Harcup-CH-02:Harcup-CH-02 1/13/2009 5:52 PM Page 15 two constraints and influences on journalists Harcup-CH-02:Harcup-CH-02 1/13/2009 5:52 PM Page 16 Harcup-CH-02:Harcup-CH-02 1/13/2009 5:52 PM Page 17 key terms Advertising; Audience; Codes of conduct; Constraints; Free press; Legislation; Ownership; Propaganda; Pseudo- events; Public relations; Regulation; Routines; Self-censorship; Self-regulation; Social composition; Socialisation It was a Saturday afternoon and Anna Constraints Politkovskaya had taken a break from her computer keyboard to go shopping for groceries. Journalism is not produced in a vacuum. Journalists On her return she took a couple of bags up to her work within a range of constraints and influences; seventh-floor flat, then went back down to collect structural factors that affect their output (McQuail, 2000: 244). Media theorists argue that journalists the others from her car. It was her final journey “have to make decisions at the centre of a field of because, as the lift doors opened at the ground different constraints, demands or attempted uses of floor, Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead. She may power or influence” (McQuail, 2000: 249). These range not have been working on the afternoon of from legal constraints and regulatory codes of practice October 7 2006, but few doubt that it was her to the less visible influence of proprietors, organisa - work that prompted someone to kill her – or tional routines, market forces, to order her death. She was a journalist. cultural bias, patriotism, profes - How could I live with sional ethos, and a gender, racial Anna Politkovskaya worked for the m‘yself if I didn’t write the or class imbalance in the truth? relatively small circulation Russian workforce. Further constraints – – Anna Politkovskaya. newspaper Novaya Gazeta and her reports ’ time, sources, subjectivity, about war, terrorism and their attendant audience, style, advertisers – are human rights abuses had earned her countless addressed in David Randall’s suggestion that every death threats. Her journalism also won her praise newspaper might consider publishing the following from supporters of democracy and free speech disclaimer: around the world, although she was something of This paper, and the hundreds of thousands of words it a marginal figure in her own country and was contains, has been produced in about 15 hours by a virtually never invited to appear on television, group of fallible human beings, working out of cramped from which most Russians get their news (Parfitt, offices while trying to find out about what happened in the world from people who are sometimes reluctant to 2006). Her death was shocking yet in many ways tell us and, at other times, positively obstructive. Its unsurprising; she was one of an estimated 20 content has been determined by a series of subjective Russian journalists to have been killed or to have judgements made by reporters and executives, died in suspicious circumstances since 2000 tempered by what they know to be the editor’s, owner’s and reader’s prejudices. Some stories appear here (Osborn, 2007). And she was aware of the dangers without essential context as this would make them less of making powerful enemies by her courageous dramatic or coherent and some of the language reporting, as her sister Elena Kudimova later employed has been deliberately chosen for its recalled: emotional impact, rather than its accuracy. Some features are printed solely to attract certain advertisers. (Randall, 2000: 21) Anna knew the risks only too well. We all begged her to stop. We begged. My parents. Her editors. Her Journalists work in a field of conflicting loyalties, all children. But she always answered the same way: “How of which have the potential to influence their work. could I live with myself if I didn’t write the truth?” They may feel a sense of duty towards their audience, (Quoted in Specter, 2007) editors, advertisers, proprietors, the law, regulatory CONSTRAINTS AND INFLUENCES ON JOURNALISTS 17 Harcup-CH-02:Harcup-CH-02 1/13/2009 5:52 PM Page 18 PRACTICE PRINCIPLES The Moscow Union of Journalists immediately bodies, contacts, colleagues, fellow citizens, and to condemned the murder of Anna Politkovskaya as themselves and their families (Frost, 2000: 61–64; “a new attack on democracy, freedom of speech Harcup, 2002b: 103). Denis McQuail highlights “the tension arising from the following oppositions at the and openness in Russia”, and Alexei Simonov of heart of media-making”: the Glasnost Defence Foundation warned: “The result of Anna’s death is simple. Every journalist • constraint versus autonomy will now practise self-censorship: think twice, • routine production versus creativity before you write” (Quoted in Parfitt, 2006). Such • commerce versus art things do not happen only in faraway countries. • profit versus social purpose (McQuail, 2000: 246). Ten years earlier the Sunday Independent’s crime reporter Veronica Guerin had been shot dead in In Chapter 1 we heard the argument that a free press (social purpose) is impossible in a free market, Dublin; more recently, within the jurisdiction of because market forces (profit) work against the objec - the UK, Sunday World journalist Martin O’Hagan tive of supplying the public sphere with a reasoned was shot dead outside his Lurgan home in 2001. discourse. But market forces are not the only And in 2007 the editor of the Andersonstown pressures at work: “[The] relations between media News in Belfast was the subject of a message from organisations and their operating environment are the “Red Hand Defenders” sent to Ulster governed not solely by naked market forces or political Television, containing his name, address, car regis - power but also by unwritten social and cultural guide - tration number, a threat to kill him – and a bullet lines” (McQuail, 2000: 249). Even when analysed solely in economic terms, it has been pointed out that (Journalist , 2007a). although media organisations will “naturally gravitate Killings, attacks, and threats are the most brutal towards oligopoly and monopoly market structures”, if examples of constraints on the work of journalists unchecked this process may have a negative impact and, as Simonov points out, their effects can be on the journalistic product which could hit sales and pervasive. For every journalist killed, and for every advertising income (Doyle, 2002: 125–126). dozen threatened, there may be hundreds or even The constraints and influences discussed in this thousands of journalists who – consciously or chapter need to be understood not as totalising systems imposing on journalists certain ways of doing otherwise – are more likely to stick to safer stories things; rather, they are a range of sometimes conflict - as a consequence. This is what is meant by the ing influences, some more powerful than others and phrase self-censorship. some more powerful at certain times, with a tendency More visible forms of censorship and constraint to influence journalists in certain ways. Constraints on include the prosecution and jailing of journalists, the journalists are subject to counter-pressures and can deportation of troublesome foreign correspondents, be negotiated and resisted as well as accepted. the banning of particular outlets, police raids on TV studios and newspaper offices, and the confiscation of Proprietors equipment. All these things still go on in various countries around the world towards the end of the Ultimately it is the owners who, “through their wealth, first decade of the 21st century, as journalists and determine the style of journalism we get,” argues Michael their fellow citizens insist on what the English poet Foley (2000: 51). Media proprietors set the broad lines of John Milton demanded more than 350 years ago: “the policy for their organisations, and the combination of verti - cal and horizontal integration (synergy) may increase liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according pressures on journalists to cross-promote other products to conscience” (Milton, [1644] 2005: 101). or to keep their noses out of their company’s business. In fact, the world is becoming an increasingly The situation in public service broadcasting is more dangerous place for journalists, and every year the complex than in commercial media, with bureaucratic and 18 JOURNALISM: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE Harcup-CH-02:Harcup-CH-02 1/13/2009 5:52 PM Page 19 PRACTICE PRINCIPLES International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) produces budgetary control rather than “naked market forces”; a grim list of every journalist and media worker nonetheless, public broadcasters operate in an killed in the course of their work. The highest increasingly competitive environment and are certainly not immune from market pressures (McQuail, 2000: number of deaths in a single year was 177 in 2006, 259–261). but 2007 was almost as deadly with 172 journalists In their “propaganda model” of how (US) media killed. Since the US-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has operate, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky identify been the most dangerous country for journalists, media owners as the first of five filters through which with 65 deaths in 2007 alone – all but one of that the wealthy and powerful are able “to filter out the news year’s victims being Iraqi rather than a foreign corre - fit to print, marginalise dissent, and allow the govern - spondent. Around the world it is journalists operat - ment and dominant private interests to get their messages across” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988: 166). ing in their home countries who are most at risk, The filters are: particularly when their country is politically unstable (IFJ, 2007 and 2008). Few, if any, journalists go out • wealth and concentrated ownership of dominant of their way to become targets for killers or kidnap - media firms pers, yet no journalist can be certain as to whether or • advertising not a particular story might attract unwelcome • reliance on information from the powerful • attention.