12. 06. 2014

JOURNALISM SNATCHED FROM JOURNALISTS, MEDIA FROM AUDIENCE

Media can restore integrity only if there is a consesus that they have an obligation to serve public interest and to meet citizens' communication rights, the conference participants said on June 12.

"Media do not serve public interest, they are corrupt, and corrupt media are deeply undemocratic. However, this is not a problem of this region only. It could be said that it has become a global problem, and thus global solutions should be sought", assessed Brankica Petković, coordinator of the South East European Media Observatory.

According to her, pressure on the media and system of corrupt relations strengthen every day, which blocks and annihilates the possibility that media serve public interest, which is very detrimental to democracy.

The conference participants underlined that great problems in operation of the meda are inedaquate media laws, and the fact that the existing, well-written laws are in fact not implemented in practice.

A great problem is also non-transparency of media ownership, as well as direct and indirect interference of the state in the media market, but also in the work of public broadcasting services, which are not independent from political influence.

The conference participants also asked if the journalists are victims of such system or if they are in fact collaborators in the destruction of media integrity.

"To be a journalist today means to be socially degraded to a servant of businessmen, professionally reduced to the "microphone holder", and economically reduced to a worker without rights, whose salary is often lower than the national average", it is stated in the conclusions of the study "Media Integrity Matters", produced by a group of authors involved in the analysis of media situation in the Sout East Europe.

The two-day conference in Tirana is attended by representatives of the media, journalists' associations, regulatory bodies, and media experts from South East Europe.