Abstract
AbstractThe article discusses the normative grounds for recognising a watchdog role to the news media as concerns the dissemination of information about an institutional failure menacing a well‐ordered society. This is, for example, the case of the news media’s role in the diffusion of whistle‐blowers’ disclosures. We argue that many popular justifications for the watchdog role of the news media (as a ‘fourth estate’; a trustee of the people’s right to know; expert communicator) fail to ground that role in some unique feature that makes the news media special as concerns the performance of the role. We offer an alternative argument that shows how the watchdog role of the news media shares a justificatory ground with the role that any member of a well‐ordered society has in terms of a general duty of answerability in the face of institutional failures. Although this duty does not bear only on the news media, we concede that in some contingent circumstances, the news media might be better positioned to discharge it and, therefore, to initiate corrective actions of institutional failures effectively and conscientiously. However, the establishment of the news media’s responsibility in this sense is an empirical, not a conceptual or a normative matter.
Highlights
Owing to their popular image as a ‘watchdog’ and a guardian of the public interest, the news media are customarily thought to be the privileged medium for whistle-blowers’ disclosures
We argue that many popular justifications for the watchdog role of the news media fail to ground that role in some unique feature that makes the news media special as concerns the performance of the role
We offer an alternative argument that shows how the watchdog role of the news media shares a justificatory ground with the role that any member of a well-ordered society has in terms of a general duty of answerability in the face of institutional failures
Summary
Owing to their popular image as a ‘watchdog’ and a guardian of the public interest, the news media are customarily thought to be the privileged medium for whistle-blowers’ disclosures. This article investigates the normative foundation of the role of the news media in contributing to initiate corrective action of institutional failures by disseminating some otherwise unavailable information on those failures. In this sense, the article asks to what extent the news media may be taken to perform a watchdog role in society and on what grounds it is justified. We build on a growing debate in political theory about the moral justification of ‘whistle-blowing,’ the practice through which the member of an institution discloses some information concerning an alleged failure of that institution in order to initiate corrective action.[1] On some occasions, whistle-blowers seek the assistance of external actors, most notably the news media, to raise awareness about their qualms. The icon of the ‘external whistle-blower’ is Edward Snowden, a computer specialist working for the CIA and the NSA, who shared his concerns regarding the mass surveillance secret programmes of the US and British governments with some of his coworkers and, being unheard, he revealed these programmes to journalists at The Guardian and The Washington Post
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