SKOPJE, 21.03.2018 – By signing a declaration on ethical and professional media reporting on issues related to LGBTI people, about 20 media outlets and organizations pledged to abide by the principles in a bid to ‘put an end to discrimination and derogatory speech targeting the LGBTI community in the media and to promote sexual and gender diversity, including LGBTI rights.
“We call on the other media to rally around the declaration, which is open for all,” said Slavco Dimitrov of the Coalition ‘Margins’ that has initiated activities in cooperation with the Council for Media Ethics, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia and the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services. The Agency’s director, Zoran Trajcevski, said that the general climate about LGBTI rights was changing at a slow pace, which wasn’t enough.
“This shortcoming is reflected in the media coverage of reality, and let’s not forget – the media create the reality and they should use their influence in order to change the portrayal of LGBTI people,” he stated. The media, Marina Tuneva of the Council of Media Ethics said, only by realistic representation of LGBTI people, as individuals who were not different from others, would play their role in promoting the idea of equality.
In the past several years, the Council has registered many examples of journalistic reporting that has contained stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and hate speech against this community, biased and selective reporting as well as coverage that imposes perception that somehow protection of LGBTI rights would threaten the rights of the other individuals in the society”, she noted.
The representative of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia Deniz Sulejman, said that the Ethical Code of Journalists of Macedonia was adopted in year 2001. According to it, journalists should not consciously create or process information that jeopardize the human rights and freedoms and should not encourage discrimination of any sort, including sexual orientation.