Free Media
Boosts Development, says World Bank
Emad Mekay
WASHINGTON:
Developing countries need free and independent newspapers, radio
and TV stations to boost their economic development, the World
Bank said in a study released here.
The
study, The Right to Tell - The Role of Mass Media in Economic
Development, concludes that the media can expose corruption in
government and the corporate sector, provide a voice for citizens,
and help to create a public consensus to bring about economic
change.
It
can also help markets work more efficiently by providing reliable
economic information on topics from small-scale vegetable trading
in Indonesia and Ghana to global foreign currency and capital
markets in New York and London, says the study.
”To
reduce poverty, we must liberate access to information and improve
the quality of information,” World Bank President James
Wolfensohn said in a foreword to the publication.
”People
with more information are empowered to make better choices. Free
press is not a luxury for just rich countries. It is at the heart
of equitable development. Institutions such as a free media that
support transparency and the empowerment of the disenfranchised
are essential.”
The
book urges countries seeking economic development to work towards
free press by ''enhancing competition, reducing restrictions on
the entry of new media, establishing a balanced regulatory framework,
encouraging, and participating in innovative ways to reach people''.
Launched
by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the Bank, the
study draws on writings and the experiences of publishers, intellectuals,
and journalist from throughout the world.
It
offers 19 chapters from authors including heavyweights like Nobel
Prize winner and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz,
Irrational Exuberance author Robert Shiller, and Nobel-winning
novelist and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Writers
from different developing countries, including Egypt, Thailand,
Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, also recount difficulties they faced
in developing a free media.
The
three criteria for effective media are independence, quality,
and reach, said Roumeen Islam, an editor of the study and a manager
at the World Bank Institute. He urged decision makers to take
concrete steps to set up free media in their countries.
”The
important question for decision-makers is what types of steps
might be taken to establish and maintain free and independent
media that can promote better economic performance,” said
Islam in a statement from the Bank. ''This is a concern for all
countries, rich and poor.”
Allowing
foreign news media into domestic markets, for example, was one
of the suggestions in the study. It says that foreign media can
immediately begin to ease the monopoly on news that characterises
some economies.
The
report evaluates media performance and regulations in countries
around the world and highlights what types of public policies
and economic conditions might obstruct or enhance the media in
supporting economic development in poor countries.
In
Malaysia, for example, a recent survey of institutional investors
and equity analysts asked what factors were most important to
them in evaluating corporate governance and deciding whether to
invest in publicly listed corporations.
The
answers focussed on public and media comments about companies
rather than a host of other factors considered key in economic
circles.
In
Kenya, despite a low newspaper penetration rate of nine per 1,000
people, the local press recently instigated a corruption investigation
that led to a minister's resignation.
The
book also says that governments have manipulated laws and legal
systems to both legitimise their measures against the media, but
also to safeguard the rights of the media. Journalists have used
laws to protect their right to ”know and tell”.
One
contributor, Kavi Chongkittavorn, says that Thailand's adoption
of the Freedom of Information Act has encouraged people to ask
the government for information, in essence changing both expectations
and behaviour.
In
contrast, Zimbabwe has adopted several laws with the aim of gagging
the press. According
to Hisham Kassem, publisher of an English-language weekly in Egypt,
innovative media entrepreneurs often find ways to operate around
the laws meant to bind them.
Contributors
generally agreed that the media could also play a major role as
a watchdog of government and the corporate sector, influence markets,
transmit new economic ideas and data, and ”give a voice
to the poor''.
Other
writers discussed the potential damage that unethical or irresponsible
media can cause and the effect of insult laws and other policies
that hamper the operation of a free media.
In
his contribution, Nobel laureate Stiglitz argues for transparency
in government and says media is essential in promoting good governance.
He
refers to past work at the World Bank and elsewhere that has demonstrated
how requiring companies to report their pollution levels in the
media can be an efficient way to curb pollution levels.
”Free
speech and a free press not only make abuses of government powers
less likely, they also enhance the likelihood that people's basic
social needs will be met,” says Stiglitz.
”Improvements
in information and the rules governing its dissemination can reduce
the scope for these abuses in both markets and in political processes.
Many of the decisions taken in the political arena have economic
consequences.''
