The pandemic has unleashed a global wave of government spending, much of it disbursed quickly, at scale and under difficult circumstances. With it have come concerns over fresh opportunities for corruption.

While much international effort has been dedicated to tackling corruption in recent years, little of it appears to have paid off. Transparency International concluded in their most recent global survey that “most countries have made little or no progress in tackling corruption in almost a decade”.

This lack of progress prompted a rare Special Session of the UN General Assembly last week, the climax of multiple similar regional and other preparatory meetings. Its main outcome was this long political statement.

As a media specialist, I confess consistent bafflement about much of the anti-corruption debate. I believe independent journalism is really effective in deterring corruption, and I often look to see if support for it is prioritised in anti-corruption efforts. When it isn’t – which is almost always – I wonder on what basis decisions are being made and strategies prioritised. The logic increasingly escapes me.

Almost every evidence review or research paper I read concludes that very few anti-corruption strategies appear to work. Professor Heather Marquette concludes in this just published Westminster Foundation for Democracy paper, It’s time to ‘do anti-corruption democratically’: “We also, frankly, don’t know if anti-corruption interventions succeed or fail because we don’t have accurate measures to work with.”

Curtailing media = rising corruption

That finding is consistent with multiple earlier evidence reviews. This 2015 review from the UK Department for International Development concluded that “direct anti-corruption interventions, which were especially prominent during the 1990s and 2000s, including efforts such as anti-corruption authorities, national anti-corruption strategies, and national anti-corruption legislation… were found to be ineffective in combating corruption”. In contrast, it found that the evidence available “consistently indicates [that] freedom of the press can reduce corruption and that the media plays a role in the effectiveness of other social accountability mechanisms.” The same paper concluded that when media freedom is curtailed, corruption tends to rise, finding evidence of “restrictions to press freedom leading to higher levels of corruption in a sample of 51 developed and developing countries”.

On a purely evidential assessment, it would seem that investing in support to independent media should be among the central planks of any anti-corruption strategy. Prioritising media support would also help solve the challenges that Marquette highlights of measuring the impact of anti-corruption initiatives. Let’s take just three categories of measurement.

One is correlation between the existence of a free press and reduced rates of corruption (and indeed the absence of a free press and increased rates of corruption). As well as constituting a central plank of democratic theory for centuries, evidence reviews, such as that cited above, conclude this correlation has shown to be strong.

The second is the volume of public assets returned to the public purse as result of investigative or other forms of journalism. The Organised Crime and Reporting Project (OCCRP) estimates that more than US$7 billion in fines and assets have been seized as a result of its investigations and those of its partners. That seems a pretty convincing measure.

The playbook of 'wannabe' dictators

The third is to assess where those intent on corruption – especially authoritarian leaders – focus their political and financial efforts in order to act with impunity. As this famous 2004 paper from Stanford University proved, neutralising independent media is top of the list. And as the V-Dem Institute concluded this year, “The playbook of ‘wannabe’ dictators seems to have been shared widely among leaders in (former) democracies. First, seek to restrict and control the media while curbing academia and civil society. Then couple these with disrespect for political opponents to feed polarisation while using the machinery of the government to spread disinformation. Only when you have come far enough on these fronts is it time for an attack on democracy’s core: elections and other formal institutions.”

If media wasn’t effective as a check on corruption, those who plan to be corrupt would not focus so much attention on neutralising it.

These are familiar arguments – that the role of, and support for, media is under-prioritised in anti-corruption discussions - which people like me have been making for years. Those arguments have had scant impact and last week’s UNGASS statement was only partially encouraging. The statement “notes with appreciation the important role of civil society, academia, the private sector and the media in identifying, detecting and reporting on cases of corruption”. It commits to “respect, promote and protect the freedom to seek, receive, disseminate and publish information concerning corruption, and ensure that the public has effective access to information, in accordance with the domestic laws of States.” And importantly, it strives “to provide a safe and adequate environment to journalists, and we will investigate, prosecute and punish threats and acts of violence, falling within our jurisdiction, committed against them.”

But, like almost all anti-corruption discussions, it assumes that one of society’s most important capacities to deter and expose corruption – an independent media – requires no active support. It does nothing to ensure the future viability of the independent media sector.

Single most important anti-corruption measure

Unfortunately for democracy and development, and for efforts to combat corruption, independent media are disappearing. The mainly advertising-based business model that has sustained independent media has eroded as advertising migrates to online platforms. The pandemic, and the associated infodemic characterised by huge volumes of disinformation (itself often deployed from governments and others to ensure impunity against corruption), have both highlighted how important independent journalism is in a crisis whilst dealing a further, sometimes fatal hammer blow to the finances of independent media. The pandemic has been estimated to have cost newspapers more than US$30 billion in lost revenue. The UN Secretary General himself three weeks ago gave his support to efforts to create a new International Fund for Public Interest Media. “We cannot afford to let the pandemic to lead to a media extinction event,” he said.

The single most important anti-corruption strategy a society can have is a free, independent, sustainable and pluralistic media sector. That, I’d argue, is a justifiable conclusion from the evidence base of what works and doesn’t. It is time to start supporting independent media.

One section of the UNGASS declaration might provide a platform from which to prioritise media support. It concerns the use of confiscated assets illegally acquired through corruption. The language is tortuous and highly provisional, but it urges consideration of “the Sustainable Development Goals in the use of returned assets” and “reinvesting funds for special purposes”.

The reinvestment of confiscated assets to support independent media, and especially investigative journalism, is an argument that organisations like OCCRP have been making for years, and an investigative journalism fund has been built into the design of the International Fund for Public Interest Media.

Anti-corruption strategies need to start factoring in that a failure to support independent media will hamper future anti-corruption efforts and prospects. And the weakening of what media remain will provide huge new opportunities for corruption. Those intent on corruption, who have often been most determined to attack, intimidate or co-opt independent journalism that threatens to expose them, can then look forward to sleeping more easily in their feather beds.

James Deane is Head of Policy for ��tv Media Action, co-founder of the International Fund for Public Interest Media and consultant to Luminate on the Fund.

The UK Department for International Development’s commitment to undertake a “transparency revolution” is welcome. Their new strategy outlined yesterday Open Aid, Open Societies: a vision for a transparent world sets out a fresh set of commitments to close loopholes that allow corruption to be hidden; support efforts to make DFID’s partner governments more open and transparent, and scale up DFID’s broader support for transparency and accountability efforts.

The opening paragraph of the Secretary of State, Penny Mordaunt’s introduction, closely reflects ��tv Media Action’s strategic mission in stressing that access to information is critical to enabling people to “have a say in decisions which affect our lives”. The commitment to “scale up support for a healthy, free media and civil society that can champion anti-corruption and transparency and promote debate and uptake of data” is especially welcome.

For the strategy to be effective, however, those of us working in development could learn from some of the mistakes of the past. Three points in particular stand out.

1. Access to information is not enough. For many years, it was assumed that opening up government data and other information would automatically improve transparency and herald a new era in which citizens would shine a light on poor government performance or inadequate service delivery. That was always questionable and, indeed, for some time, questioned. The data generated as a result of excellent initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership have provided immense energy and focus to transparency efforts - but translating that data into forms that are easily usable by those who most need the transparency and accountability agenda to work for them continues to be a struggle.

To its credit, DFID’s strategy acknowledges this. “Too often, data is not presented in an understandable way that enables citizens to find, interpret and use it”, it argues. “Evidence must also be accessible to parliaments, audit offices, media and civil society organisations that can monitor and champion improvements in services.” But in many places media that can “monitor and champion” struggles to exist. Media needs support to develop the skills, systems and mindset to do this and to survive long term. We are witnessing a global assault on independent media especially in the fragile states that DFID prioritises for support. The closing of civic space by often authoritarian government is reinforced by increasing attempts to co-opt and capture independent media by multiple commercial, factional, religious, ethnic and other political interests. Independent media, especially in fragile states with weak economies, are simply not able to afford to able to resist such co-option.

It was a neat coincidence that saw this strategy launched on the same day that the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, gave a speech stressing just how critical journalism is as a “huge force for good” in fostering informed public debate in society. The Prime Minister especially highlighted how “in recent years - especially in local journalism - we've seen falling circulations, a hollowing-out of local newsrooms, and fears for the future sustainability of high quality journalism”. That is indeed the case in the UK.

The consequences in fragile states of weak media systems are more profound, and the challenges of enabling the independence and sustainability of good journalism acutely difficult. When you add to these challenges the increasingly successful exploitation of online platforms to misinform, polarise public debate and undermine the democratic processes, the prospects for seeing open government being translated into more accountable and transparent governance seem still more distant. It is becoming critical that development agencies reconsider and reprioritise their support to independent media.

2. DFID’s strategy makes another welcome proposal in its commitment to test “innovative approaches” in four African countries where it will support efforts to “work with civil society, law enforcement and investigative journalists to use greater transparency, to help drive forward investigations and prosecutions of incidences of corruption.” The potential benefit of supporting investigative journalism is undeniable. The Global Investigative Journalism Network has argued that the revelations exposed in the Panama Papers and other investigative efforts constitute one of the best returns on investment the development community can make. But, as we have argued before, investigative journalism is an extremely dangerous occupation in fragile states and is not a substitute for a media system that supports and sustains good journalism – the day to day job of journalists reporting on what government is doing, asking challenging questions which demand answers and working to underpin informed public debate. Investigative journalism needs to be complemented by support to independent media systems that are fundamental to the kinds of democratic politics that deliver for those who most need it.

3. Which raises the final challenge of linking transparency initiatives to all in society, and especially those who most need a say in the decisions that affect their lives. Our work at ��tv Media Action, as well as mentoring many journalists and building the capacities of hundreds of media institutions, focuses on ensuring that those with least access to decision-making power have the opportunity to challenge and question their political leaders. Through the much-valued support of DFID, broadcast public debates and other programmes have enabled ordinary people to question and challenge their leaders. They reached almost 200 million people across 14 fragile states; from an earthquake-devastated Kathmandu slum to the presidential palace in Afghanistan, to a disaster-affected Bangladeshi city to an Ebola-affected Sierra Leone. Our extensive research showed a clear association between exposure to this kind of accountability programming and improved political participation.

The evidence that an independent media is essential to improving transparency and accountability is not only long-standing but growing. The damage to effective governance of not having an independent media is increasingly recognised.

DFID’s strategy is welcome and important. Ultimately the future success of transparency and accountability efforts will depend on a more ambitious, more sustained and more determined international support effort to an increasingly imperilled independent media around the world. The UK has a set of media support institutions that have strong reputations and unrivalled capacities to contribute to such efforts. Our hope is that this strategy is just the start of a stronger cross-government commitment to support an increasingly vital but imperilled sector.

James Deane is Director of Policy and Research and ��tv Media Action.

Find out more about ��tv Media Action's work on governance.

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Media 'extinction' and the gaping hole in anti-corruption efforts

DFID's "transparency revolution" is welcome - but supporting independent media is urgent and challenging