May 3 marks an important day in the calendar of the media: it is the international day of press freedom, as declared by the UN and UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
Over the years, the world and its media have been celebrating this day, reflecting on the safety of journalists and other factors inhibiting journalists from performing their duties freely and independently.
Consistent focus has been placed on repressive laws and government conduct towards the media, including journalists’ safety. Admittedly, government is inevitably the starting point for investigating media freedom, because it presides over any democratic system and enacts laws.
As reported by organisations such as the International Federation of Journalists, and Reporters without Borders, more than 50 journalists were killed and 235 detained in the line of duty worldwide in 2020 alone. This confirms that journalists are still under threat – very worrisome for any government subscribing to democratic ideals and the rule of law at domestic, regional, continental and multilateral levels.
A government is seen as truly democratic by the way it treats the media because media freedom is the foundation of democracy. Countries and organisations perpetrating the ill-treatment and/or killing of journalists must be strongly condemned.
There is, however, a new trend that is beginning to rapidly change journalism and threaten media freedom: the encroaching of Big Tech companies into the field of journalism. They have undoubtedly opened up space for news and information to flow freely beyond any country’s borders.
Big Tech companies have revolutionised the field as we know it. Financially, they are drawing large advertising revenues away from traditional news organisations, diminishing their market power and transforming their funding models.
Organisationally, they have changed governance models by ushering a new era in which journalists are able to practise journalism outside the traditional news establishments, launching their own digital platforms and newsletters which are distributed through Big Tech’s social media platforms. These newsletters are either paid for by them or through subscriptions, advertising or revenue-sharing arrangements.
To their advantage, the Big Tech companies are free from regulatory constraints. Socially, they have become contested sites where hate speech and fake news render ethical standards, accountability and safeguards insignificant.
The encroaching of Big Tech into journalism forces challenges of sustainability on many news organisations, including public broadcasting services. In frantic attempts to stay afloat and remain competitive, some traditional news organisations have resorted to commercialisation through subscriptions models, thereby eroding news information as a public good which must be universally accessible.
In contrast to Big Tech companies, traditional organisations have to face these challenges amid onerous regulatory environments affecting their business and tax obligations despite being agents of public good.
For the future of the industry, Big Techs cannot continue to be the outlaws. To deal with the Big Tech question and create space for other news organisations to thrive:
- News information may be a public good as per Unesco’s media freedom theme for 2021, but it is essentially copyrighted material whose use and/or adaptation by a third party is subject to domestic copyright laws. Again, the revenue of a news organisation is subject to tax and other related laws. Concomitant with these two principles, special legislation that compels Big Tech companies to pay for news generated by news organisations must be enacted – similar to jurisdictions such as Australia and Canada. Existing laws must be amended to compel Big Techs to contribute to media diversity and development funds (MDDA Act);
- To achieve regulatory parity, Big Tech companies carrying and distributing news must be compelled to subscribe to prescribed domestic journalistic codes and other codes/regulations governing the gathering and distribution of news. They must be held liable for breaches of the code, including hate speech, fake news and unpalatable content as legally prescribed;
- Competition authorities must consider looking into the conduct of Big Tech companies and their uncompetitive conduct so as to level the playing field; and
- Finally, the regulators, including self-regulatory institutions, must be capacitated to enforce standards and root out the increasing unethical standards both at institutional and individual levels, particularly brown envelope journalism, fake news, hate speech – critical in this era of Covid19 – wherein access to information is a matter of life and death. The inadequacy of self-regulatory mechanisms and the strengthening of regulators have become issues of attention in many jurisdictions. This is important amid the ongoing process to fill the vacancies at SA’s Press Council. The report and recommendations of the press freedom commission, chaired by the late chief justice Pius Langa, cannot be left to just gather dust.
The threat to media freedom is increasingly becoming a complex phenomenon both in organisational and individual dimensions. No amount of laws can curb partisan journalism, media politicisation and cult journalism, but ethical grounding, conscience and training could correct these trends. Neither can an individual news organisation deal with these issues on its own. It requires a collective response and acts of solidarity. News organisations are not political organisations, they need to inculcate a strong value system that can help them to repel these growing threats.
• Dr Mashilo works at the department of communications and digital technologies. This article is written in his personal capacity.
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