Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

External checks—the media

Media such as newspapers, magazines, and television are popular sources of information and an external check and balance residing outside of organizations and businesses. The print media has held significant power during the last century over public opinion and has served as an important counterbalance for misguided, unlawful, and toxic leadership. Many political and organizational scandals have been exposed first in newspapers. For instance, the Watergate scandal was initially reported in and extensively followed up in the Washington Post.⁹¹ Investigative reporters from Newsweek magazine exposed the Hewlett-Packard spying scandal.⁹² The media remains a powerful “check and balance,” even if its expert sources are increasingly perceived as partisan and the industry is in decline. Continuing declines in the influence and impact of the media might well be associated with greater toxicity in the future, at least until some other form of checks and balances emerges to replace it.