ABSTRACT
This book is about news media transparency in the presentation of news and other information that the news media present as truth. Specifically, we provide a theoretical framework for understanding news media transparency and
its antithesis-media opacity-by reporting and analyzing data from more than sixty countries throughout the world. While transparency in the news gathering/dissemination process is inferred by news media throughout much of the world, media opacity exists to greater or lesser extents worldwide. Lack of transparency allows powerful hidden interests to influence news media gatherers and disseminators, whose publicly perceived role is to present news and other information based on these gatekeepers’ perception of this information’s truth. Empirical data we have collected over the years illustrate the range and varying extents of media opacity worldwide as well as its pervasiveness in specific regions and countries. From multiple perspectives, we examine the complex question of whether media opacity should be categorically condemned as being universally inappropriate and unethical or whether it should be accepted-or at least tolerated-in some situations and environments.
