Watchdog Role Research Articles

People’s Watchdogs or Government Poodles?

From the First World War to the Iraq War in 2003, academics have analysed the performance of the media, especially the press, in fulfilling a watchdog role by offering an independent critique of government and military actions. The overrepresentation of government or military voices and the underrepresentation of other affected groups has been repeatedly asserted. National broadsheet newspapers represent a critical element in a nation’s public sphere, ideally fulfilling a ‘watchdog’ function on behalf of the citizenry, and so attract higher expectations of quality than tabloids or, arguably, television. This study, using a content analysis of Scotland’s two national broadsheets, The Herald and The Scotsman, reveals an over whelming emphasis on reporting military achievements or movements. By contrast, the massive damage to infrastructure, to public health and the environment and to civil order, resulting from massive high ordnance bombing and from the destruction of institutions of law and order, received very little attention. Furthermore, out of 2775 reports, only a very small number, given the scale of the fatalities and injuries, covered the daily toll of civilians and only a tiny handful featured the voices of Iraqis or other Arab/Islamic groups. Following theoretical pieces on Hermann and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model by Klaehn and by Corner, this article offers an empirically based context within which to consider the debate. In addition, the extent to which these results offer evidence of the accuracy or otherwise of Livingston and Eachus’s Indexing Hypothesis and Edward Said’s Orientalism is discussed.

The Independence Paradox: (im)possibilities facing non‐executive directors in The Netherlands

The paper adds to our knowledge of what non‐executive directors do, knowledge which is still in its infancy. More specifically, it reports the findings of a survey among more than 250 Dutch non‐executive directors regarding their roles and limitations. Although the majority agreed that monitoring is their main duty, they also expressed doubts whether they are really able to carry out this “watchdog role” effectively. The primary limitation is sought in the asymmetry of information which gives rise to the so‐called “independence paradox”: in obtaining adequate information non‐executives are dependent on the executives they are expected to supervise and to be independent from.

The Press as a Watchdog for Accounting Fraud

This paper investigates the press' role as a watchdog for accounting fraud. In choosing whether to fulfill this role, the press must trade off the benefits of providing interesting stories, and thus increasing circulation, with the costs of identifying such stories and potentially alienating business partners and advertisers. I use a sample of firms that the SEC has found guilty of committing accounting fraud to investigate how the accesses these costs and benefits. I find the press is more likely to write an article identifying accounting fraud if the firm has a high information environment (i.e. many press articles in general, high analyst following and, although weaker results, a large market value of equity). A rich information environment indicates the press can obtain information at a lower cost and that a large number of potential readers would be interested in the firm. I also find that characteristics of the fraud impact the likelihood the press will write an article. Fraud that includes material publicly misleading statements or management misappropriation of funds is more likely to trigger an article. A public statement can both attract the presses attention, thus reducing identification cost, and assure more people are interested in a follow-up to information they have used. Management misappropriation of funds, whether theft or insider trading, is likely to make a story more interesting to the public, and thus increase the benefits to the writer. I do not find the severity of the violation, based on length and number of violations noted, to influence the likelihood of an article being written. Finally, I perform a content analysis of the identified fraud articles to gain a greater understanding of how the press undertakes the watchdog role. I find that the press relies on many sources, but particularly on analysts, legal suits and auditor changes. While many types of press break the initial story, the business press provides the greatest coverage. Finally, most articles do not appear to be written by local reporters, but those that do are more likely to provide no source for information (consistent with having performed their own investigative reporting) and are less likely to rely on analysts in general. This provides some evidence of an informational difference for locally based reporters.

Environmental Issues and the Watchdog Role of the Media: How Ellul’s Theory Complicates Liberal Democracy

Citizens of Western democracies have long believed that the media should serve as watchdogs. Many feel one of the media’s most important watchdog duties is environmental reporting. As human progress has undoubtedly caused significant changes in the ecosystem, citizens have increasingly depended on the media to inform us about possible ill effects thereof. Though critics from both right and left have reservations about the actual fulfillment of this role by the press, most uphold environmental reporting in principle. Hence, environmental journalism is growing in stature and respect. Even so, the work of Jacques Ellul puts forth an analysis of the watchdog function of the press that challenges key tenets of the liberal democratic presuppositions of our technological society. His analysis, which is of neither the right nor the left, raises questions that anyone who thinks seriously about the media and the environment should ponder, even those who ultimately disagree with Ellul’s position.

Responsible, Representative and Accountable Government

As an evaluation of the health of Australia's political system, this article offers a perspective different from the lament over the loss of responsible government. It finds that responsible government is not compatible with representative democracy. Peculiar to Australia is conflict between ‘responsible party government’ and ‘responsible parliamentary government’. Nevertheless, the system is healthy. A parliament‐as‐a‐whole approach identifies key holistic functions of manifest and latent legitimation and accountability that bolster legitimacy. Political accountability is enhanced by the watchdog role of the media. Public accountability is enriched by the links between citizens and administrative review. Critical changes include the guarantee of senate independence and the removal of senate power over supply. These changes would confine the theory and practice of responsible government to the House of Representatives, promote accountability, and thus increase the legitimacy of Australian parliamentary democracy.

Religion and Political Violence in Apartheid South Africa

This article analyzes the impact of religion in the South African polity. Special attention is paid to events from as far back as the 14th century, leading to the democratic settlement in 1994, and the integral role of key religious figures therein. It argues that, had it not been for their timely intervention, the violence that erupted could have escalated beyond control, perhaps scuttling the whole process. In analyzing religion and violence in apartheid South Africa, the article expresses the hope that churches and other civil society organs will reclaim their watchdog role in entrenching democracy even more deeply in a post-apartheid South African society. (The Journal of Cultural Studies: 2001 3(1): 108-123)

Transboundary Environmental Governance and the Baia Mare Cyanide Spill

AbstractMining gold with the use of cyanide has always been an inherently dangerous activity requiring strict regulatory oversight and the application of appropriate technology to prevent environmental harm. The cyanide spill from the Aurul S.A. gold-mining operation in Baia Mare, Romania, was a warning to the international community that legal and institutional regimes that should prevent and respond to such accidents may as yet not be fully developed, especially in countries in transition. In particular, the international legal regimes for industrial-accident prevention, liability, and foreign direct investment must be considered as a whole in order to identify gaps and weaknesses in the system that should be addressed in the effort to protect human health and the environment from such accidents. In addition, the gap between legal requirements and commitment to, and capacity for, implementation—especially in transition countries—must be addressed.This article addresses the need to bring attention to the international legal implications of the Baia Mare accident. First, the article sets the stage by briefly identifying the positive responses that the accident has evoked from Romanian and international stakeholders, indicating that steps have already been taken to strengthen the institutional and legal framework governing mining operations. Then, the international legal obligations of Romania at the time of the accident are examined, followed by the identification of international conventions to which Romania was not party at the time of the accident and that could have helped prevent the accident. Gaps in the international legal regimes relevant to the accident are also identified and recommendations are made for filling them, including principles of environmental governance for foreign investors in countries in transition. Recommendations are also made for addressing the issue of implementation.The accident at Baia Mare has resulted in a number of positive responses—both domestically in Romania, as well as regionally and at a broader European level—and it is incumbent upon stakeholders to continue to expand the scope of social learning that the accident has made available. Actions taken in Romania after the spill include closer cooperation between local/regional officials and environmental nongovernmental organizations and a generally increased sensitivity among NGOs to the dangers inherent in mining activities. NGOs have now assumed watchdog and public-education roles. Responses at the European level include greater transboundary cooperation in river management and a strong push by the European Union to amend the Seveso II Directive on industrial-accident prevention to cover mining operations.Romania was not party to several key international conventions that could conceivably, if implemented, have prevented or minimized the effects of the accident at Baia Mare or provided for a more effective long-term response. These include the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents and the Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. In addition to international legal instruments to which Romania was not party, there are also European Union directives that Romania has not yet transposed into domestic law. As a country seeking to join the European Union, transposition of EU legislation is a high priority for Romania. Priority should be given to the Seveso II Directive, which seeks to prevent industrial accidents, and the directive on integrated pollution prevention and control, which requires the use of the best available technology to prevent discharges.Gaps and weaknesses in international law fall into three main categories: industrial-accident prevention, liability for environmental harm, and foreign direct investment.

The process of democratisation in contemporary Ghana

This article discusses the process of democratisation in contemporary Ghana as the nation struggles to regain its democratic ethos after a protracted era of military dictatorship and revolutionary populism. It examines the role of the traditional organs of government — the legislature, the executive and the judiciary — and how their existing relationships advance or impede the democratisation process. The dynamics of judicial autonomy as an instrument of promoting the rule of law, establishing checks and balances and removing arbitrariness as well as the watch dog role of the media, are discussed as part of an analysis of responsible, accountable and limited government in Ghana. Human rights issues generally, and particularly the rights of women, as a necessary aspect of the deepening of democracy are examined. Inter alia, we study the attempts to re‐establish a buoyant civil society in the face of the desperate efforts of government to fill every available space with government‐sponsored organisations which are amenable to its cause.

To Protect and Serve: The “Guard Dog” Function of Journalism in Coverage of the Japanese-American Internment

This monograph explores evolution of themes print media coverage of Japanese-Americans during period between Pearl Harbor and day Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Print journalists at first halfheartedly played celebrated of watchdog, some cases urging readers to be tolerant of Japanese-Americans. But their tolerance, and their time watchdog role, lasted only until government put finishing touches on its policy to deal with alleged activity, a policy which culminated internment. From that point on, print journalists assumed of dog, acting as government's sentry, patrolling for threats to official version of events that unfolded after Pearl Harbor (Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, 1995). Donohue, Tichenor, and Olien outlined function as it relates to political reporting, but I argue that it is of particular relevance here. journalists act as sentries for who hold power and who ability to create their own security systems - this instance, federal government, local and state officials, and military. Guard dog reporting takes place external present a threat to local (p. 116). In writing favorably about groups, journalists tend to concentrate on individuals while accepting structure, a tendency seen clearly (and discussed more detail later) reporting on alleged Japanese-American threat to national security. Through their interaction with and dependence on local leaders for information, journalists are trained to suspect potential intruders, and sometimes, as is case here, sound alarm for reasons that group may initially be unable to understand. This inability arises when authority within power structure is divided or when part of power structure is made uncertain by an organized challenge. Along way, who lack power and influence receive little attention from journalists. How a journalist gathers information and writes stories is shaped by nature of structure being served and by whom label a threat. When there is consensus a community, guard dog sleeps, stirring only when an external threat to local leadership materializes. Conflict is reported in a constrained way and only on certain issues and under certain structural conditions (p. 116) - short, when there is conflict between dominant or power blocs (p. 120). Further, where different local conflicting interests, Donohue, Tichenor, and Olien argue, the media are more likely to reflect views ofthe more powerful groups (p. 116). Such protection highlights the functions of externally based conflict for reinforcement of local cohesion (p.117). Coverage emphasizes of addressing issues and correcting problems faced by community. The guard dog function rejects as unrealistic watchdog of press taught so many university journalism classes as a guiding principle for journalistic practice. The media are not autonomous; they operate as part of power structure; as such, they have neither inclination nor power to challenge those groups, unless they are already under challenge by other forces (Donohue, Tichenor, & Olien, p. 119). Unable to develop social policy or motivate political action, media are left to report on actions taken by groups. If, as case of alleged fifth column activity explored this monograph, these and agencies are concerned primarily with an external threat, that will be agenda of media... (p. 119). Questions from reporters that seem to challenge official view of an event or issue amount to role playing driven more by attacks from contending powers (p. 119) than by a journalist's desire to expose corruption or challenge action taken by a corporation or agency. …

Morality Discourse in the Marketplace: narratives in the Chinese television news magazine Oriental Horizon

This article explores the narratives of China Central Television's Oriental Horizon - a television news magazine show on Chinese television with high audience ratings - through the roles of reporters and their various relationships with the characters in the stories. Using content analysis and interviews, the article examines how Chinese journalists position themselves between the state and the audience in a changing social environment. The author categorizes the patterns of narratives in the programs through three distinctive roles assumed by the reporters: the advocate of state objectives, the voice of the victim and that of social commentator. It seems that by adopting a watchdog role and assuming clear standards of right and wrong, television reporters manage - at least to a certain extent - to provide the audience with a mechanism of accountability in an age of disillusion and ideological crisis in China. By presenting issues as local cases and defining them as moral choices, the programs avoid a critical interrogation of the overall social structure.

“Lynch-Mob Journalism” vs. “Compelling Human Drama”: Editorial Responses to Coverage of the Pretrial Phase of the O.J. Simpson Case

This case study uses attribution theory to analyze mainstream newspaper editorials concerning media conduct during the pre-trial phase of the O.J. Simpson murder case. Three major conclusions arise. First, many newspapers acknowledged poor, even unethical, coverage in general, without taking responsibility themselves. Second, while admitting problematic coverage in general, many of the editorials shifted blame to external causes, namely Simpson himself, the legal teams on both sides, others involved in the case, and even the public. Third, while some newspapers defended coverage, to do so they were forced to re-define that coverage as part of their watchdog role.

Guerrilla Journalist

I. F. Stone took keen interest in discussion among United Nations correspondents at lunch August 7, 1964. The United States had just completed first unilateral American attack on Communist forces in history in retaliation for what it believed was an assault by North Vietnamese gunboats on its destroyers. Stone joined reporters covering United Nations Security Council debate on Gulf of Tonkin affair. The independent left-wing journalist listened as they reminded another that United States had condemned retaliation raids, wherever they occur and by whomever they are committed, only months before. But none mentioned this in their dispatches, he wrote in disgust days later.' Stone assailed press repeatedly in his own reports on Tonkin affair, accusing his colleagues of cynically hiding known facts from public. Media watchers years later would come to share his disappointment. Why should it have taken l.F. Stone to put lie to so much of propaganda from State, Pentagon, and White House? Ron Dorfman, editor of Chicago Journalism Review, complained of media's performance on Vietnam War.2 He cited Gulf of Tonkin affair in particular as case in which Stone, in his one-man newspaper, I.F. Stone's Weekly, out-reported grand institutions of press. The chimerical battle of August 4, 1964, on dark seas half world away from Washington, had given President Lyndon B. Johnson excuse he needed both to show his mettle as presidential election approached and to get Congress to cede to him unprecedented presidential war powers. In escalation that followed Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, fifty-eight thousand American troops would die and as many as three million Vietnamese. The sheer quantity of human blood spilled down through years would come to invest Tonkin incident with enormous significance. CBS's Fred Friendly called it the lost opportunity that must haunt print as well as broadcast journalists.3 The names Tonkin and Stone became linked for posterity thanks primarily to 1973 film by Jerry Bruck, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which used Stone's Tonkin coverage as its centerpiece.4 Its view of Stone and Tonkin would become standard. In memorial to Stone on his death in 1989, New York Times wrote, Mr. Stone came equipped with superb nose for fakery. He was thus able to challenge at outset all sorts of hokum-such as puffed-up battle used to justify famous Tonkin Gulf resolution.5 While Stone may mean little to young generation of journalists in 1990s, he remains venerated figure among many journalists who worked during Vietnam War years.6 No less journalistic icon than CBS anchor emeritus Walter Cronkite hailed Stone as a blue-print of honesty and integrity, and, at iconoclastic end of scale, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins proclaimed Stone one of my greatest heroes. 7 Stone practiced journalism with combination of political commitment and dedication to facts that impelled him to challenge his government's policy in Vietnam. Media analysts-including sociologists, historians, and self-critical journalists themselves-have traced American mass media's general abandonment of an independent, skeptical, watchdog role vis A vis federal government from World War II through much of cold war. The merits of skepticism and independent investigation did not powerfully reassert themselves in American journalism until late 1960s and early 1970s.8 Many have faulted kind of tunnel vision imposed by strictures of journalism, especially narrow interpretation of journalistic concept of objectivity that encouraged over-reliance on government authority and whatever official hokum it dished out.9 On matters of foreign policy, many, too, have identified patriotic bias among objective reporters that resulted during cold war in fundamental support for established anti-Communist order. …

Public Perceptions of Newspaper's Watchdog Role

Results from this survey indicate that advocating the watchdog role for newspapers is not linked to frequency of newspaper use. Youth and education level are associated with that role.

Biodiversity and Landscapes: A Paradox of Humanity

Part I. Introduction: 1. Biodiversity and humanity Ke Chung Kim and Robert D. Weaver Part II. Human Values and Biodiversity: 2. Thoreau and Leopold on science and values Bryan G. Norton 3. Creation Holmes Rolston III 4. Biodiversity and ecological justice Eric Katz Part III. Human Processes and Biodiversity: 5. Preindustrial man and environmental degradation William T. Sanders and David Webster 6. Conserving biological diversity in the face of climate change Robert L. Peters 7. We do not want to become extinct: the question of human survival Norman Myers 8. Germplasm conservation and agriculture Garrison Wilkes Part IV. Management of Biodiversity and Landscapes: 9. The paradox of humanity Eugene Hargrove 10. Biodiversity and landscape management Zev Naveh 11. Making a habit of restoration Leslie Sauer 12. Landscapes and management for ecological integrity James Karr Part V. Socioeconomics of Biodiversity: 13. Economic valuation of biodiversity Robert D. Weaver 14. Thinking about the value of biodiversity Alan Randall 15. Lessons from the aging Amazon frontier Christopher F. Uhl, Adalberto Verissimo, Paulo Barreto, Marli Maria Mattos and Recardo Tarifa Part VI. Strategies for Biodiversity Conservation: 16. Market based economic development and an assessment of conflict Robert D. Weaver 17. Technology and biodiversity conservation John Cairns, Jr 18. Evaluation of biodiversity for ecological engineering Howard T. Odum 19. Urban horticulture: a part of the biodiversity picture Harold Tukey 20. The watchdog role of nongovernmental environmental organizations M. Rupert Cutler 21. Legislative and public agency initiatives in ecosystem and biodiversity conservation Michael J. Bean 22. Biodiversity and humanity Robert D. Weaver and Ke Chung Kim Index.

Defoe De-Attributions: A Critique of J.R. Moore's "Checklist" (review)

310 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 8:2 P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens. Defoe De-Attributions: A Critique of J.R. Moore's "Checklist." London and Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, 1995. xxxiv + 161pp. US$40.00. ISBN 1-85285-128-7. There is a scary appropriateness in reviewing a book on the Defoe canon in a journal called Eighteenth-Century Fiction. Most of the fictionality of the Defoe canon is, of course, a product of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: at the end of the eighteenth century, just over a hundred titles were attributed to Defoe, and by 1971—when John Robert Moore published his revised Checklist of the Writings ofDaniel Defoe—the list had grown to 570. But fictions about attributions arise in all centuries, and although Defoe is a dramatic example of authorial inflation, he is by no means a singular one. Few are the writers who in death are only the author of the texts they claimed in life, and some notable scholarly industries have risen mainly to swell an author's output. Changes in canons are almost all expansionary; new attributions, especially for authors in ages and print economies where anonymous publication is common, tend to outnumber de-attributions by staggering ratios. In fact, de-attributions (although popular activities for some few scholars) have seldom received much academic attention in the modem era of textual scholarship, while inflationary cycles of attribution have made or enhanced academic careers. The implications of the Furbank-Owens project far transcend the question of the indefatigable Defoe. The burden of Defoe De-Attributions, as of Furbank and Owens's earlier 77ie Canonisation ofDaniel Defoe (1988), is to ask how it could have happened that the Defoe canon became so inflated in a relatively unproblematic and unchallenged way. Their contention that Moore's list should be reduced by almost half still leaves the canon three times as long as it was two hundred years ago, and does not seriously change Defoe's reputation as a prolific, varied, and sometimes self-contradictory writer of fact and fiction on politics, religion, economics, law, travel, social policy, and all kinds of occasional issues—though it does take away some crucial titles which scholars have relied on to argue points about Defoe's ideas, beliefs, and habits: A General History ofthe ... Pirates [Moore 458], Street Robberies, Consider'd [Moore 504], The Four Years Voyages ofCapt. George Roberts [Moore 483], Madagascar: or, Robert Drury's Journal [Moore 511], The Memoirs ofan English Officer [Moore 500], three Jack Shepherd and two Jonathan Wild titles [Moore 466, 468, 470-71, 473], and A BriefHistory ofthe Poor Palatine Refugees [Moore 160a]. Some of the candidates for elimination here were previously discussed in their earlier book (Madagascar, for example), but in this new volume—conceived as the detailed footnotes to Canonisation and as a sort of supplement, or rather subtractive companion, to Moore—all 252 items that they find doubtful or worse are listed chronologically and briefly discussed. For each title, there is a list of the canonizers who have ascribed it to Defoe and a summary of whatever arguments have been made for inclusion , concluding with their own reasons for doubt. Their conclusions vary from outright denial to simple uncertainty; quite frequently their judgment is merely that no convincing case has ever been made, for their aim in this volume is not to create a definitive new Defoe canon but rather to unsettle the old one. They promise that in the third edition of the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature they will present their own considered conclusions about the Defoe canon, and they suggest that they might still have & fourth go at Defoe—a post-CSEL 3 volume that would provide detailed evidence for their inclusions and exclusions. They deserve enormous credit for their effort and dedication on behalf of Defoe studies and for the implications of their watchdog role in the scholarly commumity. Their work is courageous and (at least so far) sound and judicious. REVIEWS 311 Furbank and Owens keep their eyes firmly trained on the plausibility of particular kinds of evidence, and they extend here (from Canonisation) the highly personal sense of what demons or habits drove...

How Community Involvement Affects Editors' Role

The majority of editors surveyed indicated some degree of community involvement, but such involvement does not seem to have substantial effect on their watchdog role.

The Evolving Watchdog: The Media's Role in Government Ethics

The mass media's influence on the ethics of public life, as characterized by the press's watchdog role in monitoring the conduct of government officials, is assumed to be vital to democracy. The effectiveness of this watchdog role is less clearly understood. Partial answers are found in the evolving institutional history of the press, including its control, ethics, laws, technology, organization, and the content of news stories. Just as reporters rarely discuss their ethics in terms of teleology and deontology, the press does not conceptualize in sophisticated terms its impact on the ethics of public employees. It traditionally finds motivation from the popular belief in watchdog success models from muckraking to Watergate. As partisanship, news values, and reporting techniques evolve, effectiveness varies. Research sheds light on media trends but focuses more on presidents than county clerks, more on political campaigns than government process. Optimism, as new doors and new technology open to reporters, is tempered by competition from the marketplace and the new digital feast promised consumers.

Media coverage of the Queensland drought rorts saga: Learning Fitzgerald lessons?

Many observers saw die performance of Queensland's main media group in pursuing the National Party government in 1989 over allegations of drought‐aid rorts, as an indication that the compliant and manipulated media identified by corruption commissioner, Tony Fitzgerald, QC, had shown new teeth in their watchdog role. But a close examination of die coverage shows that the way the media operate has changed little, and that there needs to be continuing concern about the effectiveness of a media system in which a parochial orientation leads not to closer scrutiny of decision‐making but to closer cooperation with decision‐makers as news sources.

Japanese-American Relocation during World War II: A Study of California Editorial Reactions

When approximately 70,000 Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes and businesses to camps in the interior of the United States in early 1942, there was an ideal opportunity for newspapers to protest on the basis of civil liberties violations. This content analysis of the editorials of the San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union, and Los Angeles Times for the period immediately before the February 19, 1942, relocation order, and period immediately after, found little support for Japanese Americans, even though there was never evidence of disloyalty and Secretary of War Henry Stimson tried to allay fears. Concerns of the moment outweighed both public and, with some early period exceptions, press support of freedom for Japanese Americans. This study concludes the sampled press did not play a watchdog role and, instead, “served as a government publicist.”

PRISON DISCIPLINE

The Woolf Report on the prison disturbances of April 1990 recommends, inter alia , that prison boards of visitors should no longer be responsible for aspects of prison discipline: rather, they should concentrate on their watchdog role. The Home Secretary has yet to respond to this suggestion. On the basis of a research study recently conducted on boards of visitors' hearings it is argued that no other solution to the criticisms which have long been made of boards' involvement in discipline will suffice and that there are grounds for believing that the Woolf recommendations are necessary, administratively feasible, and politically acceptable.