Shining a light

Journalists are easy to dislike. They are often impatient, sometimes smug, occasionally wrong. They compress complex realities into blunt narratives and, in doing so, step on many toes. In an age of social media, every error is amplified, every perceived bias weaponised. It is therefore tempting, even comforting, for those in power ~ and sometimes for the public ~ to treat the troubles of journalism as a minor irritation in an already noisy world. That would be a serious mistake. Across much of the globe, the space for independent reporting is shrinking. This is not only happening in places long accustomed to censorship, but increasingly in countries that still hold elections and call themselves democracies. The methods are rarely dramatic.

Instead of outright bans, there are tax investigations that never quite end, surveillance that is never officially acknowledged, lawsuits designed less to win than to exhaust, and a convenient blindness when “patriotic” mobs decide to rough up inconvenient reporters. Each tactic, taken alone, can be explained away. Together, they form a pattern: scrutiny becomes risky, and risk changes behaviour. The real danger is not merely that fewer scandals are reported. It is that fewer are prevented. Corruption does not thrive in darkness by accident; it thrives because darkness lowers the price of misbehaviour. When exposure is unlikely and consequences uncertain, the calculation changes. Petty favours become routine. Large favours become policy. Public office slowly turns into a private opportunity. Defenders of pressure on the press often argue that journalists are biased, elitist, or irresponsible. Sometimes they are right.

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But this misses the point. A flawed watchdog is still a watchdog. Removing its teeth does not produce better journalism; it produces quieter theft. Courts, parliaments and audit bodies matter, but they rarely act without information and public pressure. In many systems, that pressure is generated first by reporters who are willing to dig, document and persist. There is also a comforting myth that corruption is mainly a cultural or moral problem, something embedded in certain societies and absent in others. In reality, it is more often an institutional one. Change the incentives, and behaviour follows. Reduce the chance of being caught, and more people will take the risk. Increase transparency, and even imperfect systems improve.

The relationship is not mechanical, but it is persistent enough to be visible wherever it is measured over time. Public distrust of the media complicates this picture, but it does not negate it. One can be sceptical of headlines and still recognise the value of scrutiny. Indeed, the solution to bad journalism is not intimidated journalism, but better journalism ~ more plural, more competitive, more accountable. When leaders complain that the press is a nuisance, they are often telling the truth. Scrutiny is inconvenient by design. But a society that trades inconvenience for comfort may soon discover it has also traded oversight for opacity ~ and opacity, sooner or later, for abuse. Less light does not produce more order. It usually produces more loot.