Self-censorship in Latvian journalism: A research note

Introduction

Latvia’s media environment has experienced many changes, some of them caused by economic instability (Balčytienė, 2009; Balčytienė and Vinciūnienė, 2012; Rožukalne, 2012b). Up until the 2008 economic recession, Scandinavian media companies dominated the Latvian media market, thereby introducing their journalistic values to the country. In the ensuing economic turbulence, they abandoned the Baltics and were replaced by media owners who introduced practices similar to those in Russia (Rožukalne, 2013b; Salovaara and Juzefovičs, 2012).

In 2009, the media market of Latvia lost near half of its advertising revenue (Rožukalne, 2013b), declining journalists’ labour markets and wages. The structure of media owners also changed: the number of nationally owned media decreased, and horizontal concentration has grown (Jastramskis et al., 2017). Commercialization of the Latvian media environment and development of instrumental journalistic culture (Dimants, 2018; Rožukalne, 2012a) were increased also due to the losses of so-called oligarchs in various business areas during the economic recession. Oligarch-owned media executives and staff could no longer rely on continued financial support for the media operations, now having new responsibilities – to serve the interests of the oligarchs and to ensure financial success for the media firms at the same time.

This research has explored the ways in which media professionals articulate their ethical principles and to what extent these are undermined by the pressure to exercise self-censorship (Grattan, 1998; Himelboim and Limor, 2008; McQuail, 2005; Rožukalne, 2013a; Šulmane, 2012). Two data sets, compiled in 2015 and 2016 at the Riga Stradiņš University, assessed attitudes among journalists towards professional values. A total of 157 journalists were surveyed, and 23 media professionals were interviewed in more depth. The respondents represented various media outlets. More than half of them had worked in journalism for more than 10 years, 17% for 11–15 years and 17% for less than 5 years. In 2018, we also conducted nine semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors who faced limitations in their editorial work. These interviews focused specifically on self-censorship.

What is going on in the newsrooms is decisive for what journalists decide to write and produce. The editorial board has the greatest influence, along with informal internal politics and the fight for resources (Deuze, 2005; Farquhar and Carey, 2018; Šulmane, 2012). Other influential factors are external, among them media regulations, the journalistic labour market, the political climate, commercial pressures (Rožukalne, 2017) and social values and norms (Hanitzsch and Vos, 2018: 151; Šulmane, 2012).

Research results

The survey shows that media commercialisation has the greatest influence on how professional values have changed. The majority of journalists (76%) agreed that market pressures were, in one way or the other, the main source of their professional ills. One consequence of market demands is the requirement to produce material very rapidly (80% of respondents agreed with this). Although journalists acknowledged that it is an essential duty to promptly provide their audience with news, they also thought this fast pace resulted in routinised work which allowed for little reflection (62%), low professional quality (53%) and potential burnouts. Eighty-six percent of the surveyed journalists agreed that commercial demands have increased pressure on their everyday work.

Another issue journalists felt ambivalent about was their daily battle for audience attention. They considered this to be essential to their job (71%), but generally felt that it makes journalism shallow and of low quality (78%). They also criticised the notion that journalism is primarily about generating profit. They see this profit seeking as one of the major reasons for deteriorating quality (70%). This does not mean, however, that journalists are indifferent about their outlets’ commercial success: 75% stood firmly behind the profit goals pursued by their employers.

In many editorial offices, the interests of advertisers were named as the dominant external factor encouraging self-censorship (68%). This is followed by political pressure; almost half of the journalists (49%) felt that they had to take into account the interests of their business owners and the latter’s political allies. When comparing political and economic pressure, the political influence was mostly described as ‘moderate’ and ‘subtle’, whereas the demand to serve economic interests was defined as ‘powerful’ or ‘routinized’.

In fact, political and commercial interests are often highly interlinked, as the Informant no. 3 said in an interview: ‘The political connections of the medium are well known to the editorial board. Criticism of certain companies is not published, for fear of losing some of the largest advertisers’. Political influence is usually exercised subtly and indirectly. Informant no. 1 said, ‘Our owner began sponsoring a specific party this year and installed a board member as mediator. He suggested that we could interview representatives of this party more often. However, this was not strictly imposed, just suggested’.

Sometimes editorial content and advertising merge into one, something which 63% of the journalists experienced at their work places. Many advertisers pay for content under the condition that such articles are not identified as being sponsored. The Informant no. 4 regards ‘advertorials’ as a bit of a problem: ‘We try to explain to clients that the journalist merely creates a text and there cannot be hidden advertisements. It’s like schizophrenia, but there is no way around it’.

Sometimes owners and editors exercise pressure on journalists to produce advertorials, but the process can be more diffuse. The Informant no. 1 explained the dynamics around the production of paid content:

Journalists have the right to refuse advertorials. But then they are simply written by other journalists, those who don’t care as long as they get paid. A colleague of mine claims that many sponsored articles are educational and informative, that we can write about these topics. It is a confirmation of our helplessness if the advertorials become our daily routine.

Informant no. 2 quit her job when she failed to convince her colleagues that all sponsors must abide by the Law of Advertising, which clearly prohibits disguising paid content: ‘A politically involved sponsor intervened in the content. The board could not control the team, which over time had developed an overly personal relationship with the sponsor’.

The surveyed journalists distinguished between acceptable advertiser interests and unacceptable external influences. They tried to find for themselves a compromise between accepting the inevitable limitations and preserving a part of their independence (within a limited ‘territory’ of media content; that is, specific articles, rubrics or formats).

The political influence differs in commercial and public media. In Latvia, politicians elect the public media authority, which means that the political influence ‘exists continuously, directly and indirectly’ (Beitika, 2015: 331). In contrast to the commercial media sector, professional principles are still highly respected in public media.

Conclusion

Journalists accept the dual character of their professional activities as inevitable. Serving certain political interests is not merely a reaction to external factors in the media environment, but is the essence of these media companies. Journalists consider themselves to be responsible for contributing to their medium’s profit goals. Media firms merge the existing editorial values with collaboration, adaptation and business thinking. They regard the merger of editorial and commercial departments as undesirable, yet as an inevitable part of professional practice in Latvia. The limitations of professional autonomy are compensated for by the possibility of defending the medium’s economic sustainability.

Latvia’s ‘squeezed journalism’ sees a decrease in independent journalism to the benefit of sponsored reporting (Baerug, 2017: 44). Ad-based censorship, advertorials and ‘infomercials’ damage the self-regulation pillar. That the traditional divide between the editorial and advertising departments has disappeared is a phenomenon widespread throughout Europe (see Cornia et al., 2018). Researching the media of eight EU countries, Baerug (2017) concluded that two thirds of the media show a moderate degree of blurring between journalism and advertising. Furthermore, loyalty towards advertisers is increasing, which results in ‘a strong hybrid ad-driven journalistic text production practice characterized by accepting and not labelling advertorials’ (Baerug, 2017: 183).

The authors of the introduction of this issue discuss the fact that self-censorship no longer means only the exclusion or reduction of professional values, but rather their dispersal and displacement. Thus, while maintaining a clear understanding of the principles necessary for the existence of the profession, journalists either deliberately or unwitting adapt their daily practices to meet the expectations of their media owners. They strengthen or bring about what Schimpfössl and Yablokov (2014) see as ‘conformity’. This version of ‘conformity’ refers to the complexity of journalism practices in which self-censorship limits freedom and yet also might provide some niches for journalist to be able to work.