Culture guardians in action

Michael Hedges June 9, 2008

What is media supposed to be? The post-analogue, new media teaches that media users drive that definition. Media is servant to a public with varied interests, tastes and pleasures. This is not an idea popular with politicians.

The European Parliament’s Culture and Education Committee stamped its approval on a report that stomped on the private sector media, called by its author “political guidance to safeguard democracy.” These Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are firmly convinced – the report was approved 33 to 1 –  that “the concentration of ownership of the private media and relentless pursuit of profit could lead to loss of diversity and of the media's role as a watchdog of democracy.”

“Experience shows that the unrestricted concentration of ownership jeopardizes pluralism and cultural diversity,” said principal author MEP (Estonia) Marianne Mikko. She defines pluralism as “a balance between quantity and quality in the media market.”  Safeguarding that media pluralism, she said, requires laws enforced by DG Competition and national competition authorities. Certainly MEP Mikko knows of EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes’ record for bringing big bad companies to heel.

Through the 1990’s the European Commission (EC) viewed the ‘media pluralism’ issue in terms of ownership concentration and, largely, tossed the discussion off to the Council of Europe and national regulators. The powerful print sector won broad exemption from anti-concentration rules at the European level, as did the public broadcasting institutions. The EC continues to consider economic issues, not limited to employment, as fundamental to any discussion of media pluralism, frustrating MEPs with powerful incumbent constituencies, not limited to publishers and State broadcasters. 

The impressive intellectual leap attempted in the EuroParl Culture Committee’s recommendations illuminates the fundamental disconnect between a political culture mired in the last century – or the one before that – and media reality moving at lightening speed to satisfy the public’s interests. “Editorial charters” – presumably influenced by the knowing and applied universally – should be established “to prevent owners, shareholders or governments from interfering with news content.” The most enlightened proposal would require those nasty, greedy media owners to pay fees for user-generated content at rates equal to those paid to journalists. Just because YouTube is wildly popular doesn’t mean MEPs don’t want to kill it. So much of the political posturing about media is sung to the theme from that old comedy film “Stop The World I Want To Get Off.”

In the vast majority of European States a fire-wall between ‘editorial’ – content – and ‘business’ – revenue creation – exists already. It is the sales-house system, in place for decades, which effectively forms a barrier between the ‘editorial’ and ‘business’ sides of broadcasting. The efficacy of the sales-house system can be debated but it’s widely used and accepted by the advertising people and most broadcasters.

But the Culture Committee – with the support of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) – wants more. Journalists – and presumably all other content creators – should, they say, be fully independent from media owners, shareholders and, presumably, managers. Private sector broadcasters already shy away from news and public affairs content. The best example from the newspaper world of the consequence of ‘the inmates running the asylum’ is the hopelessness of the French newspaper Liberation. The Culture Committee seems to want private sector media owners to pour endless streams of money into businesses they cannot control. That makes perfect sense.

Fees for user-generated content, say the MEPs, would protect ‘professionals’ from being undersold by “poorly produced content.” The vast majority of user-generated content goes to video and audio sharing portals like YouTube. AFP banned its reporters from using user-generated sources Wikipedia and Facebook. The BBC accepts user-generated material and pays for some of it, only when “particularly editorially important or unique,” according to stated policy.

Furthermore, news organizations are increasingly concerned about non-professionals taking risks chasing a fee. “Audiences should not be encouraged to think that payment is the norm, or in any way encouraged to take risks, put themselves in danger or break any laws in order to secure what they perceive to be material of high monetary value," states the BBC policy written in 2006. If the MEPs believe news media organizations faced with the current level of competition will use “poorly produced content” just because it’s free or cheap they are fundamentally disconnected from reality.

While the EuroParl Culture Committee’s recommendations are only informational and have no direct effect on policies, Commissioners and staff do pay attention. It was the Culture Committee that held, effectively, the final debate on the Audiovisual Services Directive before it was passed by the full assembly. A recent survey of Brussels based communications specialists (read: lobbyists) showed that the Commission’s officials, generally, ‘get it’ and, well, MEPs are on another planet. All of this underscores the need for broadcasters to demand more ‘face time’ with MEPs to make broadcasting reality a bit less mysterious.