BRUSSELS, 07.09.2017. – A coalition of international journalist and media freedom organisations, as well as intergovernmental institutions have gathered in Brussels on 5 September under the initiative of Harlem Désir, the newly appointed OSCE Media Freedom Representative, and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) to discuss challenges and develop new ideas for cooperation to defend media freedom across Europe. The attended organisations included Access Now, Article 19, Association of European Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists, European Federation of Journalists, European Digital Rights, IFEX, International Federation of Journalists, Index on Censorship, International News Safety Institute, International Press Institute, PEN International, Reporters Without Borders as well as David Kaye the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Opening the round table discussion, Mr. Désir expressed his commitment to work with journalist organisations and media freedom groups to defend an increasingly challenging media freedom landscape in the 57 OSCE participating states.  He outlined the key priorities and mandates including the safety of journalists, combating impunity, countering propaganda disinformation and fake news, counter-terrorism measures, freedom of expression, media pluralism and regulation.

Ricardo Gutiérrez, EFJ General Secretary, said, ”Facing with the increasing attacks on journalists and the precariousness of the profession, it is becoming ever more important for journalists’ organisations and media NGOs to build stronger coalition in order to counter the enemies of media freedom.”

Gutiérrez highlighted the media freedom situation in Turkey with 157 journalists arrested including the recent arrest of French journalists Loup Bureau.

The case of arrested journalist Hamza Yalçin in Spain, the declining media freedom in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the continuing state of emergency in France and Turkey, the ongoing media crackdown in Azerbaijan, the new surveillance laws in France, UK, Germany, the digital security and the role of public and private media actors were among the issues discussed between civil society representatives and Désir.

Participants  pointed out the implementation gap among OSCE participating states in enforcing media freedom and the lack of political willingness to improve the situation. Faced with the challenge, participants focused the discussion on finding new ways and cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders including journalists’ organisations, media freedom groups, members of the public, inter-governmental organisations, European institutions and technology companies.

In particular, there is an urgent need to rebuild trust in the media especially among members of the public through more engagement.

The meeting ended in good spirit with renewal commitment from the attended organisations to further the cooperation in the future.

Sarajevo, 6 September 2017.- The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina has condemned all threats and attacks directed at journalists and expressed their willingness to fight hate speech, as stated in the report of their 113th session, held on 5 September 2017.

This condemnation of threats and attacks aimed at journalists was preceded by an examination of cases of journalists’ rights violations reported to the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists, forwarded by the Association of BH Journalists and the Regional Platform of Western Balkans for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists’ Safety.

The Council of Europe Platform states that 24 attacks on journalists have been recorded in Bosnia in the course of 2017, As stated in the CoM press communication, two of the examples of threats to journalists from the “N1” TV station and the “Večernji list” newspaper were documented in detail.

PRISTINA, 04.09.2017 – Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AJK) condemns selection of media by PAN coalition and New Kosovo Alliance (AKR) party on the occasion of reached agreement which aims to form post-election institutions.

AJK expresses deep concern that media were not invited to cover the coalition agreement signature ceremony held on Monday late evening between PAN coalition [Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and NISMA] and AKR of Behgjet Pacolli. Arbresh.info was the only online media that covered the event.

“AJK considers that in this activity other media should have been invited without any exclusion”, association’s press release reads.

The portal’s owner is Rrahim Pacolli, close relative of AKR’s president, Behgjet Pacolli. The new agreement seems to end the deadlock of forming the institutions and to end political post-election crisis in Kosovo since early parliamentary election held on June 11^th 2017.

“The today’s action of PAN-AKR coalition was aimed by some politicians to escape from media and journalists. Also, the coalition in question aimed to dictate the reporting of media for this agreement, an event that represents extraordinarily interest for public opinion,” AJK’s press release says.

AJK demands greater engagement from political parties especially from those that aim power in governance and show readiness to be challenged and cooperate with journalists.

BRUSSELS, 04.09.2017. –  Journalists are facing increasing economic and political pressure hampering editorial independence in the newsrooms, concluded 20 journalists who attended the two-day workshop on Promoting editorial independence in the newsrooms. It was co-organised by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) together with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) on 29 & 30 August with the financial support of the European Union. The workshop was also supported by the Association des journalistes Professionnels (AJP, Belgium) alongside their yearly Summer School for young journalists in Belgium.

Journalists coming from 13 European countries (including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Finland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia, Spain and Ireland) expressed their daily challenges to maintain editorial independence in the newsroom and exchanged ideas on developing measures to remain independent.

“We want for journalists to be a part of the newsroom management,” said Sandro Calderon, journalist from RTBF, the public broadcaster of the French Community of Belgium. In that way, they have more influence on what is being decided in their media. He highlighted that apart from political sensitive issues, journalists also face the pressure of increasing workload which can compromise the quality and editorial independence. One of the ways to ensure editorial independence is by securing decent working conditions of journalists. “Journalists don’t have good contracts, so we negotiate for better conditions and try to mobilize them. By pressuring more we reduce the burn outs. In doing that we recently obtained 60 new permanent contracts from the management,” Calderon added.

President of the Société des Journalistes Professionnels at Le Soir (daily newspaper in Belgium), Marc Metdepenningen explained to the participants that the collective agreement at Le Soir contains provision to ensure editorial independence. Metdepenningen said “newspapers have two sort of capitals: the economic capital and the moral or intellectual capital. Any paper without moral values is not good for its readers. Editorial independence and quality information can gain trust among readers.”

When it comes to ensuring editorial independence in the newsrooms, trade unions and press councils play an important role in it. Jean-François Dumont, deputy general secretary at the AJP and Muriel Hanot, general secretary at the Belgian press council (CDJ ) both agreed on importance of lobbying national institutions and negotiating with media owners and managers to respect the rights of journalists. Collective action through journalists’ unions and association can be efficient ways to ensure editorial independence in the newsroom.

The participants outlined some of the pressing issues including state control of the media (especially in Russia), physical attacks on journalists and the interference on editorial decision from advertisers. Many journalists expressed that it is common to impose self-censorship when writing about stories related to advertisers.

Even in Finland, journalists face mounting political pressure as illustrated by Susanna Sjösted, a journalist from the Finnish Public Service Broadcaster YLE. She shared a recent case of editorial interference from the country’s prime minister. The scandal called YLEgate has led to journalists resigned and loss of public trust in YLE.

The common issue is also the need of journalists to fight for their stories, since frequently they don’t get published so that the media doesn’t lose the money from advertisers, who often think that journalists don’t have a problem with writing sponsored content.

The purpose of the workshop was also developing an action plan to be implemented at the workplace. The participants agreed that media workers need to take more decisive action and presented some possible solutions:

• pressure to media owners by collective actions, such as strikes;
• raising awareness of journalists to be part of trade unions;
• promoting the benefits of unions with campaigns, where social media can be a good tool for reaching more people;
• involving audience to demand reliable information;
• empowering journalists to use legal support, which is effective in a lot of cases, but not implemented enough;
• awards for those who promote media freedom the most;
• lawyers inside trade unions, who would have agreements with public prosecutors;
• education campaigns and seminars on editorial independence.