 | ||
Transparency of media ownership refers to the public availability of accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date information about media ownership structures. A legal regime guaranteeing transparency of media ownership makes possible for the public as well as for media authorities to find out who effectively owns, controls and influences the media as well as media influence on political parties or state bodies.
Contents
- Overview
- Transparency of media ownership media pluralism and media concentration
- Transparency of media ownership and beneficial ownership
- The European Union and media ownership transparency
- References
Transparency of media ownership is an essential component of any democratic media system. Experts, European organisations and NGOs agree that transparency of media ownership is crucial for media pluralism and democracy as, for instance, it provides the knowledge to take steps to address media concentration and conflict of interests. Moreover, public knowledge of media owners’ identities can prevent abuses of media power, such as corruption in the media system, opaque media privatisation, undue influences over the media, etc., and makes possible that such abuses are recognised, assessed, publicised, debated and prevented. Transparency also ensures that ordinary citizens can be informed about the identity, interests and influences behind contents and news they consume, and that media market can function on a fair basis, especially, for instance, for new entrants in the market. Moreover, transparency of media ownership facilitates the public knowledge on the media environment; makes possible a critical assessment of the contents produced and strengthens debate on the way the media system operates. The importance of transparency of media ownership for any democratic and pluralist society has been broadly recognised by the European Parliament, the European Commission's High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism and the Council of Europe. In the last years, there has been an unprecedented debate at the global level around company ownership transparency which has been addressed, for example, by the Open Government Partnership and by the G8 governments in a 2014 statement setting the principles on media ownership transparency. In 2016, following the so-called "Panama Papers" scandal, the lack of records held by the Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca, transparency of company ownership gained momentum in the public debate.
To ensure that the public knows who effectively owns and influences the media, national legal frameworks should ensure the disclosure of at least the following essential basic information: name and contact details of the media outlets; constitutional documents; size of shareholdings over a given threshold; name and contact details of direct owners with a given percentage of shareholding; identity of the persons with indirect control or have a significant interest in a given media company; citizenship/residence status of individuals with at least a certain shareholding percentage; country of domicile of company with at least a given shareholding percentage. Importantly, in order to understand who really owns and controls a specific media outlet it is necessary to check who is beyond the official shareholdings and scrutinize indirect, controlling and beneficial ownership which refers on shares of a media company hold on behalf of another person.
In order to be meaningful and easily accessible by the citizens and national media authorities, this information should be updated, searchable, free and reusable.
Transparency of media ownership remains difficult to fulfill in most of European countries. While some EU member States have legislation ensuring transparency of media ownership in compliance to the best international standards, such legislation is still lacking in many member States and in some cases national legislation allows for hidden or indirect media ownership. A recent 2015 resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, notes with concern that media outlets are frequently owned and controlled in an opaque-manner. This is due either to the lack of national transparency provisions or to non-transparent indirect or hidden ownership schemes, often linked to political, economic or religious interests and affiliations.
Overview
Transparency of media ownership corroborates some constitutional guarantees and individual rights which are strictly related to the inclusiveness and openness of the democratic process, in particular media pluralism and freedom of expression. Even if media ownership transparency is not directly addressed in key international human rights charters, transparency is a basic precondition for the effective exercise of freedom of expression and the right to obtain information enshrined in Article 19 of the International covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Article 11.1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Indeed, access to information is crucial for the good functioning of democratic societies as it enables citizens to make informed decisions and choices on social, political, economic issues affecting personal and collective life. Specifically, transparency of media ownership contributes to make the public to establish who provides the information on which to shape personal and collective choices as, for instance, knowledge of the identity and interests of the messenger can help individuals in appraising the information spread through the media.
Guidelines and milestones on what media ownership transparency might entails can be found in non-binding Council of Europe documents, in particular on the Committee of Ministers' Recommendation R(94) 13 on Measures to Promote Media Transparency and Recommendation (2007)2 on Media Pluralism and Diversity of Media Content. According to this recommendations, in order to understand who and how effectively owns or control the media the public should be in the condition of accessing the following information:
Another non-binding document on media ownership transparency is a 2008 Resolution from the European Parliament which encourages the "disclosure of ownership of all media outlets to help achieve greater transparency regarding the aims and background of the broadcasters and publishers".
According to experts and organisation advocating for media ownership transparency, such as Access-Info Europe, a human rights NGO dedicated to promoting the right to access to information in Europe, to understand who and how effectively owns or control the media, it is crucial that information provided to comprehend and assess media ownership structures are regularly updated, consistent and searchable. Also, citizens should be able to get information on all types of media actors in a given countries, whether print, broadcast, or online, foreign or domestic.
In Europe, transparency of media ownership is infrequently addressed directly in domestic constitutions, and even when this happens, as in the case of Italy, Romania or Turkey, constitutional provisions do not impose a specific positive obligation on the state to ensure that citizens have access to information on media ownership. The lack of ad hoc legal provisions on media ownership transparency is partially explained with the fact that often the existing laws have been established with the aim of fulfilling other regulatory objectives, such as providing information to media regulators or for company law purposes. In many European countries, freedom of information legislation provides the basis for requesting information from competent agencies and public bodies. As a consequence, often media ownership transparency aimed at fulfilling the objective of primarily informing the public on media ownership structure is therefore often a byproduct of other measures.
When assessing the state of media ownership transparency, five dimensions should be taken into account in order to establish who and how controls the media in a given country:
Operationally many options are possible to guarantee the disclosure of information on media ownership. A simple approach is to call upon media outlets to publish relevant ownership information on an accessible website displayed or linked in the organisation's publications, transmissions or website. Alternatively, or in addition, an accessible, easy-to-navigate and searchable online database on transparency of media ownership can be developed by an independent body. In both cases, to be effective and functional, databases should be regularly updated. Also, in order to make possible comparisons across countries, a systematic approach to collect, record and share information should be set up, connections and interoperability among national databases should be pursued and shared standards for exchanging data on transparency of media ownership should be developed.
Transparency of media ownership, media pluralism and media concentration
Transparency of media ownership is deeply interrelated with the concepts of media pluralism and media concentration and is an essential component of government obligations to guarantee a diverse and plural media environment.
Specifically, media ownership transparency is crucial for promoting media pluralism, a principle set forth in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which entails a positive obligation for the state to "put in place an appropriate legislative and administrative framework to guarantee effective pluralism". One of the way for guaranteeing media pluralism is to ensure a wide diversity of media ownership, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for pluralism. Media ownership is also important in terms of pluralism as it might affects media outputs and contents while transparency empowers readers to detect and appraise owners influences on the media and its contents. The European Commission's study on Indicators for Media Pluralism (2009) recognizes transparency of media ownership and/or control as a key indicators of media pluralism. Also, media ownership transparency is essential for preventing concentration of media power which can unduly influence public opinion and the political debate. Precisely, transparency of media ownership is a precondition for assessing levels of concentration or other dimensions of diversity in a given media system. Indeed, if readers don’t know who the real owners of media companies are, it is difficult to envisage measures to address media concentrations as well as conflict of interests.
Transparency of media ownership and beneficial ownership
The need to collect and make available to the public crucial information on media ownership, in particular beneficial ownership which in this context refers on shares of a media company held on behalf of another person, is frequently debated in Europe, but there are no agreed standards or binding commitments. In June 2013, governments of the G8 Group adopted the "Lough Erne Declaration" which included a commitment to make transparent the beneficial ownership of companies recognising the need to make this information available to relevant authorities in order to prevent misuse of companies. The declaration was followed by a November 2014 statement by G20 leaders setting the principles on media ownership transparency. In April 2016, following the lack of records held by the Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca (the "Panama Papers"), the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain reached an agreement for easing the automatic exchange of information of beneficial ownership of companies and trusts. The five countries concerned also urged the remaining G20 countries calling for progress towards a global system for exchanging such information, to be developed, for instance, by the OECD. Even if these commitments are not specifically related to the media sector, they are important steps towards the disclosure of beneficial owners of companies, including the media ones. At the European Union level, the European Commission is working to improve the beneficial ownership provisions included in the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, adopted in 2015 and currently in the process of being transposed by EU Member States into national law.
The European Union and media ownership transparency
At the EU level, the legislative competence concerning media ownership transparency is controversial. However, the European Commission has promoted a number of initiatives to improve citizens' awareness of media pluralism, such as the Media Pluralism Monitor, a monitoring tool for assessing risks and threats for media pluralism in the EU member states on the basis of a set of legal, economic and socio-cultural indicators. According to the Media Pluralism Monitor the lack of media ownership transparency is identified as a risk for media plurality.