The State of State Media: A Global Analysis of the Editorial Independence of State Media and an Introduction of a New State Media Typology

"Studying the complexity of today's state media requires sophisticated research methods and tools as well as new categories able to capture the variety of existing state media and offer an understanding of how the way they are established and operated affects their editorial performance."

This study by the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) introduces a new typology to assess the editorial independence of the world's state media and presents the latest trends in state media globally. The new typology, the State Media Matrix, allows for the classification of state media according to three key factors: funding, ownership/governance, and editorial autonomy. Based on this typology, the report highlights some of the trends in state media across 151 countries, focusing on how these operations are funded and managed, and how their editorial autonomy is protected.

As explained in the report, the new typology goes beyond the reductive dichotomy of state-controlled outlets vs. independent public service media by identifying seven state media models that are characterised by various degrees of independence around funding, ownership/governance, and editorial autonomy. At the opposite ends of the spectrum are the independent public media and the state-controlled media models, with five hybrid models in between:

• independent public media models
• independent state-managed media model
• independent state-funded model
• the independent state-funded and state-managed media model
• captured public/state-managed media model
• captured private media model
• state-controlled media

According to the CMDS, the state-controlled model means that media outlets are entirely dependent on state funding, are managed by government-appointed bodies or directly by state authorities, and follow an editorial line imposed or approved by state authorities. This model is widespread in the world, in countries such as China, several Southeast Asian nations, numerous Middle Eastern states, most of Africa, as well as several countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The independent public media model is considered the ideal form of media, created with a mission to serve the public interest. Although it is designed through legal acts adopted by authorities or plans endorsed by politically elected bodies, this model is anchored in financial and governance mechanisms that insulate these media, to the largest extent possible, from government meddling and other pressures. Moreover, the editorial autonomy of these media is often guaranteed by various codes and regulations, or accountability and oversight instruments. It can be found in several Western European countries, some Nordic countries, and a few nations in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia.

In the hybrid independent media category is the independent state-managed media model. These media outlets are majority owned by the government, yet they are not reliant on state subsidies and enjoy editorial autonomy. According to the report, this is a rare model, found mostly in Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe.

The independent state-funded model is characterised by the predominance of state financing, lack of state influence in governing bodies, and editorial autonomy. Equally rare, this model can be found in some Latin American countries and Europe, as well as in Australia, for example. Both the independent state-funded and state-managed media model characterises outlets that are owned or governed by the state and predominantly funded by the state but that preserve their editorial independence. Media in this rare category include Sidwaya publishing house and news agency in Burkina Faso, or American-owned global broadcasters such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, among others.

In the hybrid captured media category, there is the captured public/state-managed media model, characterised by government control over governing structures and/or ownership and editorial coverage. On the brink of becoming fully state-controlled, this is a large group, including, among others, various newspaper companies in Africa, public service media in Pakistan or Japan, and commercially funded Russian media groups close to the Russian government such as Gazprom Media.

The captured private media model is characteristic of media outlets that are editorially controlled by state authorities without any direct form of state ownership or formal state-appointed governing bodies. This model is illustrative of media capture, an increasingly widespread phenomenon where people serving in state institutions, jointly with affiliated or controlled private businesses, often oligarchic structures, gain editorial control in a large number of privately held media companies. For example, the Hungarian government controls nearly 500 media outlets through a foundation that is believed to have links with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The captured private media model is usually found in countries with a tradition of state interventionism in the media, including Morocco, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Serbia, Hungary, and Poland.

In order to look at the trends in the editorial independence of state media, the paper draws on data and information on state media collected over the course of the last four years as part of the Media Influence Matrix project (see Related Summaries, below) of the CMDS. Using the new State Media Matrix, the study looked at 546 state media outlets in 151 countries in the world and found that government control in the state media has reached extremely high levels. Nearly 80% of 546 state-administered media companies lack editorial independence. More than 80% of the 436 media outlets whose editorial agenda is controlled by the government fall into the state-controlled media category.

Of the 110 state media that have editorial independence, only 18 qualify as independent public service media. 11 of the outlets are based in Europe, and most of the independent public media in Europe, a total of seven, are based in five Western European countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom). The rest of them are one in Southern Europe (Portugal) and three in Central and Eastern Europe (Czechia and Lithuania).

In contrast, there are no independent public media outlets in Eurasia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which, according to the report, is a strong indicator of the widening gap between the quality and reliability of news and information in the West and the poor output of high-quality news output in the rest of the world.

European media also face challenges. Many of Europe's independent state media are in the independent state-funded and state-managed category, which presents the highest risk to editorial independence. Europe also has a third of the world's captured media outlets, 27 in total; 19 of them are media outlets with private ownership, mostly oligarchic structures that have ties with state authorities. The majority of the European captured media are located in the Central Eastern Europe and Turkey region, a sign of the declining media freedom in Europe's post-communist nations and in Turkey.

The report also finds it notable that the public media in Poland, Hungary, and Turkey fall in the state-controlled category, which shows the extreme degree of media capture in these countries. The two other captured cases in Europe are in Greece and Italy. Other parts of the world with a high incidence of media capture cases are Asia and the MENA region, where the state media are in a much worse situation than in Europe due to the much larger state control. In Asia and MENA, for example, the state-controlled type of media outlet accounts for 74% and 63% of all their state media, respectively, much higher than 20% in Europe.