Pushback: Democracies Delegitimising a Free Press the Beginnings of Tampering with an Open Society
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Pushback: Democracies delegitimising a free press The beginnings of tampering with an open society “Freedom of Information. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naïve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop…” - Tony Blair, A Journey (2010) Table of contents Pushback: Democracies delegitimising a free press 1 Table of contents 1 Acknowledgements 2 Introduction 2 Methodology 3 Historical context 4 Taxonomy of mechanisms 5 Curbing the press through formal legislation 5 The loss of Freedom Of Information (FOI) privileges in Denmark 5 The current situation of FOI legislation in Denmark - examples of stories that would have been left in the dark 9 The current situation of FOI legislation in Denmark - From culture to law 11 2. Shift in the power balance 13 Watch dogs of the press are dwindling - Guard dogs of the establishment are multiplying 13 b. Case examples 15 c. Politicians sharpening rhetoric against the press 17 Conclusion 18 Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincerest gratitude and acknowledgements to the following people and organisations who have made it possible for me to gain insight into an area of regressing press freedom that others hopefully find interesting and useful. First of all, an immense thank you to The Reuters Institute and JP/Politikens Hus and CEO Stig Ørskov for taking a chance on a tabloid journalist. Thank you also to Ekstra Bladet for giving me the opportunity to take time away from the paper. It has been a true privilege to be given time, advice and financial safeguarding to be able to devote time and effort to this cause. The things I have discovered in Oxford not only about journalism and media politics, but also about myself professionally and personally will guide me for many years to come. For this I am profoundly grateful. Also, a big thank you in this regard to the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Monique Villa whom I was lucky to meet at The Oxford Union. Thank you a thousand times to Lucas Graves for being critical, open and inspiring. I could not have wished for a better supervisor for this topic. Thank you for your time and encouraging advice. A warm, warm thank you to Meera who tirelessly works to make this a wonderful program - and to the amazing Reuters staff and leadership: Rasmus, Alexandra, Caroline, Matthew, Louise, Kate and Philippa who must have printed out seven different bank approval letters for me and helped with tons of other things big and small: I am extremely grateful for your help and kindness. Also, a profound note of gratitude for the amazing research fellows with whom I shared honest, thought provoking and deeply inspiring discussions on our common goal: Better journalism. I would especially like to thank Dr. Richard Fletcher who so warmly helps all fellows and Dr. Julie Possetti whom I interviewed for this paper. The biggest thank you of all, however, is for Alexandra, Kadia, Nirvana, Soma, Tom, Michael, Aura, Nagham, Mozart and Zijuan. It has been an amazing experience getting to know fellow journalists from around the world that I can now call dear friends. Finally, three big kisses to Thilde, Jo and Tom who stayed behind in Denmark. Introduction Denmark is one of the most open, corruption free and liberal societies any journalist could wish to operate in. Although not perfect - and with sporadic historical exceptions to the principle of press freedom, Denmark is in general a place where freedom of expression and the freedom of the press is constitutionally safeguarded. A country where journalists live without fear of being arrested, threatened on their lives or risk bodily harm from authorities. A spot on the globe in which journalists have for the most part enjoyed a continuously expanding degree of openness and wide reaching means by which to hold power accountable. In short: As close to a model democracy for a free press as you can get. But cracks have begun appearing in the model. Media outlets as well as politicians find themselves in stormy waters with dwindling trust levels in Denmark as in other Western democracies.1 Whilst democratically elected politicians will defend; often in superlative terms; the principle of a free press; things are beginning to slide backwards in practice. As I will show in the following, journalists in Denmark are coming under attack from elected officials. The constitutional and traditional safeguarding of the press as a fundamental player in the democratic process in Denmark is being threatened by a number of high profile politicians. Legislation is being proposed, passed and implemented; often breaking with longstanding tradition and resulting in more difficult circumstances for the press when it tries to access or oversee government through eg. Freedom Of Information (FOI). And the overall legitimacy of journalists is being picked apart by segments of the political elite from different sides of the chamber. In short, there seems to be a pushback occurring against the former order of the day. Certain democratic freedoms of the press are under pressure, and politicians, as I will demonstrate, are beginning to flesh out what some experts see as baby steps on a path towards undoing the power of the fourth estate; echoing in practice what one former member of Barack Obama’s administration in 2011 put in to words as ‘too much of a good thing’.2 At the same time, politicians are enabling themselves in becoming stronger and more powerful in their own political communication. And these new, strengthened muscles aren’t seldom being flexed to delegitimise journalists and media outlets. This paper is an attempt to map and catalogue some of the tremors and rumblings being cast off from this backslide. Methodology I will investigate how democratically elected officials in Denmark (and other traditionally liberal, Western societies) are increasingly undermining the playing field of the press whilst at the same time attacking journalists for doing their jobs with higher frequency. This process breaks with longstanding traditions and ideals of press freedom in countries like Denmark. I will study the extent of and means by which political regimes in Western countries increasingly attempt to impair journalists from holding governments and elected officials accountable. To accomplish this, I will establish a taxonomy of the mechanisms and dynamics at play from a democratically legitimised political establishment which functions in an ever more professionalised as well as mediated and mediatised arena3. And I will discuss briefly some of the implications of this process which seem to constitute a pushback against the highly mediatised circumstances under which politics and political communications function today; the paradigm in which ‘political actors mainly [are] governed by media logic’ 1 Annual trustworthiness report, Radius 2018: https://radiuscph.dk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Trov%C3%A6rdighedsanalyse-2018-af-Radius.pdf 2 Orszag, Peter: ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’ - New Republic, 2011: https://newrepublic.com/article/94940/peter-orszag-democracy 3 Strömbäck, Jesper: Four Phases of Mediatization: An Analysis of the Mediatization of Politics, 2008: http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_sage_s10_1177_194016120831909 7&context=PC&vid=SOLO&search_scope=primo_central_eld&tab=local&lang=en_US and where politics arrive at a ‘breakdown of the distinction between periods when political actors are in their campaign mode and when they are in their governing mode’4 towards a lesser degree of this governance/domination of news and media logic.5 For this project, I will be looking at the period from 2001 until present day. The reason for this choice is partly to limit the scope of the research to a time period defined by a strong focus on political communication where press advisers and dedicated communications staffs have become the norm and internalised in Danish politics as well as other liberal democracies, partly to examine the consequences for media and journalists of a period defined by a strong focus on national security legislation and patriotism since the 9/11 attacks and the following events. Historical context Since the end of the Second World War, journalists in Denmark and other Western European democracies have generally enjoyed expanding freedoms, rights and privileges in their pursuit of holding governments and elected officials accountable. From a global perspective, Denmark is among the majority of countries that have long-established FOI legislations (fig. 1) as well as being in the minority of countries which Reporters Without Borders categorize as having a large degree of press freedom.(fig 2.)6 The right to oversee power holders and gain access to governmental documents in Denmark stems in part from the 1970 introduction of FOI legislation. This bill was very loosely based on the Swedish Tryckfrihetsforordningen (Printing Freedom Regulation) from 1766. Despite being less than 50 years old, Danish FOI legislation is on a global sclae among the most veteran mechanisms safeguarding public insight into governmental documents. The 1970 legislation was overhauled in 1985, opening up public access even further. Even though these freedoms and possibilities for journalistic oversight were not ideal from day 1, they have served as a high benchmark throughout the past decades. Figure 1: - Map of the expanse of FOI legislation (2017)7 4 Four Phases of Mediatization, p. 240 5 Four Phases of Mediatization, p. 241 6 Reporters Without Borders: https://rsf.org/en/denmark 7 Article 19 (NGO working for FOI legislation): https://www.article19.org/where-we-work/ Figure 2: Map of press freedom index (RsF 2018) However the expansion of the principle of openness was hampered with the introduction of the 2014 revision of the law. At this point, let me stress the fact that journalists in Denmark need not fear for their lives or their physical safety or that of their families and loved ones.