Chapter summary
- It is the societal role of journalism – its function within society – that primarily distinguishes free and independent journalism from other forms of mass communication. Most importantly, journalism should act in the best interest of the public and not be driven by other interests.
- Journalism should be balanced, meaning that different viewpoints should be heard, and those who are criticized or attacked should have the right to defend themselves at the same time.
- Independent editorial media must have a responsible editor. It is the responsible editor, and this editor alone, who decides what shall be published and how. Neither owners, politicians, nor other external stakeholders can override the decisions of the responsible editor.
- In this chapter, we explain the aim of this analysis, how it will be methodologically handled, and the topics we intend to illuminate.
The work that led to this analysis began with two questions:
- Has the impact of editorial media on European democracies changed in recent years, and if so, how and why?
- How can the media be further developed and strengthened to form an even stronger defense for liberal democracies in an increasingly digital world?
These questions arise naturally from the ongoing public debate on the trends impacting liberal European democracies and the role of free media within this context. In addition, the reappointed EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen’s launch of a European Democracy Shield gives further relevance to these questions.
Schibsted has long worked with issues related to freedom of expression and the role of media in society. As such, we wanted to write this report to engage in a more active and concrete political debate, and a debate within the media industry itself, about the prerequisites that must be in place to protect and strengthen the democracies in Europe. Within this scope, we aim to contribute to a better political understanding of what is, and what can be, the editorial media’s role and what should be the right regulatory conditions to uphold this role. Secondly, we hope the report can stimulate the media’s own development in strengthening its societal role, and specifically, how it can more effectively reach young people.
It has long been assumed that free and independent journalism, produced according to the standards, norms, and ethical rules that apply to the profession, and conveyed through editorial media, is a prerequisite for well-functioning democracies. But the relationship between journalism and democracy is not a force of nature, and must be expected to evolve over time.
The world’s democracies have been significantly weakened in recent years – becoming both fewer in number and less robust, globally and in Europe. This is evident from the Swedish V-Dem Institute’s democracy index. At the same time, we know that editorial media are under strong pressure, due to external factors such as the fierce competition from global tech giants. This has led to significant cost cuts and reductions in editorial staff. Some have been acquired by larger media companies, gaining access to resources that have assisted them in their digitalization efforts, while others have ceased to operate. The question is whether there is any causality between these developments, and what can be done to improve the situation. This is what we have set out to investigate further in our analysis.
Methodical approach
In the first chapters of this report, we analyze four sets of data: a democracy index, a study of news deserts at the local and regional levels in EU countries, a media pluralism index for EU countries and five candidate countries, and a combination of different media freedom indexes.
We will dive into this data, compare it, examine whether it correlates, and try to understand if there is any causality between the data points.
The economic strength of European media companies is naturally a very important factor for the analysis in this report. The development of this industry has been well-known for many years, which is why we will not to go into detail on this matter. The major structural changes, with dramatic economic consequences, started during the financial crisis in 2008/2009. While the sale of print newspapers had been declining for many years before this point, it was generally not at a rate that caused significant financial strain for media companies.
Both cause and effect
The financial crisis was then followed by major structural changes in media organizations, primarily driven by large tech companies making significant inroads into advertising revenues that had previously gone to editorial media. Nevertheless, economic factors are used both as causes and effects of current development trends. Media economics is also raised as a relevant issue by most of our interview subjects.
In the chapters about specific conditions and regulatory conditions, we look at the prerequisites that must be in place for editorial media to be able to fulfill their societal role and contribute positively to democracy. Here, we build on the assessments from previous chapters, as well as a number of interviews and discussions about specific improvement measures and innovative projects from the media industry itself.
What is editorial media?
In EU legislation, there are no definitions of either “editorial media” or “social networks.” The closest we come are definitions of ”editorial decision” and ”editorial responsibility” in the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). Neither of these definitions get to the core of the special role of editorial media and the societal functions of media compared to other non-editorial mass media. To contribute to this clarification, Schibsted has, over the past five years, attempted to use the term “social networks” instead of “social media”,well aware that the latter term is likely too well-established to realistically achieve a widely adopted name change. The purpose of using “social networks” instead of ”social media” has been to emphasize that we do not view these entities as ”media,” primarily because they do neither finance nor produce their own content and they do not have editors.
We choose to define “editorial media” as a producer and provider of independent journalism, led by a responsible editor. This means that we include newspapers, radio, TV, and web-based editorial services. Streaming services and social networks without an accountable editor fall outside this definition of editorial media.
Different definitions
Journalism is defined in various ways. The following definition can be derived as a synthesis from several authoritative sources. Among these are Encyclopaedia Britannica, Pew Research Center, American Press Institute, and Society of Professional Journalists:
“Journalism is the practice of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. At its core, journalism aims to inform the public about current events, trends, and issues in a way that is both accurate and impartial. It plays a crucial role in maintaining democracy by holding those in power accountable and providing citizens with the information they need to make informed decisions.”
It is the societal role of journalism – its function within society – that primarily distinguishes free and independent journalism from other forms of mass communication. Most crucially, journalism should act in the best interest of the public/users/citizens and not be driven by other interests. Journalism should be balanced, meaning that different viewpoints should be heard, and those who are criticized or attacked should have the right to defend themselves at the same time.
Transparency a requirement
It is clearly debatable whether journalism can truly be impartial and objective, as stated in the definitions above, but it must be a requirement that editorial media are transparent about their values and journalistic judgments.
The Norwegian “Ethical Code of Practice for the Press (printed press, radio, television and net publications)” includes initial provisions defining what journalism and editorial media are. Some of the most important formulations in our context.:
1.2. The press has important functions in that it carries information, debates, and critical comments on current affairs. The press is particularly responsible for allowing different views to be expressed.
1.3. The press…[..] … cannot yield to any pressure from anybody who might want to prevent open debates, the free flow of information and free access to sources..[..].
1.4. It is the right of the press to carry information on what goes on in society and to uncover and disclose matters which ought to be subjected to criticism. It is a press obligation to shed critical light on how media themselves exercise their role.
1.5. It is the task of the press to protect individuals and groups against injustices or neglect, committed by public authorities and institutions, private enterprises, or others.”
Social networks have a different purpose
Social networks do not operate according to editorial principles. They do not hold editorial responsibility for the content they distribute. They have a different purpose than editorial media and do not produce or finance their own content. Social networks are primarily services for disseminating user-generated content and provide functionality for contact and organization within interest groups. Content is directed to users individually using algorithms that are typically programmed to prioritize what the user is presumed to be interested in, which typically creates engagement in the content.
There are several similar definitions of social networks, but none of them seem to have gained an official status that would make them applicable, for example, in the EU’s regulatory work. Some examples:
Merriam-Webster: “social networks are forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content like videos.”
Oxford Languages: “Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.”
Pew Research Center: Social networks are ”digital tools that allow users to create, share, or exchange information, ideas, and content in virtual communities and networks.”
Regulations impact on media
Only by examining these definitions and descriptions does it become clear why editorial, journalistic content is expected to play a special role in providing citizens with the knowledge necessary for liberal democracies to function as intended. It is also essential to understand the differences between various forms of mass media in a political and regulatory context. In recent years, the EU has adopted several regulations, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), aimed to regulate online platforms and intermediary services such as social networks.
These regulations do not apply directly to editorial media, but have certain rules that may indirectly impact media players, for example rules around advertising and recommender systems. It may be important to make a clearer distinction between editorial media and social networks in future regulations to avoid unintended consequences potentially weaken editorial media. This issue will be revisited at the end of this report.
A narrative
Why is it traditionally assumed that relevant, credible, and independent journalism is a prerequisite for functioning democracies?
One method to address this question is to construct a narrative in two variations: one with one or more editorial media and one without.
In a local community with about 10,000 inhabitants in a central European country, elections for the municipal council were approaching, and one issue in particular created significant debate and widespread engagement. Should the municipality prioritize building a new and safer road to a part of the community where about 3,000 inhabitants live, or should it focus on building a new school, since the old one was too small and outdated? The municipality couldn’t afford both in the short term.
Two editorial media
One political bloc advocated for the road, while the other supported the school. In one variant of this narrative, this community had two editorial media; a traditional newspaper that was published both in print and digitally, and a smaller, much younger competitor that was only digital. Both media extensively covered this contentious issue in the community.
They examined the calculations underlying the budgets for both proposed projects. One editorial team uncovered weaknesses in the projections that made it likely that the road project would be significantly more expensive than estimated. The other editorial team highlighted that the spouse of the sitting mayor was the principal of the school where there were plans of investing in a substantial new building. As a result, the mayor had to declare himself disqualified and hand over the case handling to someone else.
The debate on what should be prioritized was heated, both in the newspaper columns, at town meetings, and other places residents met. But in this version of the narrative, the population was largely in agreement about the facts of the case. Such as the approximate costs of the projects, the consequences for the residents, how long it would take the municipality to implement the project that was initially deprioritized, and so on. There were also politicians who proposed compromises after the debate became drawn out: What if the school project was divided into two construction phases and the money saved from this was used to improve a particularly dangerous section of the aforementioned road?
No editorial media
In the other version of the narrative, there was no editorial media in this local community. Commonly available and verifiable facts were replaced with information from sources the residents had little trust in, conspiracy theories, and rumor-mongering. One of the conspiracies suggested that a party leader in the municipality was campaigning for the road construction because one of his close relatives owned a large contracting firm that wanted this contract. This was demonstrably untrue, but it did not stop the spread of the conspiracy, and many turned a blind eye to attempts to correct the misinformation.
There were also rampant speculation and rumors about the cost calculations for the two projects. These suggested that the budgets were either overestimated or underestimated in an attempt to manipulate the voters before the election. This gradually led to a polarization of the local community, characterized by mistrust, rumors, and conspiracies. Old friends became enemies, and many of those who refused to join either camp became apathetic and said they would abstain from voting that year.
Fundamental mechanisms are the same
The narrative can be enriched and expanded – for instance, one can imagine that this local community is characterized by a class divide where some have significantly higher incomes and more property than others. The story can be expanded to apply to an entire country, or reduced to a small association. The fundamental mechanisms, and how democracy works, are more or less the same regardless of scope. But the complexity behind the negative development, and alternative consequences, will vary. Experience has shown that polarized societies open opportunities for extreme leaders who use the momentum to establish a power base founded on societal discontent.
We can probably envision the negative variant of this narrative even with editorial media present. The reasons for this may include low usage, low trust in these media, and low relevance. For example, media that primarily appeals to 50+ users will have difficulty being useful for young citizens and will therefore also have limited democratic influence. One could also imagine that strong mistrust between citizens and politicians, or between different groups of citizens in this society, will have as negative consequences that even highly qualified media are not able to counteract to any significant extent.
These connections go to the core of what this analysis is about.
How media bias, knowledge resistance and polarization can lead to lower trust in editorial media
It seems that when a country becomes highly polarized, with few, if any, spaces left for middle-ground positions and moderate voices, public trust in the balance and independence of editorial media also fades – sometimes for valid reasons. The US is the most pertinent example of this situation. Hard fronts and deep chasms between the political and cultural camps seem to result in less balance and reduced trust in the media.
From 2005 to 2022, 3,000 American newspapers, mainly local publications, went bankrupt. This constituted one-third of all American newspapers. According to researchers at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, there is a risk that an additional one-third of U.S. newspapers will disappear by the end of 2025. Other key figures show that newspapers in the country lost 66% of their circulation in the period 1990-2022, that 86% of advertising revenue disappeared between 2006-2022 (Pew Research Center), and that 57% of the country’s journalists lost their jobs in the same period (Nieman Lab).
With reference to the U.S., we do not know to what extent the accusations of bias and partisanship are entirely or partly true and correct, but the perceptions that this occurs are widespread nevertheless. One hypothesis for this is that many people find it hard to believe that anyone can remain balanced in a social climate marked by irreconcilable differences.
How bias creeps into the networks’ coverage
Uri Berliner, a senior business editor that has worked in the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR) for 25 years, writes in The Free Press about how ”bias creeps into the networks’ coverage”. While his introduction is not the most critical part of the text, it is so eloquently formulated that we cannot resist quoting it:
“You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.”
He writes that NPR has always leaned in a liberal direction, but that “…an open-minded, curious culture prevailed.” Until recent years. Now, Uri Berliner believes that what the audience gets from NPR is the distilled worldview of a very small part of the US population.
Lost conservative listeners
The article describes how NPR, in just the 12 years from 2011 to 2023, has lost most of its conservative listeners: “(In 2011…) 26 percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals,” Berliner writes.
According to Uri Berliner, the influence of opinions truly took over at NPR when Donald Trump won the election in 2016. He describes the non-professional atmosphere in the media house as characterized by “…a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair.” He further describes “…what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
He continues his story by discussing NPR’s choice of stories to focus on and sources to use, all justified by the station’s preconceived attitudes. Trump’s alleged Russia connections and the incriminating content on Hunter Biden’s laptop are examples of stories that NPR chose to cover and not cover, respectively, though these decisions cannot be said to appear particularly professional from a journalistic standpoint.
The shift from a journalistic to a more political “North Star” in NPR is evident in Uri Berliner’s description of the approach to covering George Floyd’s killing in 2020:
“…it would have been an ideal moment to tackle a difficult question: Is America, as progressive activists claim, beset by systemic racism in the 2020s – in law enforcement, education, housing, and elsewhere? We happen to have a very powerful tool for answering such questions: journalism. Journalism that lets evidence lead the way. But the message from the top was very different. America’s infestation with systemic racism was declared loud and clear: it was a given. Our mission was to change it.”
Inside the organisation
Berliner writes, quite reasonably, that if one wants to understand the changes that have occurred at NPR over the past ten years or so, one must look inside the organization. As mentioned earlier, it appears that a high degree of polarization leads to lower trust in the media’s independence and balance as a result, whether based in reality or not.
Uri Berliner’s story suggests that, in NPR’s case, reduced trust may be warranted – not merely as a result of broader societal polarization. This, in turn, directs attention towards the role of journalists and the professional standards in the field.
Journalism is, of course, not the only profession in which professional codes, rules, and standards must always precede personal preferences and emotions. This is also true for researchers and judges, for example. What causes the occasional “slip-ups,” as described by Berliner, is probably a matter for detailed investigation in itself. However, it is essential to highlight the importance of journalists and editors taking shared responsibility to uphold ideals, actively contribute to self-reflection and transparency, both internally and externally, and demonstrate the ability to learn from both successes and mistakes.
An additional lesson may be that it’s not enough to merely accept internal critical voices, but to actively encourage them. Uri Berliner’s message is clearly controversial within NPR, yet he substantiates his viewpoint well and supports it with facts. However, he also has an ambivalent relationship with the role he has assumed:
“So, I’ve become a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love. It’s uncomfortable, sometimes heartbreaking.”
Åsa Wikforss / PRESSBILD
When one has to choose between the truth and belonging to a group one depends on
One of the phenomena that appears most challenging for journalists and researchers to understand is why people do not respond to strong evidence against their beliefs. From a democratic perspective, this phenomenon is particularly problematic because a shared acceptance of basic facts is considered a prerequisite for an inclusive debate on societal development and political choices.
Åsa Wikforss is professor of theoretical philosophy at Stockholm University and a member of the Swedish Academy. Wikforss has led an interdisciplinary research program on knowledge resistance, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and she has written, among other works, “Alternative Facts. On Knowledge and its Enemies” (our translation).
Wikforss points out that the attention on knowledge resistance has primarily been focused on developments in the United States, but there are no fundamental human/psychological factors that make people in other countries less susceptible to similar phenomena.
“The new chaotic, anarchist, information landscape exists in all countries. In Sweden, there is a large spread of disinformation and science denialism is not uncommon. There are different degrees of disinformation in different countries, but the psychological mechanisms that make us vulnerable are the same across the world. The media is a bit stronger in Scandinavian countries, in particular public service, and the democracy is a bit stronger”.
Two different situations
But the psychological vulnerabilities are the same. Åsa Wikforss explains that it is people in two quite different situations that resist the facts:
“In the first situation, we are dealing with people who take in the evidence, for example what the experts say about climate change, but use their reasoning capacities to skew or dismiss the evidence. This is called motivated reasoning. It’s a kind of reasoning driven by desire instead of truth, and it typically has to do with strong emotions, such as fear. It can also be vanity, like in Trump’s case, when he didn’t want to believe the facts about how big his audience is at the inauguration in 2017 and the term ‘alternative facts’ was first coined.”
“But it’s also about what researchers call ‘identity threat’, where certain factual claims become a mark of identity of “my group”. Then, if researchers say we’re wrong, I don’t want to believe what the researchers say, because I would be going against the group, and risk being excluded. So this is emotional, and it’s a mechanism that exists potentially within all of us. We all have some situations where we don’t want to take in facts, like unpleasant facts about our children or our health.”
A need for a group
“Evolutionarily, we have a great need for the group. We need to get along with the group, we don’t want to stick out. It has a survival value, and so the threat of exclusion is a very serious threat that causes motivated reasoning.”
“Then, there is the second type of situation, where people reject the evidence because they have been fed so much unreliable information, for example about researchers and traditional media. In such a situation it may be completely rational to think that you can’t trust the reliable sources, for instance you may have been fed the disinformation that you can’t trust the climate scientists because they all have a political agenda. Like “..I don’t believe what Åsa Wikforss says, because she is a left-liberal researcher with an agenda…”
“If you have been fed with much such incorrect information, you lose your trust. And if you don’t trust reliable sources you won’t be able to gain knowledge from these sources. ”
“That people resist facts in these two very different ways, makes it difficult to determine whether someone resisting the facts does this because she is engaged in irrational emotion driven reasoning, or because she has been exposed to disinformation. And it is a challenge to study this experimentally, to design an experiment where you can clearly say that people resist the evidence because of knowledge resistance rather than because of their prior beliefs.”
Emotional polarization
Professor Wikforss uses the term “emotional polarization” to explain an important precondition for the spread of knowledge resistance in a society. This concerns how we feel about our political opponents, and when there are strong feelings of animosity this triggers tribal thinking and factual polarization. She believes that former President Donald Trump is a master at triggering emotional polarization.
“This emotional polarization that Trump is so good at driving, it also drives fact-based resistance. He is a demagogue, a high class demagogue. He is very skilled at splitting, polarizing, politicizing facts, politicizing media trust, politicizing the trust in research. He is unique in that way, but the forces he represents as a right wing nationalist populist, they are in all countries.
Is there anything that can be done to regain broader support for basic facts — facts that are a necessary foundation for meaningful political debate?
“Yes, there are a few things, and as a starting point you have to adapt to the new situation. The first and most important thing is about trust. Human knowledge is social, and we get it from sources of different kinds. But to get knowledge we have to trust the source. So the main question you have to ask yourself, in the situation we’re in now is, what can we do to strengthen the trust in the traditional media and research?”
“It’s not typically people’s fault that they’re losing that trust, rather it’s certain political actors who do what they can to undermine the trust. But we have to relate to that in some way.”
“There’s a lot of research around that, and different ideas on what to do to improve trust. Transparency is one thing – you have to talk about how you work as a journalist, what the difference is between professional journalism and alternative media. It’s important that there’s good journalism, too, of course. You lose trust quickly when things get messy and tendentious.”
“So it’s even more important than ever that the media keep the quality, and make sure to distinguish between facts and opinions. That’s a crucial thing.”
Do you think we will see the same development in Europe as we have seen in the US. regarding polarization and knowledge resistance?
“I think we’re on the way, but at the same time as these forces are very strong, there’s a lot of mobilization against it. More than half of the world’s population will go to elections in 2024, and at the beginning of the year, many of us were worried about how this would turn out. In many of these countries, things were already a bit shaky, like in India.”
“We knew that the disinformation problem would get even bigger because of AI. But still, 2024 has gone quite well. The EU-election went better than we thought. Probably the mobilization against anti-democratic disinformation has helped. France got away with a scare, at least right now. In India the far right populist leader Modi did not get the majority he was hoping for, despite there hardly being any free media left in India.”
“The US is looking a bit brighter since Harris took over this summer, but it is of course very uncertain still. This year will be a decisive year for democracy, it will determine whether the democratic decline will continue,” says professor Åsa Wikforss.
