The role of media in competition policy and law

Paper presented
Media Forum on Competition Policy and Law
Organized by Competition Authority, Department of Justice
Sofitel Hotel, Pasay City
June 15, 2012

Background

This discussion focuses only on the role of the news media. Entertainment media, drama, books, film have their own dynamic relationship to society and change.

Since its founding in 1989, the Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility (CMFR) has established programs to address weaknesses as well as promote capacity and enhance the potential of the Philippine press to fulfill its purpose in a democracy—to build up or create a citizenry, a public made up of individuals who are concerned about public affairs and who are aware of their responsibility as participants in governance and decision-making.

How does the press do this? By providing the news. Not just any kind of news, but those that are truly relevant to society and to the way they live, those involving issues and developments, and such information that they need to understand because these affect the way they live.

CMFR programs are designed to orient the press toward this goal which is a public service. It characterizes a press as involved in more than just making profits, like any other business enterprise.

Policy as News

The news media play a role in the formation of all public policy. Unfortunately, the conventions of journalism or news reporting have developed a framework for news reporting as a passive activity. Reporters look for news, but generally their search is limited to things that have happened so they can report them. A fire. An earthquake. A crime. A political scandal breaking out. An accident. A statement issued by a public official. A bill signed into law. It generally reports things that have occurred as events.

Policy in its different stages tends to go unreported. Because policy is process, something that moves through phases, it is something that is still developing. Policy makes it as news when government or public officials issue statements, executive or administrative orders, pass legislation or law, or when the Supreme Court makes decisions that cause change.

There is hardly any coverage of the policy debate, unless prominent faces and personalities have been identified with one or another side of the policy contest. Media may be interested at times when there is conflict, a contest, a debate with opposing sides. But again, the coverage may be limited to the simple reporting of statements made by one side or another, the standard “he said, she said” news writing formula.

Media reports on government, but these seldom delve into policy news.

What we would like to see is more media space and time given to the policy discussion in a manner that will help citizens respond to the issues, so that the debate does not involve only those who in government but all stakeholders who have an interest in the policy question.

The role of the media in any kind of policy is to inform the public about it as it is taking shape.

As the competition policy has not yet been decided, it is a good time for the media to begin covering the issues involved, with information on the legislation process (where is the bill at this point?) and reporting that includes all the agencies involved in the discussion.

These stories should report on the progress of the policy debate on competition.

As CMFR has no competence in Competition Policy, I will leave it to the other experts who have spoken in other sessions.

But I have found helpful, this quote from a paper presented by Dr. Ronald Mendoza of the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center of competition policy as aimed to “eliminating of abusive monopoly conduct, price fixing and other cartels, and the prohibition of mergers and acquisitions that limit competition. A competition policy prevents the setting up of artificial barriers to entry and helps facilitate market access, enhance competition and ensure the flow of benefits to consumers.”

The Policy Process

The policy process has identified the following steps:

1. Identifying the problem;
2. Identifying a solution;
3. Identifying problems that arise from the solution; and
4. Creating a new solution.

Unfortunately, policy-making hardly ever goes through such an orderly process. Quite often, the process has no rational framework. It can start with a supplier seeing a need and approaching the parties who can make this decision about his system, service or product. Or it can take on the character of political gamesmanship which leads coverage to tell the story as a partisan contest, with reports reporting from one side and then the other.

The lack of policy news reflects as much a weakness in government. Policy-making needs to be rationalized to include the task of public awareness, with information coming from different agencies involved.

Who should do this first? Who should lead the initiative?

Media does not have to wait passively and may initiate the search for policy stories that will help government communicate the process to its different constituents.

Maybe “competition policy” coverage can serve as a template for reporting other policy news.

The Role of Investigative Reporting in Policy

Investigative Reporting or IR is a special kind of reporting that sets its practitioners apart.

It involves the basic building blocks of all reporting: research, probe, inquiry, and corroboration to insure the validity of one’s findings. But it does more of all these tasks.

The investigative reporter does not just answer the Who, What, Where and When.

It goes deeper than the surface of the story. It tries to answer the How and the Why.

IR has been characterized as finding things that are hidden and undisclosed. IR practitioners generally try to find the wrong, the corrupt, the scandal that people do not know about.

But another form of in-depth reporting, also goes into simple explanations of whatever needs clarification. This kind of reporting can use other people’s research, making such findings understandable by reporting these in a way that can be understood more easily by ordinary people.

IR usually reports on the problems that require some policy definition, revision or amendment.

For example:

Investigative Reports made the public aware of the severe environmental damage of big mining companies in the past.

In the area of competition policy, the media have reported the issue simply as a clash between two different companies in the same field: SMART vs GLOBE; Philippine Airlines vs Cebu Pacific, etc. Unfortunately, reports also tend to simplify the story by simply quoting the representatives of competing corporations. So it is seen as just PR driven reporting.

Journalists aware of the Constitutional limits on what policies may be adopted by government would be performing the important public task of identifying some gaps in the Constitution as well as other legal weaknesses. But this is only one of several roles the press can play in covering policy-making and the policy process.

The CMFR manual “Reporting Public Policy” which quotes the functions of media on policy making, drawn from Edmund Lambeth’s article which examined the perceived influence of the press on energy policy-making published in “Journalism Quarterly in 1978.

He provides ten. But let’s limit our discussion to just some of them.

Several of these functions are often performed simultaneously: i.e., reporting and comment very often do not perform them singly. However, it is possible to isolate certain cases as emphasizing one of the other.

Guidelines for policy reporting:

1.    Anticipating problems in advance of public officials.

This is a common function fulfilled by investigative reports, when it provides information about problems that need solving. In the past, IR reporting on environmental threats and damage caused by over development in some environmentally fragile areas.

On Competition Policy:

• Explanatory reports can examine the long term effects of the lack of anti-trust laws on economic growth.
• Extent of control of monopolistic corporations
• Inadequacy of current regulatory framework against cartels, monopolies, etc.
• Making the public understand the impact deregularization (Example – Telecommunication, Airlines, Fuel)
• The impact of monopolies operating in certain areas
• Exposing the contradictions or conflicts of government rules and regulations

2.    Keeping various groups and the public aware of competing proposals.

Media can provide information about different options.
Reporting should not be limited only to what government proposes.
Other experts and advocate groups should also be heard.

• Public Affairs programs to include different views
• Interviews with honest broker experts

3.    Contributing to the content of policy

Media should draw on other expertise, as cited above, to enrich discussions that will expand understanding of the issues and the different ways of addressing these, which could result in revising initial drafts of legislation.

• Contextualize the various perspectives (Talk shows, explanatory reporting)
• Report on misinterpretation of policy, public doubts, and questions

4.    Helping decide the pace of decision-making.

Sometimes policy-making can be overtaken by events and developments. Media should be alert to these milestones and report the impact on current policy stage.

• Review of current legislation
• Tracking the process of legislation
• Projecting the downstream impact of new policy

5.    Helping lawmakers decide how to vote.

News about policy does not have to come only from government. Media should find innovative ways of tracking public sentiment as well as reporting the results of public opinion surveys, or having this as reference in their reports.

• Public sentiment to the existing laws (DOJ as competition authority)
• Pending bills (House of Representatives/Senate versions)

6.    Alerting the public about how policies are implemented.

Policies are responses to certain problems. Implementation determines how well the policy decision addresses the problem. Media should review defects in implementation, including corruption in the application of policy, administrative gaps and weaknesses etc.

• Competition laws remain unenforced.
• Competition issues are resolved piece-meal and inconsistently (per sector).
• No comprehensive competition policy.

7.     Continue to report on policy even after policy has been passed.

This reconstitutes about three other functions discussed by Lambeth. The importance of media attention on the implementation, the wrong interpretation that weakens implementation. This involves policy review and investigating the actual experience of implementation.

• Structural characteristics, business practices, government regulatory policies
• Pricing behavior, product/service strategies
• Potential for abuse of market power in industries
• Good practices

The different journalistic formats can be employed for any of the above functions. Columns, editorials, interpretative reports or analysis and in broadcast, news features, interviews on all the different media.

In conclusion

With this presentation, I hope that we can draw more media attention to the different ways of reporting policy, not just competition policy, but others as well.

I think journalists will find themselves reporting outside of the box, getting out of the mentality of “pack reporting.” They will never run out of news because there is so much to report. And doing this regularly will create a special niche of reporting that should enrich the news agenda of any media organization.

It will definitely have to do with actually fulfilling the purpose of journalism and which earns for the press the constitutional protection against official interference and other such pressures on journalistic independence.

Reporting and commentary on policy strengthens the public’s participation in government and the capacity of citizens to make democracy real.