The media have always been under scrutiny, but today’s media environment is particularly pressured. Whether it’s media scandals like the UK’s phone hacking controversy, calls for tighter regulations, or accusations of an over-sensationalizing and biased press, the legitimacy of the media is often brought into question. What value does journalism actually bring to society? And why is the fight for press freedom and the rights of journalists ever so important to advocates, politicians and citizens worldwide?

Speaking to Journalism Is Not A Crime, three experts gave their take on why journalism is crucial, and how it can – and cannot – bring about positive change. Journalism at its best, they agree, has an impact, and can ultimately help change the world for the better.

“Healthy democratic societies need to have a robust, vibrant, active media. That’s no longer in dispute,” says Anya Schiffrin, director of Columbia University’s Technology Media and Communications program. “We know that where you have a high presence of media, you have less corruption, governments are held more to account, and you have faster and more responsive governments and businesses.”

Schiffrin is the editor of the book Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World, which demonstrates how journalists throughout decades have helped changed the world – from the exposure of slavery in the British tea plantations in India in 1886 to the investigations into working conditions at Chinese factories in 2010.

Most recently, the Panama Papers case, exposing how wealthy figures worldwide, including public officials, are hiding their assets from public scrutiny, have already demonstrated how media investigations into 11.5 million leaked documents can have some impact. In just a few days, the president of Iceland had resigned, and many governments announced they are investigating the allegations.

“Journalism has a catalytic effect,” Schiffrin says. “It catalyzes more investigation, it starts changing the conversation and the way people think about things by putting problems on the map. That can really be very transformative, with other factors, and with other people involved.”

Measuring media impact is not always a simple task. Schiffrin explains that in some cases it is possible to link specific journalistic projects to a policy outcome, such as the New York Times revelations of “rampant exploitation” in the nail salon industry, which immediately caused the local government to implement new laws improving nail salon workers’ rights, working conditions and salaries.

In other cases, it’s much harder to measure the direct effect of journalism. Change takes time, often over a span of decades. “It takes 75 editorials to pass a law,” Robert L. Bartley, who was editor of the Wall Street Journal opinion page for 30 years, once said.

Although hard to measure, journalism can have some effect in one way or the other, if repeated over a period of time and under certain conditions, Schiffrin explains.

“There have to be institutions, government agencies or companies who are responsive in some way; who care about public opinion; who don’t want to be named and shamed. When there are mechanisms for redress, there are laws that can be passed, there are courts or police that can do something; then journalism can have an impact,” she says.

On the other hand, it’s less likely that journalism has an impact where governments are oppressive and censor the media. Yet, with the rise of the internet, social media and citizen reporting, journalism becomes increasingly important in places with a controlled media environment, Schiffrin argues. Even if a story is initially ignored at home, in a digital world it can easily be picked up by international outlets, which can then put international pressure on governments.

 

Social Change – A Journalist’s Responsibility?

Journalism not only holds governments to account; it also has a democratizing effect because it can help people in decision-making processes. According to Stuart Allan, a journalism professor at Cardiff University whose research revolves around digital and citizen reporting, journalism should provide a rich array of resources to help people make more informed decisions about how they are governed.

But Allan emphasizes that while journalism is central to a democratic society, we cannot expect journalists to take responsibility for creating social change.

“I might look to the press and hope that it performs a positive role and encourages democratic change,” he says. “But some journalists would say it’s not their responsibility. They may say, it’s my job to report the news, and what people do with the news is up to them; it’s the people who will decide what kind of society they want to live in. I think such responses are a little disingenuous, however.”

Allan argues that journalism shouldn’t be considered the driving force behind social change – that would be asking too much of journalists – but it’s important that they recognize their social responsibilities. “The information they put in the public sphere influences public perceptions of those issues,” he says.

Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, a media think-tank at the London School of Economics, agrees. We should not have unwieldy expectations that media can have direct results, he says.

“You can’t expect new media technologies in themselves to create freedom. Realistically, if we really want change in the world, it shouldn’t just be done by journalists. That’s got to happen by building political movements, political solidarity and so on. Real change is about politics, power, and practical arrangements,” he says.

The earthquake in Haiti in 2010 is, according to Beckett, an example of an event where media coverage did in fact play an important role, but not to create the necessary change the people in Haiti needed. Like with most other humanitarian crises or disasters, media attention had the power to raise public awareness, support and ultimately funds for people affected by the disaster.

“The problem with Haiti was not that there was a lack of money being raised by Western public being sympathetic,” Beckett says. “But there was a structural problem in Haiti, a political problem, and a problem with the NGOs working there, that they didn’t deliver long-term structural change to people.”

Columbia University director Anya Schiffrin also argues that the media impact is usually more immediately felt when it is delivered on a small scale. “It’s much harder is to change a whole system,” she says.

“A story about a famine will get food sent to one place, but it doesn’t solve the overall problem of malnutrition and poverty. Likewise, a lot of corruption stories can be quite effective on a small scale because it’s pretty easy for a corrupt government to get rid of a corrupt person,” Schiffrin explains.

Journalism is part of a wider picture, she adds. For instance, when looking throughout history, media investigations have for the most part only made a difference when there was already an active social movement in place. In these cases, the journalists, who usually aren’t activists themselves, provide the crucial information that campaigners need in order to push for change.

“Campaigners and advocates need hard information that documents the problems they are campaigning about,” Schiffrin says. “Journalism sort of feeds into that and provides hard data that can then be used by the activists.”

 

Scandals and Skepticism

Despite the potential benefits of journalism, the experts admit that media don’t always show their best side. In 2011, the United Kingdom witnessed one of the history’s biggest media scandals, revealing that, for years, journalists working for News International, part of the mass media outfit News Corp, had been involved in hacking people’s phones for stories. Scandals like this, sensationalism and bias have led to a growing skepticism toward the press.

“Where journalism loses its way is when it champions a particular point of view or slant on the news,” says Cardiff University professor Stuart Allan. “It invites a certain degree of skepticism amongst people when they start to see that the press is motivated by reasons other than the public interest. That’s one of the challenges that journalism has to negotiate in order to improve.”

According to POLIS director Charlie Beckett, journalism certainly has room for improvement. Media need be more transparent themselves, he argues. But because of the very nature of press freedom, mistakes will inevitably happen.

“Of course there are all kinds of journalists, and sometimes they will do bad things, as we saw with the phone hacking scandal,” Beckett says. “It’s important to remember that with the fundamental idea that journalists should be allowed to operate freely, ironically they are able to make mistakes sometimes. But that shouldn’t be confused with their core democratic function.”

 

Read also: Five Ways Journalism Can Make the World a Better Place