Dear members,

It’s natural for journalists to support freedom of the press. Many of their jobs depend on it. And citizens in a free state rely on the news media to safeguard democracy. But what about corporations and business leaders? What’s at stake for them?

Growth, for one. Sustainability. Innovation also needs freedom of the press to thrive. The logic is simple: where independent news media operate freely, the government is less able to play favorites or maintain opaque regulatory regimes that stifle economic activity. Corruption is diminished when a free, independent press is on the watch. This isn’t just a theory. There are data to back it up.

“Using the percentage of firm-state interactions in which a bribe was expected or requested as a proxy for firms’ engagement with corruption, we show that firms in countries with a free press report substantially less corruption,’’ researchers Nouf Binhadab, Michael Breen, and Robert Gillanders wrote in a September 2021 paper. An improvement in press freedom of a one standard deviation is associated with reducing the incidence of bribes by 4.1%, compared with the mean bribe rate of countries in the study of 15%, the authors say, citing analysis of a dataset covering 110 countries for the 10 years to 2016.

An earlier study found stock prices in countries with a free press were more sensitive to breaking news – ultimately a benefit to investors, lenders and listed companies themselves. Professor Thorsten Lehnert and PhD candidate Sara Abed Masror Khah from the Luxembourg School of Finance drew that conclusion in a 2017 paper. “Press freedom in a country contributes positively to what economists would call the good volatility of stock markets,” they wrote. “This refers for instance to conditions that make it advantageous for firms to take risks that is necessary to greater economic growth. This is why it should certainly not be understood as an argument to reduce the freedom of press. On the contrary, freedom of press creates more welfare and economic growth.”

Working journalists, on the other hand, often find themselves at odds with corporations in at least one sense. They need access to information the companies work hard to keep private. Often enough, this is data or facts that would ultimately benefit society and, indeed, expose or forestall corruption. So it’s also natural that the news media industry harbors an abiding skepticism about the intentions and perceived stakes of corporations in the information supply chain. But that absolutely necessary tension shouldn’t spill over into a misunderstanding about our shared interest in the free and open exchange of information.

As a bulwark of press freedom, the FCCJ is already promoting that cause by holding news conferences at which no presenter can pre-screen questions. We also advocate and even agitate for reporters and editors in places where the government is the primary oppressor of free and open news media. We can and should expand that activity day-by-day and year-by-year. In doing so, we are among the very good company of other press clubs in the region and organizations from Reporters San Frontieres to UNESCO and Freedom House.

But we also have an opportunity to drive and enhance discussion and practice by drawing attention to the stakes businesses and economies have in freedom of the press. We are well situated to tell that story and embody it.

While Japan is neither the economic growth nor business development star of Asia, it does have one of the region’s freest news media environments and most stable economies.

While Singapore has tax and regulatory advantages over Japan as an Asian outpost for global companies, it lacks a free press. Hong Kong, long a superstar of growth with good and improving financial transparency, has gone into a tailspin. This has been led in no small part by a vicious clampdown on the news media. While we’ve yet to see a mass migration of global corporations from Hong Kong to Tokyo as their Asia base, there have been some such movements – including new members to the club who have joined after fleeing the oppression in Hong Kong.

The FCCJ’s member base adds to our credibility as a promoter of the business worlds’ stake in freedom of the press. A majority of members, and an even greater portion of revenue, work in the corporate and business worlds. While they do not report the news, they are strong supporters of the people who do and of the free environment they work in. Without them, we literally wouldn’t exist as a club.

While the club and the journalists it represents must always be neutral toward the business interests of corporations, they need not be adversarial.

When it comes to freedom of the press, big business has every reason to be on our side, and we on theirs.

Dave McCombs
President, FCCJ