What is Editorial Independence?
The question of editorial independence has never been more relevant, as new media challengers threaten to supplant legacy media. It is a critical issue for European media policy as it determines how law can safeguard editorial independence in the face of automation.
Traditionally, media policy has sought to secure editorial independence by preventing concentrations of opinion power and limiting the influence of private actors on media organisations. This is especially important when it comes to the democratic process, where an imbalance of power can undermine media accountability.
Definition
Editorial independence is the freedom of journalists and editors to exercise editorial judgment independently without interference from their owners, advertisers, or other business pressures (Karppinen & Moe, 2016). It has been a core value for media organisations since their inception.
Over the past decade, a variety of trends have challenged editors and journalists’ ability to maintain their independent editorial judgment. In newsrooms, financial hardships have weakened publications that traditionally upheld editorial independence as a core value (Karppinen and Moe, 2016). Automation has also increasingly challenged the way journalists and editors exercise their editorial judgement by creating new dependencies on external software and data providers, engineers, and platforms to produce, distribute, and repackage content for different audiences.
As a result, many media companies are explicitly asking their editors to understand and work with the business side of their organisation. This approach is often paired with an emphasis on data journalism and news personalisation.
While these trends challenge the traditional understanding of editorial independence and entail new dependencies for media organisations, they can also enable more flexible and diverse media systems. Consequently, policymakers are beginning to revisit the way law can safeguard editorial independence in an automated media system.
In European media law, this approach is based on four functions that editorial independence performs. Those functions include (1) preventing concentrations of opinion power in the media; (2) supporting pluralism by ensuring different societal actors can contribute to public debate; (3) protecting citizens’ right against state interference in the dissemination of information; and (4) realising media accountability.
The first two functions of editorial independence protect media from concentrated power in the context of democracy, while the last function enables journalists and media organisations to exercise their autonomy in order to counteract such concentrations by providing the public with a diverse range of viewpoints (Loecherbach et al., 2020; Reich and Hanitzsch 2013; Valcke et al., 2015).
However, this function of editorial independence is not always fulfilled in media systems where there are multiple dominant organisations. In addition to economic considerations, political and cultural factors can skew the range of perspectives available in the public sphere.
Purpose
Editorial independence has a broad range of functions (Bennett & Strange, 2015; Oster, 2015). It protects the media from third parties trying to manipulate their audience, as well as enables the media to exercise their public watchdog function. It also safeguards a number of values, such as media transparency and media accountability.
It can also serve as a democratic safeguard against concentrations of power, which are often exacerbated by dominant media organisations that use their influence to overexpose citizens to a particular point of view. This concentration of opinion power can be problematic for democracy, as it weakens the democratic balance of power.
Traditionally, policy initiatives have taken steps to safeguard editorial independence in order to protect individual and societal interests from commercial pressures and to ensure the media serves diverse audiences and promotes public interest values. However, changes to the media landscape and the automation of editorial decision-making mean that these traditional means of safeguarding editorial independence are being challenged.
The purpose of editorial independence is a complex question that has received a great deal of attention in legal and journalism studies literature. While some argue that complete editorial independence is not possible, others see it as a precondition for a media organisation to fulfil its role in a democratic society by providing information which serves public values.
A key issue is the relationship between editorial independence and other forms of appropriation. These include external influences such as advertisers, but also business and technical departments. This is a complex challenge that requires a deep understanding of the normative and structural dimensions of editorial independence.
Systemic challenges to editorial independence can take many forms, and often revolve around influences that are not problematic at the individual level but become so when viewed in the context of the media system as a whole. For example, a new owner may not be a problem on its own, but it can amplify existing trends, including those identified in journalism studies literature.
To understand how these trends impact editorial independence, it is important to examine the various ways in which it is conceptualised in legal and journalism studies literature. This will help us to develop a normative framework of editorial independence’s functions in European media policy and assess the extent to which these are being undermined by developments in journalism studies. This will allow us to develop strategies that can protect editorial independence and maintain its functions in the context of automated editorial decision-making.
Conflicts
In media policy, editorial independence is traditionally viewed as a normative concept that protects media from private actors and supports its ability to use influence to contribute to the public interest (Bennett and Strange 2015; CoE 2011; Oster 2015). Legal measures such as limits on concentrations of media power and bans on certain commercial influences are intended to safeguard editorial independence.
However, many of the current trends identified in journalism studies literature have the potential to challenge traditional understandings of editorial independence and the new policy initiatives that aim to safeguard it. These include increasing automation of journalistic decision-making and a range of new threats to journalists’ editorial independence posed by data journalism and news personalisation technologies.
For instance, concerns about state control over automated news personalisation algorithms have led to calls for stronger safeguards against external influences on editorial independence (Makhortykh & Bastian 2020; Wijermars 2021). The challenge of automating journalistic decision-making has been recognised in the journalism studies literature as an opportunity for journalists’ editorial autonomy to be eroded (Baack 2018; Borges-Rey 2016; Gillespie 2014). Algorithms are not neutral and can also be influenced by other internal or external parties (Klinger and Svensson 2018; Zamith 2019). This can lead to a lack of algorithmic transparency and the emergence of hidden third parties who are able to influence how algorithms are applied in news articles (Gillespie 2014; Klinger and Svensson 2017; Tabary, Provost, and Trottier 2017; Stalph 2018).
This has led to an increased focus on how editors and journalists should exercise their editorial autonomy in relation to these new and potentially hidden pressures. For example, news personalisation algorithms may be designed to promote certain success metrics and can therefore be used to target journalists and editors who have not been previously identified as key audiences.
Similarly, the collection and use of audience data can be influenced by outside actors who seek to promote certain political interests or viewpoints in particular countries. This is especially true of data journalism, where government data sources often play a significant role in the production of reports (Borges-Rey 2016).
Consequently, policymakers are increasingly reassessing how law should support editorial independence in a world where data and technology can be used to target audiences with news articles that are tailored to their personal interests and preferences. Despite these challenges, the majority of journalists in data journalism and news personalisation believe that editorial independence remains important to their work (Baack and Koprowski 2018; Cushion, Lewis, and Callaghan 2017; Gillespie 2014; Gumley et al. 2013; Koprowski & Gillespie 2014; Lutz, Baack, and Koprowski 2017).
Conflict resolution
The ability to resolve conflict is essential for working in any field, but especially at a business. It helps create a positive work culture that fosters communication and trust, which can lead to better client relationships and employee performance.
It also allows you to make decisions that benefit the company. Whether it’s a disagreement with a customer or an issue with a co-worker, a good set of conflict resolution skills will help you get through a tough situation successfully.
First, be aware of your emotions and how they impact your ability to resolve conflicts. Oftentimes, conflicts can be triggered by strong feelings of anger or frustration, but you can’t let them get out of hand.
Next, focus on listening to the other person’s point of view and identifying what is important for them to hear. Developing this skill will allow you to be more productive in discussions and less likely to blame or accuse.
This technique can be especially useful when the issues are rooted in values or intense emotions. For instance, if you’re having trouble understanding why your colleagues are taking an unusually long time to complete an assignment, you could ask them to explain what they were thinking.
If you’re unsure how to approach your issue, consult with someone else who has handled similar situations before. They may have some insights that you didn’t know about.
Another approach to conflict resolution is to find common ground and work together to come up with a solution. This approach is a great way to bring people together and get something accomplished that everyone can be proud of.
It’s important to remember that the process of resolving a conflict can take time, so you want to be patient and be willing to put in the effort needed to resolve it. You also don’t want to let a conflict fester, as it’ll only reappear when you least expect it and become difficult to handle.
The most important thing to remember when resolving a conflict is that everyone has a role in the final result. It’s also important to avoid making assumptions about what the other party wants or doesn’t want, as this can only increase the likelihood of them not sticking with the solution.