Editing Political corruption (section)

===Media===
[[Thomas Jefferson]] observed a tendency for "The functionaries of every government ... to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.  There is no safe deposit [for liberty and property] ... without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." Recent research supports Jefferson's claim. Brunetti and Weder found "evidence of a significant relationship between more press freedom and less corruption in a large cross-section of countries." They also presented "evidence which suggests that the direction of causation runs from higher press freedom to lower corruption."<ref>{{Cite journal| last1 = Brunetti | first1 = Aymo | last2 = Weder | first2 = Beatrice | author-link1 = Aymo Brunetti| author-link2 = Beatrice Weder di Mauro | year = 2003| title = A free press is bad news for corruption| journal = Journal of Public Economics  | volume = 87 | issue = 7–8 | pages = 1801–1824| doi=10.1016/s0047-2727(01)00186-4}}</ref> Adserà, Boix, and Payne found that increases in newspaper readership led to increased [[political accountability]] and lower corruption in data from roughly 100 countries and from different states in the US.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 =  Adserà | first1 = Alícia | last2 = Boix | first2 = Carles | author2-link = :ca:w:Carles Boix i Serra| last3 = Payne | first3 = Mark | year = 2000 | title = Are You Being Served?: Political Accountability and Quality of Government| journal = Working Paper | issue = 438 | url = http://www.princeton.edu/~cboix/JLEO-paper.pdf| access-date  = 2014-08-17}} and {{Cite journal | last1 =  Adserà | first1 = Alícia | last2 = Boix | first2 = Carles | author2-link = :ca:w:Carles Boix i Serra | last3 = Payne | first3 = Mark | year = 2003 | title = Are You Being Served? Political Accountability and Quality of Government| journal = Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization | volume = 19 | issue = 2 | pages = 445–490| url = http://www.princeton.edu/~cboix/JLEO-paper.pdf| access-date = 2014-08-31 | doi=10.1093/jleo/19.2.445| hdl = 10419/87999 | hdl-access = free}}</ref>

Snyder and Strömberg found "that a poor fit between newspaper markets and political districts reduces press coverage of politics. ... Congressmen who are less covered by the local press work less for their constituencies: they are less likely to stand witness before congressional hearings ... . Federal spending is lower in areas where there is less press coverage of the local members of congress."<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Snyder | first1 = James M. | last2 = Strömberg | first2 = David | year = 2010 | title = Press Coverage and Political Accountability| journal = [[Journal of Political Economy]] |volume=118 |issue=2 |pages=355–408 | doi=10.1086/652903| citeseerx = 10.1.1.210.8371 | s2cid = 154635874 }}</ref> Schulhofer-Wohl and Garrido found that the year after the ''[[Cincinnati Post]]'' closed in 2007, "fewer candidates ran for municipal office in the Kentucky suburbs most reliant on the Post, incumbents became more likely to win re-election, and voter turnout and campaign spending fell.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Schulhofer-Wohl | first1 = Sam |author-link1=Sam Schulhofer-Wohl| last2 = Garrido | first2 =Miguel | year = 2013 | title = Do Newspapers Matter? Short-Run and Long-Run Evidence From the Closure of ''The Cincinnati Post''| journal=[[Journal of Media Economics]] |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=60–81 |doi=10.1080/08997764.2013.785553 |url=http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/wp/wp686.pdf | citeseerx = 10.1.1.193.9046 | s2cid = 155050592 }}</ref>

An analysis of the evolution of mass media in the [[United States]] and [[European Union]] since World War II noted mixed results from the growth of the Internet:  "The digital revolution has been good for freedom of expression [and] information [but] has had mixed effects on freedom of the press":  It has disrupted traditional sources of funding, and new forms of Internet journalism have replaced only a tiny fraction of what's been lost.<ref>{{Cite journal | last = Starr| first = Paul | year = 2012 
| title = An Unexpected Crisis: The News Media in Post-industrial Democracies| journal = International Journal of Press/Politics | volume = 17 | issue = 2 | pages = 234–242| url = https://www.princeton.edu/~starr/articles/articles11/Starr_UnexpectedCrisis_2011.PDF| access-date = 2014-08-31| quote = Since 2000, the newspaper industry alone has lost an estimated "$1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity... or roughly 30 per cent," but the new non-profit money coming into journalism has made up less than one-tenth that amount. | doi=10.1177/1940161211434422| s2cid = 146729965 }}</ref> Media responses to whistleblower incidents or reports, and to matters which generate skepticism in established law and government but may not technically be whistleblower incidents, are limited by the prevalence of [[political correctness]] and [[speech codes]] in many Western nations.  In China and many other East Asian countries the state-enforced [[speech codes]] limit or, in their view, channel the efforts of the media and civil society to reduce public corruption.