Abstract
Media’s patchy commitment to liberal values tends to be glossed over in most discussions about press freedom and journalism’s democratic role. The dominant discourse—whether at major events such as the United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day commemorations and U.S. President Joe Biden’s Democracy Summit or in media rights advocacy by Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists—assumes that “the press” stands for democratic norms that are challenged from outside. In reality, the hallowed liberal institution of the Fourth Estate includes anti-liberal media. This is uncomfortable for liberals to contemplate. It certainly complicates advocacy work: When pushing for greater press freedom, one does not want to muddy the waters by highlighting media that use this freedom in the service of authoritarianism.
A free press that undermines the freedom of others is part of a larger paradox: Democracy is for the people, but not all the people are for democracy. This has been one of the most profound lessons emerging from more than a decade of global backsliding in both established and younger democracies. Champions of democracy were not wrong when they said that people everywhere want the freedom to choose and to express themselves. But then there’s the fine print. People certainly want these rights for themselves—but they don’t necessarily want to share them with others. Indeed, they may use their democratic space for the express purpose of denying others the right to participate. The dark sides of people power and of the power of the press thus require more scrutiny.
Prashanth Bhat’s analysis of India’s Hindu nationalist media is a timely contribution that helps fill this large gap in media research. A prominent portion of his monograph seeks to situate Hindu nationalist media on a left-right spectrum, partly to put his research in conversation with studies of Fox News and other right-wing media in the United States. Bhat reports that, like their American counterparts, Indian right-wing media see themselves as providing a vital corrective to the biases of the mainstream media establishment, which is perceived (quite reasonably) as liberal-secular or (more pejoratively) as “sickular.” There are clear parallels with the likes of Fox News, which positions itself as a bastion of conservative values against “left coast” media elites.
Such media outlets raise interesting questions, which Bhat touches on, about how media scholars should conceptualize “alternative” media. This term (like the linked concept of social movements) tends to be applied to progressive causes. Using it to describe reactionary, conservative outlets feels like going against the grain. I prefer, however, to suspend normative judgments about these media’s ideological positions when studying how they operate. There is analytical value in defining alternative media structurally, rather than with reference to some menu of high-minded missions. The definition I use is relational. Since every society has centers of political, economic, and cultural power, we can think of mainstream media as media for, by, and of those power centers, while alternative media emerge on and represent the fringes. What makes them distinct from mainstream media are not only their missions but also their operating methods. Mainstream media’s approach to journalism (seeking growth, profitability, and mass recognition) often results in them compromising their founding values and being captured by dominant forces. Knowing this, alternative media often adopt organizational structures (typically small and flat), business models (not-for-profit), and professional stances (more activist, less detached) that help them preserve their autonomy and identity. Based on such structural criteria, the alternative media category would include such diverse outlets as the People’s Archive of Rural India, dedicated to telling the stories of rural Indians; Britain’s Morning Star, a reader-owned socialist cooperative; and The Muslim Observer, a weekly print and digital newspaper for Muslims in the United States.
Media studied by Bhat self-identify as alternative, and this appears to match how some authors he cites use the term. Bhat is rightly skeptical. From a more structural perspective, these media—whether we are talking about Republic TV in India or Fox News in the United States—are quite clearly linked to individuals and institutions of immense political and economic power. One can certainly make the case that they are (or were) distinct enough from the mainstream to be considered counter-hegemonic. In that sense, they are key components of a plural media system. But claims that they are marginalized alternative media are little more than political marketing. To appeal to publics who crave authenticity and enjoy rooting for underdogs, Goliaths often pretend to be Davids. Thus, in the business world, Anheuser-Busch’s brands include the craft beer Goose Island for consumers who don’t want to follow the crowd by drinking the mass-produced Budweiser. Similarly, in politics, especially of the populist variety, powerful actors can gain much from acting like an outsider, or even a victim. India’s Hindu nationalist media are supported by the government of the world’s most populous country, some of its wealthiest tycoons, and the world’s largest voluntary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. But the cloak of victimhood helps those nationalist media to mobilize and energize millions with conspiracy theories and to incite attacks against both minorities and liberal media even while claiming that their followers are only acting in self-defense.
Situating these media in a mainstream/alternative frame or on a left/right spectrum does not adequately capture what I consider their most interesting characteristic: Some of these media outlets are actively engaged in attacks on press freedom. Bhat does touch on anti-media populism and threats to journalists’ safety in India. Yet a lot more can be said about the media’s role in fomenting intolerance and hate against fellow media workers and instigating attacks on liberal media by state and non-state actors. The main reason this is not dealt with any depth, I suspect, is Bhat’s decision to examine the Indian case against the backdrop of a U.S. comparison. The unique constitutional and normative force of the First Amendment makes the United States an outlier, in that even vigorously anti-liberal media such as Fox News and Breitbart brand themselves as defenders of free speech. The rise of illiberal progressivism (colloquially termed political correctness or wokeism) has resulted in the American left prioritizing dignity over free speech. The left’s shrill policing of discriminatory expression is gleefully decried by right-wing media as censorship. Of course, right-wing media are themselves responsible for inciting hate against the liberal press, resulting in harassment and even violence that chills free speech. But rhetorically, the American right, with little opposition from the left, has effectively come to own the First Amendment.
The situation in India and other countries outside of the liberal democratic world is markedly different. There, authoritarian states and majoritarian movements are the dominant censors of speech. Their media are prime instigators of intolerance and openly call for state action against critics. They speak the language of honor and patriotism—not freedom. Free speech activists tend to ally with movements fighting for the rights of minorities and women. Theory-building would probably benefit from comparing India with other electoral autocracies or non-liberal democracies such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey.
Or Hong Kong, where Bhat’s monograph certainly resonated with me. The territory has attracted international attention because of the crippling anti-government protests of 2019 and the subsequent decisive crackdown on dissent. The city’s most popular newspaper, Apple Daily, closed down in June 2021 after irresistible legal pressure, including the arrest of its charismatic founder Jimmy Lai. Compared with its ranking 20 years ago, Hong Kong has dropped more than 90 places in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom rankings. (India, which was already lowly-ranked and does not have much further to fall, dropped more than 30 places over the same period.)
The game changer was Beijing’s imposition of a new National Security Law, with severe punishments for pro-independence activity or inviting foreign meddling on sovereign Chinese territory. The law’s provisions are broadly worded—without the customary distinctions between reporting, promotion, advocacy, and incitement that most liberal democratic jurisdictions apply to protect the press when it covers illegal movements fairly or even sympathetically. Because Hong Kong’s law could even be applied retroactively, two respected independent outlets, Citizen News and Stand News, closed shop for fear of being prosecuted for past content. Under the new regime, illiberal statutes and structures inherited from the British colonial authorities have been reinterpreted in an authoritarian direction. For example, the government has used anti-sedition laws to deter independent journalism. Radio Television Hong Kong, which by convention had been acting as an independent public service broadcaster, has been forced to behave more like the government department it actually is.
Hong Kong provides a dramatic case study of state attacks on media freedom. However, it would be a mistake to depict clear battle lines with an authoritarian state on one side and a freedom-loving press on the other. As in India, press outlets in Hong Kong are not uniformly committed to press freedom. Some media organizations—while happy to take a free ride on others’ efforts to preserve some space for independent journalism—do not seem to believe that press freedom should include freedom for the thought they hate, to borrow a classic formulation of the liberal ethos.
Two Hong Kong newspapers stand out in this regard. Ta Kung Pao was founded on the mainland in 1902, making it the world’s oldest Chinese-language newspaper currently circulated. Only the Hong Kong edition survived after the Japanese occupation and the Communist takeover of China. Wen Wei Po was founded in 1948. Both these pro-China papers were thorns in the flesh of the British colonial administration. In 1952, the colonial authorities tried to imprison the owner and the publisher of Ta Kung Pao for sedition and to ban the paper for 6 months; after China complained and London intervened, the authorities rescinded the prison sentence and shortened the ban. The handover of Hong Kong to China in 1989, of course, brought less official resistance to the two papers’ pro-China line. But they remained critical of governance in the Special Administrative Region. (This is one respect where equating them with state media on the mainland, such as People’s Daily, is simplistic). In 2016, the two papers were consolidated into the Hong Kong Ta Kung Wen Wei Media Group (TKWW), which is described as state-owned and controlled by the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong.
Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, which publish both print and online editions, go beyond parroting the official line. They carry highly opinionated commentaries and hit pieces against individuals and organizations they deem anti-national. In their witch hunts, they exercise more initiative than the mainland’s more tightly supervised official media are capable of. Their targets have included individual journalists, the media of opposition politicians, the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, journalism educators, and academics. Before 2020, these reactionary anti-liberal media were just one set of voices in Hong Kong’s plural, raucous public sphere. Their commentators would occasionally accuse the journalism department where I work of radicalizing students. This could be unsettling, especially when colleagues were identified by name. But, within the context of a liberal Hong Kong, there was no reason to treat them as serious threats.
That context has changed dramatically. With the muting of anti-government media, there is no longer much counterweight to TKWW’s stridently nationalistic opinions. What’s more, Hong Kong’s liberal order has been undermined by a national security regime whose limits remain unclear. As a result, TKWW’s targets now must make careful assessments. Perhaps a hatchet job is merely the work of a solitary enthusiastic nationalist whose concerns are not currently a priority for the authorities. On the other hand, readers could interpret the columnist’s indignation as an early warning of trouble to come. Investors, donors, advertisers, and other stakeholders may be spooked, perceiving continued association with a TKWW target as a political liability. In the worst-case scenario, the Liaison Office might have coordinated the attack. It is clear that official lines exist but unclear where exactly they are. This combination of fear and non-transparency benefits reactionary anti-liberal media because nobody can afford to ignore their missives. Such media have thus become agents of censorship and self-censorship in societies like Hong Kong.
Notwithstanding their sacred free-speech guarantees, liberal democracies like the United States are not totally immune to such dynamics. The United States has been prone to bouts of paranoia when reactionary anti-liberal watchdogs are able to trigger self-censorship. Even if the First Amendment ultimately prevails, such media may be highly disruptive in the short term. McCarthy’s Red Scare comes to mind. Today, states gripped by anti-woke hysteria are fertile ground for media engaged in witch hunts. The website Texas Scorecard, for example, played a key role in Texas A&M University’s recent walking back on its job offer to a journalism professor with a background in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Worthwhile research questions arise. First, how should we conceptualize the roles of anti-liberal media within systems of creeping (or consolidated) authoritarianism? We may need to reacquaint ourselves with the literature on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe under late socialism, when artists and intellectuals were not merely controlled from the outside but also policed by co-opted collaborators within their fields. Comparative research can help us understand the impact of these ideological guardians under different legal and political systems. Second, what are the professional norms of journalists working in such media? Most of such work on norms focuses on how journalists position themselves in relation to state power, to processes of social change, and to truth claims. We also need to know how they relate to other media and to principles of media freedom. Is there a sense of (perhaps grudging) solidarity toward ideological opponents who are nonetheless professional peers? Can they therefore be counted on to defend press freedom? Or are they content to seek space only for themselves and their kindred spirits? In a world plagued by polarization and intolerance, this is a variant of professional norms that may be all too common and is unlikely to go away.