
probably regard the primary or secondary watchdog role as central to their mission, however in other
cultures, perhaps with alternative journalistic‐state relations, political regimes, and ideological values,
the notion is more strongly contested.
(ii) Do the news media serve as watchdogs in practice?
Nevertheless, even where there is widespread agreement within the profession about the
principles of watchdog journalism, it remains unclear whether journalists actually follow these ideal
roles in the news room, even in Anglo‐American cultures, and thus how much reporting actually falls
6
into the watchdog category. Values may shape behavior, but it is well‐established that journalists often
face serious economic, technological, and political constraints in fulfilling these ideals.
In many affluent post‐industrial societies with widespread access to digital technologies,
especially the United States, one increasingly severe challenge to watchdog journalism arises from the
contemporary economic pressures facing mainstream news media (newspapers, magazines, and
commercial broadcasting channels), threatening the traditional business model (Picard 1989, 2002,
2010, Barnhurst 2011, Pew 2011). The print media in these countries, in particular, are struggling to
maintain profitability and adapt to an environment of dwindling advertising revenues (especially
classified ads), falling subscriptions among the dwindling band of loyal readers, rising paper and
distribution costs, the need to offer multi‐platform delivery mechanisms, and the proliferation of
alternative online news sources. Local, regional and metropolitan newspapers in the United States have
been particularly badly hit, experiencing thousands of layoffs in newsrooms, buyouts, bankruptcies, and
some major closures. The rapid growth of 24/7 online information sources provided by digital
communications is a threat to the commercial viability of traditional for‐profit news outlets. This new
financial environment constrains all aspects of newspaper production, especially in the fragmented
newspaper market in the United States. It may have the most serious repercussions for catalytic
investigative reporting, however, since this commonly requires editors and publishers to invest weeks
and months of staff resources before eventually publication. It should be noted, however, that the
erosion of newspaper sales is not a global phenomenon (WAN 2011), as circulation figures continue to
rise in emerging economies and democratic societies such as India, South Africa, and Brazil. Newspapers
are expanding most in places where there is widespread freedom of expression, a growing middle class,
and rising levels of literacy and education, and where access to digital news media (at least in its web‐
based extended form) has not yet achieved widespread penetration. In addition, in many societies,
public television and specialist news channels following the BBC model continue to invest in the
production of investigative journalism in documentary and commentary programs. Even here, however,
the overall audience share for public television shrank during the 1980s, following the proliferation of
commercial cable, satellite and online channels, and public television also faces growing constraints on
public funding (especially PBS in the United States).
The technological proliferation of social media, such as Twitter, blogs and Wikileaks, provides
other challenges to traditional forms of watchdog journalism. Social media have rapidly become an
invaluable information resource for reporters, as well as an important outlet for professional journalists
7
and for citizens who blog online. The traditional news media have been adapting to new interactive
formats, including delivering news through multi‐platform channels for mobile devices, and posting
reader’s comments to accompany stories, integrating live video feeds and images of events derived
from participants, and incorporating live blogging into online commentary of breaking events. Due to
rapid shifts in communication and information technologies, the role of journalists has been evolving
into an aggregator of multiple sources, bringing order to the chaos, filtering information, and structuring
narrative understanding.
The impact of watchdog journalism
In practice, does watchdog journalism actually strengthen accountability? As Protess et al (1991)
emphasized, popular folklore glorifying the image of investigative journalism tends to mythologize
vigilant reporters, the impact of this coverage upon an informed citizenry, and the responsiveness of
politicians to public outrage. In practice this chain of accountability can break down at several fragile
points. Reporters have many conflicting priorities, they work within constraints, and they may only pay
lip‐service to the watchdog role. Even where well‐documented and credible exposes of wrong‐doing are
published, the general public and policymakers may well react with yawning indifference. Moreover
muckraking can result in sanctions being applied to specific individuals found guilty of misconduct, a few
heads may roll in public, without necessarily mobilizing support for broader policy reforms designed to
8
tackle the underlying causes. The potential impact of watchdog coverage upon elites and the public, like
other media effects, can be understood as agenda‐setting (raising concern about the importance of
certain issues), framing (shaping understanding of issues and perceptions of events within familiar
narrative conventions), and priming (attributing responsibility and assigning praise or blame for certain
outcomes). There is little consensus about whether watchdog journalism generates any of these
multiple effects and several approaches can be used to exploring the evidence.
Experimental research design is the ‘gold standard’ for establishing causal effects, but until
recently, this technique has not been commonly employed to determine the impact of reporting
practices. Nevertheless in several low income democracies, natural and field experiments indicate that
more information about the political process and the performance of representatives improves electoral
accountability, so that those found guilty of improper conduct are removed from office (Pande 2011). A
study of Italian legislators by Chang, Golden and Hill (2010) also found that voters did not punish alleged
miscreants with loss of office unless judicial findings were first aired in the press. On the other hand,
there are many counter‐examples which suggest that media coverage, by itself, is insufficient to produce
electoral accountability; President Silvio Berlusconi was repeatedly returned to office in Italy despite an
extensive record of criminal allegations, including mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, child
prostitution, corruption and bribery of police officers and judges.
Some of the most rigorous and systematic evidence for testing the impact of watchdog
journalism on corruption is derived from cross‐national and time‐series comparisons using econometric
techniques. A series of studies using these methods have tested whether press freedom (measured at
national level function) acts to promote the quality of governance, particularly the extent of corruption.
Using this approach, in a widely‐cited article Brunetti and Weder (2003) tested the impact of press
freedom on corruption. They concluded that an increase by one standard deviation in a country’s level
of press freedom generally reduces the perceived level of corruption in that country by 0.4 to 0.9 points,
on a six‐point scale. This result was found to prove robust using different model specifications, country
samples, and measures. The reasons, the authors suggest, are that the press provides a platform for the
private sector to voice complaints. In addition, with a free press, journalists have incentives to
investigate misconduct by officials. A series of other aggregate‐level cross‐national econometric studies,
incorporating standard controls, generally point to similar conclusions (Stapenhurst 2000; Chowddhury
2004, Freille, Haque and Kneller 2007, Keefer 2007, Charron 2009). For example, Lederman, Loayza, and
Soares (2005) analyzed the effects of democracy, parliamentary systems, and freedom of the press on
9
corruption, and their results confirm that press freedom inhibits corruption. In addition, media access
has also been found to be important; Bandyopadhyay (2006) reported that the degree of media and ICT
penetration is associated with less corruption, with the strongest effect where newspaper circulation
was deepest. The diffusion of the internet has also been tested for its effects on perceptions of
corruption. Lio, Liu, Ou (2011) analyzed a panel of 70 countries from 1998 to 2005 and observed that
internet adoption had a significant but weak effect by reducing (perceived) levels of corruption.
Nevertheless other scholars caution that transparency by itself is insufficient to produce accountability;
Lindstedt and Naurin (2010) note that unless there are ways for citizens to act on information, through
channels such as electoral and legal accountability, then transparency alone will be insufficient to
reduce corruption.
To update and explore the evidence, here we can compare how freedom of the press
(monitored by Freedom House) relates to perceived control of corruption (measured by the World Bank
Institute Kaufmann‐Kraay indices) for different types of regimes. The Freedom House measure of
freedom of the press is one of the most widely used cross‐national indicators and it is strongly
correlated with alternative indices, such as the Index generated by Reporters without Borders. The
Freedom House scale is designed to measure how far the free flow of news is influenced by the legal,
political and economic environments. The legal environment subdivision encompasses “both
examination of the laws and regulations that could influence media content as well as the government's
inclination to use these laws and legal institutions in order to restrict the media's ability to operate”. In
this category Freedom House assesses several issues such as legal and constitutional guarantees of press
freedom, penalties for libel and defamation as well as penal codes, the independence of the judiciary
and other factors. The political environment evaluates “the degree of political control over the content
of news media”. This includes the editorial independence of the media, intimidation and threats to
journalists, the access to informational sources, and also repressive actions such as arrests,
imprisonment, physical violence and assassinations. Finally, under the economic environment category,
the characteristics examined are related to “economic considerations that can influence the media's
activities”. Within this category, Freedom House evaluates the existence of competitive pressures
leading to biased press reports and investigations, the extent of sponsoring, subsidies, and
advertisement and its effect on press coverage and content, the impact of bribery by self‐interested
actors on what is published and the structure and concentration of media ownership.
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Both the ‘legal’ and ‘economic’ categories vary from 0 (complete freedom) to 30 (lack of
freedom) while the ‘political’ sub‐index ranges from 0 to 40. A country's overall press freedom score is
simply the sum of the scores in each of the sub‐categories. The assessment of press freedom by
Freedom House distinguishes between the broadcast and print media, and the resulting ratings are
expressed as a 100‐point scale for each country under comparison. The index is based on expert ratings
derived from overseas correspondents, staff and consultant travel, international visitors, the findings of
human rights and press freedom organizations, specialists in geographic and geopolitical areas, the
reports of governments and multilateral bodies, and a variety of domestic and international news
media.4 For an intuitively clearer interpretation, the Freedom House index is reversed, so that a higher
score represents greater press freedom.
The Kaufmann‐Kraay indices have been developed to monitor multiple dimensions of the quality
of governance (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2008). This includes control of corruption in the public
sector, defined as ‘perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain,
including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as "capture" of the state by elites and
private interests.’ Their methodology identifies many individual sources of data on governance
perceptions that are then assigned to six broad categories. The control of corruption index combines
sources such as data provided by Transparency International, the World Economic Forum Global
Competitiveness Survey, and the Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide. An unobserved
components model is used to construct aggregate indicators from these individual measures. These
aggregate indicators are weighted averages of the underlying data, with weights reflecting the precision
of the individual data sources.
[Figure 2 about here: Note to eds, this can be updated to 2010]
Figure 1 illustrates the simple correlation summarizing the link between the 2006 Freedom
House’s annual index of press freedom and the perceived levels of the control of corruption, as
measured in 2006 by Kaufmann‐Kraay, without applying any controls. The results show that the
curvilinear regression line provides the best fit for the data, generating a strong and significant
relationship (R2 =.61***). Perceived control of corruption sharply accelerates for those democracies
which are above average for press freedom. Societies such as Iceland, Canada, Chile, and South Africa
rank highly on both indices; in these places, a plurality of media outlets and a flourishing independent
media sector generate the transparency which encourages clean government. The figure also highlights
certain important outliers to the general pattern, such as Singapore. The least democratic states display
11
high levels of perceived corruption. In this regard, the pattern is similar to the curvilinear relationship
commonly observed between levels of liberal democracy and many other indices of the quality of
governance (Norris 2012).
Case study evidence
Nevertheless while the aggregate correlation between the free press and control of corruption
appears quite robust, little is understand about how this relationship works in practice, and thus what
needs reforming to strengthen effective democratic governance (Vaidya 2005, Oscarsson 2008). It is
commonly assumed that the availability of information underlies the relationship, where more
information is expected to generate more efficient political markets. Scandal headlines sell newspapers.
In multiparty democracies, a more informed public, aware of the short‐comings of corrupt elected
officials, can decide to throw the rascal out (Pande 2011). Informed agencies can also use legal redress.
But the available measures of media freedom at national level remain extremely general and abstract. In
practice, even in the case of long‐established democracies such as the United States, where electoral
accountability mechanisms should be effective, there are many cases of high‐ranking officials who have
been charged and even convicted of corruption, in cases attracting widespread headline publicity, yet
who are subsequently reelected to office.5 Berlusconi is only the tip of the iceberg. Moreover it remains
difficult to determine causality using econometric techniques, even with instrumental variables, well‐
specified models, broad country and time‐series coverage, and non‐missing data. We need to dig deeper
to know, in particular cases, what aspects of media systems, what forms of journalism, what types of
media outlets, genres and formats, and what societal conditions, legal contexts, and political
environments, help to establish the link between watchdog journalism and its ultimate effects.
South Africa
Case‐studies help to illuminate these processes and that of South Africa exemplifies the
underlying factors in the relationship between a plural media system and government transparency.
Following the transitional democratic elections in April 1994, the media landscape was transformed
through substantial reforms including the liberalization and deregulation of state control of
broadcasting, the diversification of the print sector, constitutional and legal guarantees of freedom of
access to state‐held information, and growing use of the Internet (Jacobs 2002, Tomaselli 2000, Hyder,
Leslie and Ogundimi 2002, Harber 2004). Deregulation, in particular, led to a proliferation of radio
stations. Listeners in Johannesburg can tune into more than forty radio services, from the national
broadcasts of the state‐owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to community stations
12
targeting local neighborhoods or ethnic groups. SABC operates three national TV networks and two pay‐
TV channels, while commercial national broadcasters offer free and pay‐TV channels, offering the usual
mix of news and current affairs, sports and entertainment, movies, reality shows, and soaps, combining
locally‐produced and imported programming. The constitution provides for freedom of the press, and
this is generally respected. In 2010, for example, out of 178 nations worldwide, Reporters sans Frontièrs
(2010) ranked South Africa 38th from the top in press freedom, higher than France (44th) and Italy (49th),
and roughly similar to Uruguay and Spain. Laws, regulation and political control of media content are
considered moderate in South Africa. Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog body, praises the
progress that South Africa has made in freedom of expression, despite remaining critical of the
countries’ human rights record on other issues, including deep levels of rural poverty, challenges of
patriarchy and gender equality, and violations of the rights of asylum‐seekers and economic migrants.6
Newspapers and magazines publish reports and comment critical of the government and the state‐
owned SABC is far more independent now than during the apartheid era. As a result, although there
remain tensions in the complex relationship between journalists and the ANC, during the last decade the
news media have emerged as an increasingly autonomous actor, less closely aligned with the interests
of the government or political parties. In the index of perceptions of corruption by Transparency
International (2011), South Africa also ranks 54th out of 178 nations worldwide, similar to Malaysia and
Kuwait.
Syria
By contrast, countries such as Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Syria, and Belarus rank poorly in Figure 1
in both press freedom and perceived levels of corruption. The Syrian case illustrates the role of the state
in severely restricting freedom of expression and independent criticisms of corruption in public life. The
Syrian government owns and controls much of the media, including the daily newspapers, Al‐Thawra
("The Revolution"), Tishrin, and the English‐language Syria Times, while the Baath party publishes Al‐
Baath. There was a brief flowering of press freedom after Bashar al‐Assad became president in 2000.
The normally staid government newspapers cautiously started to discuss reform and democracy. For
the first time in nearly 40 years, private publications were licensed. The new titles included political
party papers Sawt al‐Shaab and Al‐Wahdawi , and a satirical journal. But within a year, under pressure
from the old guard, the president cautioned against over‐zealous reform, a subsequent press law
imposed a new range of restrictions, and publications could be suspended for violating content rules.
Criticism of President Bashar al‐Assad and his family has long been banned and the domestic and foreign
13
press is censored over material that is deemed to be threatening or embarrassing. Journalists practice
self‐censorship and foreign reporters rarely get accreditation. Reporters without Borders documents
common abuses, even prior to the recent crackdown caused by the Arab revolt: “Journalists and political
activists risk arrest at any time for any reason and are up against a whimsical and vengeful state
apparatus that continually adds to the list of things banned or forbidden to be mentioned. Several
journalists were arrested in 2006 for interviewing exiled regime opponents, taking part in conferences
abroad or for criticizing government policies. They were subjected to lengthy legal proceedings before
the Damascus military court that, under a 1963 law, tries anyone considered to have undermined state
security.”7 Critical journalists outside the country write for the Lebanese or pan‐Arab press, such as the
Beirut daily Al‐Nahar, and the influential London daily Al‐Hayat, as well as contributing to Al‐Jazeera and
other regional satellite channels.8 Syrian TV, operated by the Ministry of Information, operates two
terrestrial and one satellite channel. It has cautiously begun carrying political programs and debates
featuring formerly taboo issues, as well as occasionally airing interviews with opposition figures. Syria
also launched some privately‐owned radio stations in 2004 but these were restricted from airing any
news or political content. With an estimated 1.5 million internet users in Syria, social media have
emerged as a vehicle for dissent, a process of critical importance for connecting information among
dissenters engaged in the Arab Revolt. In the view of Reporters Without Borders, however, Syria is one
of the worst offenders against internet freedom, as the state censors opposition bloggers and
independent news websites. Human Rights Watch notes that the government of Syria regularly restricts
the flow of information on the internet and arrests individuals who post comments that the government
deems too critical.9 Overall Syria ranked 173rd out of 178 countries in the RWB 2010 Worldwide Press
Freedom index. Similarly, in terms of press freedom, Freedom House ranks the country 179th out of 195
states worldwide.10 In terms of perceptions of corruption, according to Transparency international, Syria
currently (2010) ranks 127th out of 178 nations, around the same level as Uganda and Belarus.
These observations are also supported by a growing number of detailed case studies which
illustrate the ways that the news media perform their watchdog role in the fight against corruption.
Hence a study of Madagascar’s education al system by Franken, Minten and Swinnen (2005) found that
the effect of anti‐corruption campaigns varied by the type of media; in particular, in areas of high
illiteracy, radio and television – especially local broadcasts – are more effective at curbing corruption
than newspapers and poster campaigns. Ferraz and Finan (2008) studied Brazil, where the government
published the findings of audits of expenditures of federal funds in selected municipalities. The authors
report that in regions where local radio stations covered the findings of the audit, non‐corrupt
14
incumbents experienced a vote bonus. Finally, there is the well‐known World Bank example; Reinikka
and Svensson (2005) reported that in 1995, only one fifth of the money allocated to schools in Uganda
actually made it to the schools. The government of Uganda initiated a media campaign to enable schools
and parent to monitor the handling of school grants by local governments. By 2001, 80 percent of the
allocated funds were indeed spent on the schools. The government’s newspaper campaign was the
major factor in the change.
Overall, therefore, the case study cannot be regarded as definitive, due to the potential
selection bias limiting their generalizability. Nevertheless case‐studies combined with the more
systematic econometric evidence suggest a systematic link between the roles of the press as watchdogs
over the powerful and the transparency and accountability of government. At the same time, there are
also clearly certain important exceptions to this rule, such as the case of Singapore, which is widely
regarded as low on corruption despite restrictions on press freedom, as well as cases such as Papua New
Guinea, Mali, and Philippines which continue to be afflicted with corruption despite a relatively
flourishing and pluralistic independent media sector.
Many conditions limit watch‐dog journalism, including those arising from lack of freedom of
expression to criticize autocratic and repressive states, commercial pressures from private owners and
advertisers, and also a more deferential culture of journalism which does not recognize watchdog
journalism as an important, or even appropriate, role for the news media. Contrasts in role expectations
are found even among journalists living within similar European post‐industrial societies (Kocher 1986).
In fragile states and among those engaged in peace‐building, such as in Iraq, Sudan, and Ethiopia,
reporters can see other short‐term priorities as more important, with investigative journalism regarded
as a destabilizing force for countries seeking to restore public confidence in governing authorities. It is
true that ‘attack‐dog’ journalism, where partisan commentators launch fierce and bitter personal
assaults on political rivals, can reinforce mistrust within divided multi‐ethnic communities. Nevertheless
even in these difficult conditions, in the long‐run, public trust and confidence in the process of
reconstruction is most likely to be established and reinforced where independent investigative
journalists can highlight cases of misappropriations of public funds, human rights abuses, and examples
of corruption. Watch‐dog journalism helps to raise standards in public life, ensuring that development
funds are used for the purpose for which they were intended, deterring future misdeeds, and ensuring
conditions of openness and transparency which attract further investment, aid and which ultimately
strengthen confidence in government.
15
Conclusions
The defining feature of watchdog journalism is to ask hard or probing questions of the powerful,
to maximize transparency, and to serve the public interest. In its stronger version, journalists are the key
actors uncovering the abuse of power and thereby triggering public outrage and legal actions. In the
weaker, more routine version, journalists are secondary actors when reporting the outcome of other
accountability bodies and bringing these matters to public attention. Investigative reporting has a
special role when highlighting failures in government and business, especially those arising from cases of
bribery, corruption, and malfeasance; from abuse of power; or from incompetent management of public
service delivery. More routine news coverage can also strengthen open governance.
The evidence reviewed here suggests that the watchdog role for journalism is most pervasive in
Anglo‐American democracies, where a long tradition of liberalism has encouraged skepticism towards
the potential abuse of power. In other countries, the more critical role for the independent news media
seems to have developed with processes of democratization, although we have observed that even in
China, watchdog journalism (within limits) plays a role. Much of the American literature glorifies the role
of the vigilant reporters, speaking truth to power, righting social injustices, informing citizens, and
serving the public interest. There is dramatic exaggeration and selective bias in the some of the popular
accounts but nevertheless in practice, a growing body of evidence derived from experimental research,
econometric cross‐national analysis, and from specific cases tends to confirm the effects of the press on
the quality of governance, especially control of corruption. In the right circumstances the independent
media does contribute towards accountability, especially where coverage of abuse of power by the
press generates widespread concern among the public, and where other electoral, legal and managerial
accountability mechanisms provide effective sanctions. More research is needed, however, to
understand the underlying mechanisms, processes, and conditions under which this relationship works.
16
Figure 1: TThe schematiic effects of w
watchdog jourrnalism
Impacct upon elitess
Reacttive role throu
ugh
routtine journalism E.g. leegal hearings,
proseecution, new
E.g. covering reportss from
reegulations
regulatory bodie
es Media coverage of public
affairs
Impacct upon citizeens
Catalyzzing role thro
ough
investigative reporrting E.g. confidence inn
aauthorities
E.g. expose
docume
entaries and stories
s
17
Figure 2: Press freedom and perceived control of corruption
Note: Press Freedom Freedom House 2006; Perceived control of corruption 2006, Kaufmann‐Kraay
World Bank Institute indicators.
18
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