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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 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 .

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, : “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 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)  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 from Stanford University proved, neutralising independent media is top of the list. And as the 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 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 to have cost newspapers more than US$30 billion in lost revenue. The UN Secretary General himself three weeks ago gave his to efforts to create a new .  “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 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 Ö÷²¥´óÐã Media Action, co-founder of the  and consultant to on the Fund.