The media can and should make a meaningful contribution to the strengthening of democracy by exposing corruption.

It has often been said that journalism's role is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Sadly, too many media owners — many of whom have great power — see the role of the media differently: they believe the role of the media is to comfort the comfortable and ignore the afflicted. In World Bank circles our immediate concern may be to find fault with the media of developing countries, but we also need to look at the growing ailments of our own media here in the United States.

The media's success in anticorruption work depends largely on non-media developments, embracing the existence of press freedom laws, fair and independent judges, courageous public prosecutors and the development of an environment that permits the press to serve as an effective public watchdog.

Private ownership of the media raises big questions, but public ownership raises still larger ones. A free press should be utterly free of governmental control. This demands ending the phony excuses for supporting state-owned media, as if they alone can best serve the public interest. New World Bank research serves to underline this key point. But we dare not be complacent about the alternative to state-owned media. There has to be meaningful competition among the media to ensure that press barons who abuse their power are exposed by their rivals.

Media Ownership At The National Level
Most media owners today — especially those of large media organizations — have multiple interests. Some of them are engaged in real estate and construction, as well as other businesses. Many of their dealings involve winning government contracts or securing government permits and licenses.

• The late Robert Maxwell bought a major newspaper in Kenya and found himself in partnership in all sorts of ventures with President Moi; needless to say his newspaper was not a prominent critic of the government.

• In Brazil one family built the dominant position in the country in radio, television and print, and it was said that [the family] had more of its own members of the nation's parliament than any political party; its power went hand-in-glove with its governmental relationships.

• In Greece right now there is a struggle over formulating laws that might curb the construction and real estate dealings of media owners, whose media control is mighty and whose secret dealings with people at the helm of government are numerous.

Is this the exception or the rule? Do media tycoons with so many business interests that relate to their ties to government tend to use their newspapers to investigate the very politicians that they are striving to influence? Do these tycoons allow their newspapers to be critical of the very public servants who grant them contracts and licenses?

In many countries the media's owners are so close to the ruling political party that it is difficult to know whether it is the government or the owner who tells the editor what to do. For years the governing PRI party in Mexico dominated the major media. Similar situations abounded from South Africa to Malaysia. How many media owners in Singapore would support editorial investigations of the government?

Frequently, media owners use their media vehicles to investigate and denigrate their business and political opponents. This is not just a phenomenon in developing countries. Just ask the mogul-politician Mr. Berlusconi in Italy or look to the late Tiny Rolands, who mercilessly used his paper, The Observer, to attack the Fayeds, who had outfoxed him to win control of Harrods. But then Rolands had for years been using media interests to further all manner of mining and other business dealings in Africa; he was an accomplished practitioner of using media power ruthlessly for business ends.

Independence of Editors
Sometimes we find a tough and independent editor, but we should never forget that her, or his, power derives from the freedom granted by the owner.

Sometimes, even without the intervention of owners, editors are scared to use their powers. Across the United States, in almost every town and city, a single daily newspaper reigns supreme today. This monopoly position can make editors worry about offending any segment of society; their worries lead to tame journalism that often does the public a disservice. Just look how timid The Washington Post was over many years on the abuse of public office of one of the city's long-serving past mayors.

Cautious Editors In Developing Countries & Low Newsroom Budgets
In many developing countries the editors are cautious not to offend the government or powerful public servants. They understand that they take personal risks by getting on the wrong side of the powerful and that their own positions are often insecure. More to the point, in many developing countries and in the countries in transition in Central and Eastern Europe, owners prevent real journalism from taking place by providing editors with minimal newsroom budgets.

The existence of newsroom budgets to support real investigative journalism is vital if such journalism is to be pursued. This means that editors must be able to build teams of investigative reporters, support their travels and their work over several weeks and risk that investigations fail to produce hard copy. This kind of support for investigative journalism is largely a luxury confined to the financially strongest publications in the wealthiest nations. The existence of these constraints often makes seminars on the topic of investigative reporting — sometimes sponsored by the World Bank — academic.

Owners, who so often see their media as a tool for their private businesses and whose role is thus to support those in political power, frequently take little interest in the quality of journalism in their publications. They see little point in providing newsroom budgets for important stories and investigations; they would far rather spend on sensational features, sex, sports and lotteries that build circulation.

Bribing Reporters
Salaries of journalists across the Third World and Eastern Europe are often absurdly low. So low that good journalists frequently become corporate PR executives and are tough to replace; and so low that reporters often have to get taxi fares and other minimal expenses paid by the promoters of press conferences if they are to attend such events. Indeed the wages are so low that journalists become particularly easy prey for people who want to use bribes.

The exchange of cash between a news source and a reporter undermines the independence and objectivity of reporters. If there is not more discussion of this subject, then in part this is because European journalists, for example, are themselves all too often more than willing to be bribed. _ Of course they don't use this word to describe the benefits they receive from those about whom they write, but what else should we call these gifts? When journalists accept free airfare, hotels and all-expenses-paid trips, can we expect independent reviews of travel, press events and car shows?

Brave Owners and Strong Editors
Let me say, however, that there remain a number of excellent media owners across the developing world who are struggling — often against great odds — to make a real difference. They are supporting brilliant editors and very courageous reporters. They may be involved with Internet media in India or newspapers in East Africa and Mexico, but they are making a noise, making a difference and shaming the corrupt private media owners who form so much of the establishment — if such people indeed understand the word shame.

Conglomerates
Beyond the private media owner in the national context, there is another threat to real press freedom and excellent journalistic standards.

Former editor in chief of Time magazine Henry Grunwald once noted: "Even a democratically elected and benign government can easily be corrupted when its power is not held in check by an independent press."

Today, Time is hardly independent. It is part of AOL Time Warner, the world's largest entertainment, cable, television, film and Internet conglomerate.

The tendency in the United States in recent years has been to avoid raising media antitrust issues. Real news media competition is declining. Yes, we have more TV channels than ever before, but they do little to bring us the fair, objective, tough reporting that we need to strengthen our society. Yes, we have multiple Internet media sites, but most of them distort the news, promote partisan opinion over efforts to be fair and are driven by venture capitalists that have no idea about decent editorial standards.

Indeed, the creation of international media conglomerates, such as those controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, or Viacom, or AOL Time Warner, or Disney or Vivendi, have less and less interest in disturbing national government authorities, let alone investigating corruption. Increasingly, it appears that competition across national borders between media organizations is confined to securing lucrative licenses and advertising deals and is divorced from issues of media credibility and truth. The competition between diverse news organizations to be first on a big story has undermined basic tenets of sound investigative reporting.

Former Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser once wrote that in a modern democracy "the chief purpose of the mass media is to inform, entertain, sell — but chiefly to raise conflict to the plane of discussion. In recent years, we have grown much better at lowering discussion to the plane of conflict."

From the perspective of good media ownership, the situation is rapidly getting worse, not better.

• Rupert Murdoch is spreading the tentacles of News Corporation into every corner of the world, and no prize is bigger than the potential one billion viewers of his TV productions in China. No surprise then that he prevented one of his book publishing companies from publishing an analysis of China by former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten; no surprise then that Murdoch's son recently gave a speech praising the human rights record of the People's Republic.

Does anyone here really believe that serious investigative reporting on all news issues is allowed by the global Murdoch empire, or by Disney, or General Electric or AOL Time Warner, or by [the] entertainment company Viacom that owns CBS? Vivendi of France owns key cable franchises in Europe and has now bought Universal and is in negotiations to buy other media interests. Bertlesman is a private German media giant, with vast and diverse business interests. Are these conglomerates really going to support the types of journalism a strong society needs?

The Media Cannot Do It Alone — Prosecutors Are Crucial
In closing let me make five proposals:

1. Journalism does not exist in splendid isolation, and I implore the World Bank to redouble its efforts to use all its significant leverage to press governments to support the establishment of well-funded, independent judicial systems. Without independent judges earning decent incomes and courageous public prosecutors we will not see the media doing its job, however well-intentioned owners and editors may be.

2. In investigative journalism of government corruption, the best stories would never emerge if it were not for the cooperation of honest public officials. The investigative reporter's frequent dependence on information from public officials needs to be more broadly appreciated. We should all work to strengthen laws and systems in countries to protect whistleblowers.

3. A major challenge in many countries of the world is to strengthen education [about] the role of the press and [about] the need for a free press and for freedom of information. We need to work together to build understanding in government and across society in every country of the fact that the public is best served when there is an absolute divide between government, in all its forms, and the press.

4. Whether it be in general education about the media's roles, or specific education of journalists, we should maximize support for leadership here by NGOs, by independent academia and by private media foundations. I do not believe this is an arena that aid agencies — bilateral or multilateral — should enter. These agencies are government-owned and work first and foremost for governments. There are good reasons not to support state-owned media. Therefore, I suggest that it is inappropriate for state-run agencies, including the World Bank, which is totally publicly owned, to engage in media training programs. I appreciate that this is something that the World Bank and the World Bank Institute may find hard to swallow, because they have some expert staff who have sought to train journalists in developing countries. The Bank needs to understand it lacks broad credibility in this specific field, and its engagement is inconsistent with its own research that finds state media so wanting. If the Bank wants to be engaged in this area, then it should provide funding to the excellent independent institutes of journalism training that abound.

5. We need to encourage research and analysis of how best to secure meaningful antitrust regulation of the media, aimed at ensuring vibrant media competition in today's environment. I don't have the answers [on how] to secure better control of the media conglomerates or to absolutely secure transparency [in] the non-media business dealings of media owners. But, I believe we must find answers and build initiatives in these areas.

— Frank Vogl (voglcom@aol.com) is the president of Vogl Communications, a strategic management-consulting firm specializing in issues of corporate globalization. He is vice-chairman of the anticorruption NGO Transparency International (www.transparency.org) and senior ethics advisor to the Ethics Resource Center (www.ethics.org). Vogl was a journalist for 14 years before serving as the World Bank's Director of Information and Public Affairs from 1981 to 1990.

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