WHY JOURNALISTS REPORT LOBBYING AS THEY DO ?

Lobbyists often are painted in a negative light because of their influence over policymakers. The media has propagated an interpretation which lobbying appears as a risk to democracy and is viewed as an illegal exercising of influence. Suggestions of one-sided representation of business interests to others advantage, accusation of secret backroom power or even of corruption and nepotism are topics of interest for journalists. Admittedly, the negative public image about lobbying is due in part because lobbyists have done a terrible job explaining how lobbying works

Among professional lobbyists in Europe and North America, it is not uncommon to feel that the reporting of lobbying in the news media is inadequate in several respects. Among the points frequently mentioned are:

• non- or underreporting of important lobbying success stories and the inherent value of lobbying,
• sensationalism and negativity in wording and in presentation,
• inaccurate reporting,

Many lobbyists claim that the media do not fully appreciate the inherent importance of the lobbying practice, that journalists often have too little knowledge and understanding of the lobbying field, and that, in the end, they tend to obstruct rather than to facilitate communication between lobbyists  and the public. The view is that the social responsibility to inform and educate the public can only be accomplished through a close and intimate, but so far lacking, co-operation between lobbyists and journalists. If these lobbyists have analysed the situation correctly, news journalists seem not to have a constructive and rational view of lobbying and tend not to understand what the public really needs or wants to read, listen to and watch.

All sources of information, including lobbyists, have their own purposes for offering information to the media. The overriding goal is to further the ideas and the good reputation of one’s own organisation. Everyone with an interest — and who hasn’t got one? — tries to champion this interest, and this is quite acceptable and perfectly moral in itself. When lobbyists examine the media, they find that the media do not live up to their expectations. The media often chose rather odd or controversial lobbying cases to write about and describe them in negative and sensational terms. Bad publicity is allegedly due to journalistic standards based on lack of understanding of the lobbying  process, lack of factual knowledge and a disobliging attitude toward lobbying.

Journalists see their mission to serve their audience, the citizens, by informing them about recent developments (“news”) and by naming and warning of insufficiencies of various kinds. These tasks may be summarised as three C’s:

• chronicle — to inform about what has happened since the last instance of publication,
• criticism — to protect the audience and warn of dangers and inadequacies,
• commentary — to explain and interpret what is happening.

The task of criticising lobbyists is taken seriously by news journalists, leading to a special media interest in scandals and conflicts. For this reason, the picture painted by the media is by no means a mirror image of reality (whatever that is), but a dramatisation of a negative selection of events and situations. And a particular event has a higher news value than others if it is:

• surprising,
• topical,
• consequential,
• critical of people in power,
• about people in conflict,
• offering opportunity for personal identification,
• close geographically or psychologically,
• easy to comprehend,
• entertaining.

The main basis for these problems is that all media want a large audiences. Without an audience the overall mission cannot be fulfilled. But a large audience is also in demand for quite another reason: making money. All media need income to carry their costs. It is even a standard phrase in the media industry that only a profitable newspaper or broadcast station dares to be free in relation to advertisers and government; that is, to be in a position to effectively carry out its watchdog function. This last tenet is in itself quite valid, but the commercialism is indeed a dilemma. Audiences like to hear about conflicts and scandals. Such contents sell newsstand copies and increase viewer ratings. But it may also lead to journalists seeing scandals and conflicts wherever they look. Thus, what may occur is that the media invoke their social role as critics and use it to deliver criticism against lobbyists to a much larger extent than the role as watchdogs really calls for, the real purpose being to increase circulation and viewer numbers. Thus, there is a commercial value in conflicts and critical reporting, which, in turn, may lead to:

• exaggerated, inaccurate criticisms on the pretext of a making a social contribution,
• personal criticism in the reporting rather than criticisms directed at matters of principle. This means that individual pieces of villainy may overshadow structural problems and deficiencies in society.

There is also another problem related to the media task of being critical and the public demand for scandals and conflicts. If media attention is skewed towards reporting negative rather than positive aspects of lobbying , the resulting publicity may very well render an unrepresentative picture of the world. Due to the watchdog function of the press, lobbyists who are honest tend to get less media coverage than the more or less shady lobbyists against whom the critical examination is directed. Naturally, this is both what to expect and what is desirable from a societal point of view. It is the rotten eggs that need to be exposed, not the fresh ones. However, an unwanted result of this imbalance is that it may contribute to the view that it is not uncommon for lobbyists to be crooked, even though these by all probability only constitute a quite small proportion. If such sentiments become widespread among the public, two unwelcome consequences may follow:

• the political system and, in continuation of this, the current practice of democracy may become less legitimate in the eyes of the public,
• it may be more difficult for the public to realise when a lobbyist has really behaved in such a way that he or she ought to be separated from authority.

This situation is aggravated by a technicality in the way the media are published. The rhythm of publication probably leads to:

• an even more negative picture,
• fast action, which, in turn, may lead to inaccuracies.

Even though there are many exceptions, positive events tend to take a longer time to play out than negative ones. And since the news media are published daily, or even more frequently, more negative than positive events occur at about the same temporal rate as media publishing. The publication rhythm encourages speedy news journalists. They may only have a few hours to collect information and write a story about a lobbyist’s case. If the journalist waits with the publication in order to check facts or collect supplementary information, a competing news medium may get the scoop. No wonder mistakes are made.

So, is there a solution to these dilemmas in reporting about lobbying? In the Western world, we have to accept that the news media both tend towards the negative and critical and will continue to make factual errors of varying magnitude. But there are steps on the way:

• both the general public and potential news generators should be aware of the social tasks and inner workings of the media, explaining why the media do not publish mirror images of reality; thus media studies should be included in the compulsory school curriculum,
• Lobbyists should not overestimate the negative impact of singular instances of bad news, since these tend not to be very large.
• Lobbyists should care about the media and work proactively with a number of media-oriented instruments — written news releases, occasional press conferences and press seminars; utilise the knowledge of how the media work, i.e., organise media events.