Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) releases Press Freedom Index 2010.

Last year was a particularly grim one for journalists, as the number of murdered reporters rose 26 percent, while violence against journalists increased by a third. This year the Press Freedom Index casts a glaring eye on Europe, noting particular concern about the deteriorating press freedom situation in the European Union, as 2010 saw several EU countries take a dive in ranking.

According to Reporters Without Borders secretary general Jean-François Julliard, “It is disturbing to see several European Union member countries continuing to fall in the index. If it does not pull itself together, the European Union risks losing its position as world leader in respect for human rights. And if that were to happen, how could it be convincing when it asked authoritarian regimes to make improvements? There is an urgent need for the European countries to recover their exemplary status.”

The report places 13 of the EU’s 27 members in the top 20, however it appears the other 14 are slinking toward the shameful side of the index. Italy rolls in at 49th, Romania at 52nd and Greece and Bulgaria tied up at 70th. Notes Julliard, “There has been no progress in several countries where Reporters Without Borders pointed out problems. They include, above all, France and Italy, where events of the past year – violation of the protection of journalists’ sources, the continuing concentration of media ownership, displays of contempt and impatience on the part of government officials towards journalists and their work, and judicial summonses – have confirmed their inability to reverse this trend.”

Yet things are looking up on top.  Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland ranked highest, applauded for their efforts in facilitating press freedom. Iceland chalks up special points for the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), a bill aimed at offering an unprecedented level of protection for the media. Sweden’s Press Freedom Act deserves similar kudos for helping to secure an amicable climate for journalists, providing shelter from judicial abuse.

On the bum end of the stick Rwanda, Yemen and Syria joined Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran and Turkmenistan, listed as the world’s most repressive countries towards journalists.

See Reporters Without Borders for more.

EU and US join forces, launch website, battle piracy.

The new site – the Transatlantic IPR Portal – was devised to help small software and hardware developers protect their intellectual property from counterfeiters. According to the European Commission, international trade in counterfeit and pirated products is approaching an enormous $250 billion annually, and figures of that magnitude demand urgent attention. The IPR Portal is geared toward educating businesses, and users will be advised on their intellectual property rights on both sides of the Atlantic.

For more, see the European Journalism Centre.

*Article courtesy of the European Journalism Centre

Among many others, one of the challenges faced by post-revolutionary countries concerns journalism and the media.

A free, pluralistic, and responsible media is a prerequisite for a functioning democracy, and requires, in turn, a base of qualified contributors – professional journalists and citizen stakeholders alike. Yet to achieve this is anything but simple.

At the recent Brussels conference Media Futures – Policy, Politics and Power, organised by the European Neighbourhood Journalism Network (ENJN), it was Polish journalist and civil rights activist Konstanty Gebert who drove this point home most emphatically. He warned that the transition to a free and democratic media system may be almost as difficult for revolutionaries themselves as it usually turns out to be for the former mouthpieces of defunct authoritarian regimes.

Flipping the switch

“We all have lived in countries which had official journalism that looked like the real thing, the way a stuffed bird might look like a real bird – except it can’t fly,” Gebert said. Irrespective of their individual degree of guilt and depth of involvement, journalists who used to serve the old system typically cannot simply flip a switch and instantly, if ever, provide appropriate coverage under the new auspices. Still, many of them tend to keep their jobs at least for a while, either due to the inertia of existing publishing outlets, or because their know-how remains essential to keep news organisations running at all.

At the same time, the proponents of political change – i.e., the victors of the revolution – need to adapt fundamentally to the new situation as well, lest they all too quickly forfeit the legitimacy and credibility they earned hard in their time as underground activists. They must avoid succumbing to self-righteousness and patronising, while being careful not to let the rush of newly found liberties get to their heads either.
Gebert spoke from experience. After in 1989 the Solidarność movement had successfully toppled the communist regime in Poland, formerly underground journalists learned that they had to scrutinise their own friends, who now ran for government office, just as closely as they used to investigate the communists. Readers actually protested when Gazeta Wyborcza (literally the Electoral Gazette, which had emerged from Solidarność) started backing specific candidates – fed up with being told what to think, the audience craved for impartial information and analysis.

Principles of journalism

And yet, post-communist Poland benefited massively from the extensive network of clandestine opposition media that had existed in the country under the old regime. “The only thing we in the underground had going for us was credibility”, said Gebert. “If the government caught us lying just once, if they could prove that underground press was not telling the truth, our credibility would be in tatters… We learned the hard way the principles of professional journalism.”

Other countries in a similar situation – Gebert quoted the example of Romania, but the Arab Spring region comes to mind, too – do not necessarily have this kind of a self-trained, seasoned, and quasi-professional journalistic workforce to fall back on. Such a deficit makes it all the more difficult to launch a free media system and to thoroughly reform the ways of journalism. Political value judgements aside, even the most well-intentioned incumbent reporters may find it tough to adapt to new ways of thinking and working.

This is, of course, not a specific problem of journalism. Just think of how outdated industries tend to stick stubbornly to their accustomed business practices until abandoning them for good has become glaringly unavoidable. However, once it comes to state-building, the issue is more serious than where it is merely about the continued existence of some business sector. In the words of Konstanty Gebert: “It’s not democratic institutions that create democracy, it’s democrats. It’s not a formally free media system that ensures that you get free media, it’s independent professional journalists.”

European lessons learned

It appears that some insight from such first-hand experience has managed to trickle into the European Union’s institutions. Under the neighbourhood policy budget for the next years, a portion of funding is specifically earmarked for actions to raise awareness of journalism ethics, media independence, and good working practices in the entire region, but with particular emphasis on the Maghreb – certainly not an easy task. While the EU and its private contractors (such as the ENJN organisers) must take the utmost care not to patronise aspiring or experienced journalists, there remains the challenge to stimulate an intrinsic change of attitude in media actors who may not even realise their need to develop a new perspective (including, possibly, their take on citizen journalism and social media).

The European Union has all the prerequisites to achieve this, as long as it manages to translate its own experience into action wisely. Over the current financial woes, it is easily forgotten that the very foundations of the EU lie in first overcoming the seemingly insurmountable enmity between European states after the Second World War, and later in the integration of post-communist Eastern Europe, rocky though actual progress in some cases may be. The many specific flaws aside, Europe is visionary and, overall, magnificently successful in this respect.

The EU’s history can thus become a highly credible source of inspiration for countries now going through post-revolutionary and post-war transitions. As Dagmar Hovestädt, spokesperson of the German Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, emphasised, the best – if not only – way to achieve this may be to openly share best and worst practice and then to work out with the appropriate representatives of the countries concerned what lessons can be learned and how they can be applied to their situation.

Revision of policy

It is precisely the EU’s own domestic track record that also provides the rationale for insisting on peace-building and reconciliation between conflicting countries, no matter what. Arab participants at the conference asked, for instance, how Israel could be included in the programme, and a few journalists even refused to be in the same room with their Israeli colleagues. However, building on the tradition of the European integration process, EU policy may actually be at its best where it is inclusive by default.

In his speech at the conference, Štefan Füle, the European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), acknowledged that for too long the EU had believed long-term stability could be guaranteed by non-democratic regimes, implying that it had given economic and power interests a higher priority than democracy. For the revised ENP, Füle pledged a new commitment to civil society, freedom, and the rule of law. When the ENP was originally launched in 2007, he said referring to the EU’s funding programme for activities in neighbour countries, “we focused on the instrument. This time we have focused more on the endgame.”

Indeed, the ENP is, in principle, based on the blueprint of the seminal Enlargement Policy, but Europe’s trust and credibility in the region have suffered a great deal from ill-conceived political manoeuvring (including cosying up to the late Muammar Gaddafi). By making recourse to the European values in earnest, perhaps the damages can be repaired and the citizens’ respect recovered.

This applies not least to providing appropriate support for journalism and the media, too. Dependable, trust-inspiring news media are indispensable for meaningful and sustainable political reform in the neighbourhood countries, yet will remain extremely precarious for years, if not decades, to come. Still, to quote Konstanty Gebert again: “Somebody who has witnessed 1989 no longer has the right to be a pessimist… If we made it, you can!”

This article was originally published on on Eric Karstens’ blog and on the website of the EJC. Please note that the author Eric Karstens is involved in the ENJN project as a tender writer for the EJC.

As MEDIADEM authors continue plowing through their research, the scope of the €2.65 million media policy project takes shape.

In a thorough examination, project director Evangelia Psychogiopoulou from the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIMEP) in Athens, Greece, leads a research group intent on determining whether European media policy is fueling or inhibiting a free and independent media system.

MEDIADEM’s objective is to pinpoint and develop media policies that are tailored to the unique fluctuations occurring across the European media landscape. The research project features collaborations from 14 universities in 12 EU countries and two candidate countries and is funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research as part of the Citizen in the European Union grant agreement. The considerable research undertaking began in April 2010 and will conclude through March 2013.

Project Outline

Three categories of media policy were developed by the MEDIADEM project in order to assess and fuel the development of quality media across Europe. According to the policy brief, the project first seeks to introduce and maintain a legally enabling environment, followed by the promotion of professional standards and ethics, and finally “the strengthening of media literacy.”

The MEDIADEM work plan consists of four separate phases and began with the production of an extensive report establishing theoretical foundations for the project’s research aims. Phase one also provided background information on the 14 different media markets participating in the project.

The second phase, which is ongoing, delves into empirical research in the form of 14 case studies, one for each of the collaborating countries. These in-depth case studies aim to assess media policy by not only examining the legislation but by also outlining the development process. In order to determine if individual media policies promote variety and independence in media, analysis focused on regulatory policy by making comparisons across Europe.

The third phase of the project will build on information gathered in the initial phases of the project in order to develop phase three, which according to MEDIADEM, is designed to “explain variable patterns of media policy [and] targeting media freedom and independence.”

The fourth and final phase of the project will attempt to enact change across media systems in Europe by formulating concrete strategy suggestions aimed at influencing both government and non-governmental policy makers.

The reports in all four phases of the project will be prepared through a variety of research tools, including the examination of primary and secondary resources, and semi structured interviews and conferences.

When complete, the project will have produced a monumental research portfolio which will include a theoretical report, one collective background report, 14 separate country-specific case studies, two comparative reports, a collective policy paper as well as numerous policy briefs, three case-study workshops, 14 national discussion groups, and one final MEDIADEM conference.

Target groups for the literature and research produced by MEDIADEM include the academic community, both government and non-governmental policy makers, media professionals, human rights organizations, and judicial authorities at the EU level, amongst others.

By taking an in depth look at the distinctive scenarios in all 14 countries, the MEDIADEM project has positioned itself to make meaningful suggestions that could make a long term impact in each market.

Further information as well the current research portfolio can be found here.

Journalists in Turkey face increasing harassment and imprisonment due to a handful of loosely interpreted anti-terrorism laws.

As publicity of the intimidation continues, convincing the Turkish government to enact reforms proves to be a delicate task. A new report published early this month by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reveals the number of working journalists imprisoned in Turkey has nearly doubled in the past year, bringing the total to 95.

The report, published in conjunction with Reporters Without Borders, details how Turkey has become one of the world’s worst offenders when it comes to jailing journalists. According to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović, the number of imprisoned journalists raises serious questions about the level of free expression in Turkey.

Most agree that a handful of broadly interpreted laws are to blame for the majority of the convictions, namely Articles five and seven of Turkey’s anti-terror law and Article 314 of Turkey’s criminal code.

Both legal provisions are designed to target individuals who knowingly create or distribute propaganda on behalf of a known terrorist group, and to punish individuals who join or participate in an armed organization with the aim of harming individuals or conspiring against the state.

Mijatović, who recognizes the right of governments to fight terrorism and protect national security and their citizens, is fearful of government intimidation and its effects on Turkey’s budding democracy. “Objective reporting about all issues, including sensitive topics such as terrorism, is a fundamental part of democratic societies and journalists play an indispensable role by providing information to the public.”

Also at issue is the manner in which journalists are jailed. Turkish courts have been known to impose exceptionally long prison terms, with many journalists facing double life sentences. In addition, journalists often face several trials and are regularly convicted for multiple offences.

Turkey dealt with scrutiny over failing to protect press freedom from numerous organizations within Europe without ever formally acknowledging the accusations. Last November the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said that among all 47-member states in the Council of Europe, Turkey had the worst press-freedom record. In addition, the ECHR received almost 9000 complaints against Turkey in 2011 for infringing on the rights of the press, compared with 6,500 in 2009. More recently a Columbia Journalism Review poll placed Turkey in the top 10 of countries jailing the greatest number of journalists per capita, ahead of both Iran and Yemen.

While numerous officials have been named in reports, a New York Times article published in January 2012 took a particularly hard line with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claiming Erdogan is actively seeking to silence his opponents after a failed attempt by opposition members to ban his party in 2008.

The Times article used reports from government officials and Turkish media members who feared Prime Minister Erdogan was “repressing freedom of the press through a mixture of intimidation, arrests and financial machinations, including the sale in 2008 of a leading newspaper and television station to a company linked to the prime minister’s son-in-law.”

What remains to be seen are the long-term effects of the added publicity from the European Union and foreign media outlets in promoting alterations to Turkish law. Reports of released journalists are few and far between, with the last high profile report coming in early March 2011 when four journalists were released pending their upcoming conspiracy trial.

With government officials denying accusations of press intimidation and downplaying the legitimacy of reports of jailed journalists, mediators will need to tread lightly when convincing officials to modify their anti-terror law interpretations.

International Press Institute’s Freedom Manager Barbara Trionfi said this month, “While we welcome Turkey’s rise on the world stage, we are concerned that press freedom in the country is coming under ever greater threat. Turkey has an extraordinary opportunity to shine as an example of a healthy democracy – but this can only be accomplished if the country respects its citizens’ right to information via a free press.”

There’s been a recent revival of trials attempting to integrate Turkey into the EU, yet advocates of such an action should perhaps take a closer look.

Unfortunately, Western media rarely report on the harassment doled out to members of the press in Turkey. For the sake of transparency, I’ll confess that even as a media researcher and journalism expert, I’ve been largely unaware of how Prime Minister Erdogan has driven the media toward conformity and the ways in which he’s supported the creeping Islamisation of his country. Perhaps most alarming is the recent dismantling of Dogan, the largest Turkish media company to demonstrate a critical attitude toward his government.

Erdogan’s son-in-law was enthroned as CEO of the other media conglomerate, Calik. Unfavorable editors in chief were replaced, and journalists risking a critical lip may face personal reprimands by the prime minister himself (or worse, may find themselves imprisoned as “terrorists”).

The behavior is reminiscent of Silvio Berlusconi, in certain respects even of the “Gleichschaltung” of the media by Hitler and Goebbels during the Nazi regime in Germany. According to Reporters without Borders’ Press Freedom Index, Turkey is now ranked 148.

I owe my insights here to the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) – the association of journalism schools in Europe. During their annual meeting, renowned Turkish editors and media researchers provided detailed information about the dramatic developments in their country.

Befitting of the overall picture, one young researcher and conference participant allegedly discovered she was in line to lose her job only a few days after the conference. The dean of her university wanted to fire her after a radical right wing newspaper accused the researcher of belonging to the forbidden Kurdistan Workers Party PKK. Thanks to student protests, this decision was revised by the rector. However, such trials of intimidation create a poisonous climate. Certainly not the best precondition to integrate this huge nation into the EU, which is already shaken by its financial crisis.

Article originally published in Die Furche, Nr. 24/2012

*Article courtesy of the European Journalism Centre

On a Tuesday morning in Rome, a woman drinks her espresso while browsing the European Daily in a noisy cafeteria.

At the same time in Stockholm, an Erasmus student from Bulgaria is absorbed in a report from the same paper about his country finally being accepted into the Schengen area. Although just a scenario right now, these scenes could soon become reality with the expected launch of the European Daily newspaper in early autumn.

“Europe’s daily newspaper will give open-minded Europeans a reliable, authoritative source for quality news and analysis in English from a European perspective,” says Johan Malmsten, one of the three young founders of the newspaper. Hold on a second, a new daily newspaper in 2012? Who wants to launch a newspaper at a time when advertising revenues are increasingly migrating online and print journalists need to learn multimedia skills to keep their jobs? At a time when media analysts are predicting the death of print media?

“We are a publication that partly targets a more senior audience who, to a great extent, still prefers print, as well as a traveling audience who wants to read their news on a flight or at their hotel,” says Malmsten. Malmsten and his partners say they are prepared for the troubled waters of the print industry. On the long term, they are relying on a mix of print and online to create a sustainable revenue stream. Since they intend to keep the newspaper independent, they are now working hard to find financing partners for their new venture.

A Pan-European Newspaper

The idea for the European Daily was born in Paris in 2007, when Malmsten and Christofer Berg, two Swedes studying and working in the French capital, felt the need for a media outlet that would speak about the daily reality of Europeans living in another country than their own on the European continent. Malmsten is a young entrepreneur who studied international business at Harvard University and organisational behaviour at the London School of Economics. His partner, Berg, graduated from the University of Cambridge and is now a parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament in Brussels. The two Swedes are running the European Daily project together with a third entrepreneur, Daniel Freund from Germany. While Malmsten and Freund mainly focus on operational aspects of the newspaper, Berg is primarily responsible for the editorial content.

They are supported by a group of advisors and part of the future editorial staff of the newspaper. A team of volunteers updates the newspaper’s website. Malmsten explains that the European Daily team will consist of about 30 people from the start, about half of whom will work on the content. “Most editorial positions will be filled by very senior professionals with experience from major international or national dailies. They will be complemented by a number of younger stars. We are putting a lot of effort into setting up a diverse team, in terms of age, nationality and gender, although we are of course a bit constrained by our language requirement. They need to have an excellent level of English.”

“Some people have praised us on our perfect timing, given the vivid current debate about Europe and the fact that a European news source and a common public sphere have never been as much in demand. At the same time, others tell us it is bold to launch a European paper these days, asking: ‘What if Europe falls apart?’”

The young entrepreneur makes it clear that the starting point for the European Daily is not the European Union, but the pragmatic aspects of a Europe where people are crossing borders for study, work, and leisure more than ever before. Personal and professional networks go beyond countries and nationalities. “Europe is a daily reality for millions of Europeans and that won’t change. We see giving these people a news source and a daily point of reference as our mission, and 2012 is one year better than 2013,” says Malmsten.

A Successful Preview Edition

In the summer of 2011, the European Daily printed 40,000 copies of a preview edition to present the vision of the newspaper to future readers. The copies were distributed mainly in Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris. The response to the preview edition was overwhelmingly positive, according to the paper’s founders, who admit they were originally slightly worried about the reception of a European branded English newspaper title in non EU-member states such as Switzerland and Norway, or in Euro-sceptic countries such as the United Kingdom.

But the preview edition brought them a surprising discovery in that respect. “What we found is that these polarised markets provide an opportunity rather than a challenge. It seems, for example, that many Norwegians feel disconnected from the rest of Europe and for them a title like the European Daily can symbolise a certain belonging. The Norwegian retail distributor was the first one to get in touch with us after the publication of the preview edition,” Malmsten recalls. The editorial team of the European Daily will be based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The city was chosen for a series of practical and political reasons. “Amsterdam is well connected to the rest of Europe and the city is an attractive place for future staff to relocate to,” says Malmsten.

“On the symbolic side, we did not want to be in Brussels since what we are producing is a European, and not a EU, newspaper. Being based in Brussels would risk sending off the wrong signals in this regard and we would also run the risk of being drawn into the pretty isolated life of the ‘Brussels bubble’ which would give us a disproportionate focus on the EU institutions. Other big capitals with big political machines carry similar risks, so we ruled out London, Paris, Berlin,” Malmsten explains.

Although the feedback from the European Union institutions has been positive, the European Daily does not receive any European funding since its founders want it to be an independent, commercially driven venture. The European Daily team will promote the newspaper at press kiosks around Europe by touring the big cities and handing out 50,000 copies for one or two days after the launch of the newspaper.

It will have a general news coverage, including politics, business, culture, and sport. The style, tone and length of articles will be similar to the preview edition, but the founders wouldn’t reveal more for now.

It will use a Berliner print format and digital editions will be available for the most common types of tablets and smartphones. The newspaper will be sold in large metropolitan areas for €2.50 per copy. European travellers might also find it on planes, trains or at their hotels.

The Erasmus Generation as “Natural Readers”

The team behind the European Daily believes that young people who have taken part in an Erasmus student exchange programme will find the newspaper appealing. “The European Daily is not for everyone, but there is definitely a large target audience out there,” argues Malmsten. “The ‘Erasmus generation’ are our natural readers. So are the many millions of people living in a European country other than their own, as well as those crossing borders for work or leisure”, he explains.

To those who are used to reading the European section of the Financial Times or the International Herald Tribune for information on the old continent, the European Daily will bring a European perspective on issues and events. “For a Dane living in Paris, an important news story in Poland might well be more important than the municipal elections in France. So part of the European perspective will consist in selecting the most important news from across Europe. The other part is covering these news items in a way so that people can relate to them, by applying a European perspective to the story itself. This means asking how does this story matter to our reader as a citizen of Europe?” Malmsten says.

He promises that the European Daily will be an exciting platform for debate in Europe. “Today, if Angela Merkel writes an op-ed, it is translated and published in several national newspapers and quickly segments into parallel, national debates because no one can respond to her piece directly,” he explains. The purpose of his newspaper, he says, is to provide common points of reference for European readers, whether they are looking for the latest news, insightful analyses or thought-provoking opinions.

“Over time, we of course hope that we can help to shape some sort of European public sphere, which is pretty much nonexistent to date,” he adds. In the future, Malmsten also hopes to create a European public sphere, a topic often discussed yet still non existent. The European perspective will be a challenge in itself for the newspaper, since the editorial team will have to cater to readers with different needs and realities but the same expectations for high-quality journalism. “Our editorial staff has to be capable of seeing the wider horizon and picking out the stories that matter. Added to that is the European perspective we strive for, which will sometimes involve additional research, country comparisons, and so on,” Malmsten says.

While the European crisis is experienced as a never-ending dark period for many entrepreneurs, it seems to have given Johan Malmsten and his business partners the perfect time to launch a newspaper for a European audience. Never before staying closer together or falling apart as an union has been more discussed than in the past few years. “Regardless the state of the EU, more people than ever are moving across borders, making careers and friends all across Europe, and that trend is only growing stronger – which is why the launch of the European Daily is quite timely,” says a convinced Malmsten.

Original article, written by Carmen Paun, can be found at the European Journalism Centre.

*Article courtesy of the European Journalism Centre

Why is the European Union so ineffective when it comes to supporting press freedom and media pluralism?

The Vice President of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, addressed this question in a keynote to a European Parliament Seminar on Media Freedom in the EU Member States in May. In short, she made the following points:

• The practical, economic, cultural and legal framework conditions for media pluralism and press freedom vary massively from one Member State to another and thus cannot all be painted with one brush;
• If the EU were to take pluralism-related action at all, it must not focus on bad examples in particular Member States (such as most recently Hungary, or Italy a few years ago), but go for an overarching and universal approach;
• Member States have so far not vested the EU with the power directly to defend media freedom in the first place, at least not within the Member States themselves;
• The issue is aggravated by the fact that journalism, perhaps the most relevant aspect of media pluralism, is currently going through profound changes brought on by the Internet, and the outcome of such changes is yet unknown;
• Public subsidies aiming to sustain accustomed business models for journalism would be wasted as they would merely protract the eventually inevitable process of the sector’s fundamental realignment.

I would agree with all of the above. The European Commission itself has demonstrated in a 2009 study on Indicators for Media Pluralism in the Member States (see my comments in English here and in German here) how many different factors influence press freedom and in how great a variety of constellations they come together in any particular country.

Media pluralism monitor

Nonetheless, the study has managed to develop a viable approach at comparatively measuring media pluralism, and yet it has been lying dormant ever since it was presented. The x have shied away from actually applying the yardstick it provided. Leaving it at the theoretical level certainly made sure that no Member State, media company, or lobby group could be offended, and I imagine there also was quite some resistance against putting more money towards an issue that is beyond the European Union’s purview anyhow.

Still, I would argue that a comparative perspective on media pluralism that takes into account multiple facets, such as the distribution of ownership, market size and fragmentation, economics, approaches to (self-)regulation, genres, and cultural diversity, has a clear added value at European level. While it may currently not be appropriate for the EU actually to make laws in this area, the EU could however provide knowledge and insights which are bigger than the sum of their parts, i.e., the entrenched media systems of individual Member States (*i).

Abandoned journalism initiatives

Two more journalism-related initiatives were renounced by the EU institutions over the last few years before they even reached the stage of a pilot project. One, in 2010, was to provide grants specifically to multi-national teams of investigative journalists. While well-intentioned, the project was ill-conceived in that it took too little into account the mentality and working methods of journalists, and experienced difficulties setting up a proper firewall between the EU as a governmental body and the potentially sensitive, if not offensive, investigative topics. It was abandoned with good reason, but it deprived the public of more than €1 million’s worth of potentially exciting stories even in its earliest planned configuration.

The other, in 2011, looked into establishing an Erasmus for journalists programme, which was supposed to support extended sojourns of professional journalists with media organisations in another EU country. This was a genuinely European task that would have helped, albeit incrementally, to loosen up the media’s predominantly national point of view. Journalists would have had the opportunity to learn about other Member States, to experience first-hand the working methods of their peers, and to appreciate the approach taken in other countries to issues of common concern. Alas, the initiative was scrapped before it could even begin in earnest.

All the above projects were initiated directly or indirectly by the European Parliament and turned over to the European Commission to investigate their feasibility and potentially to implement them later. None of them survived – and yet none was intended directly to subsidise out-dated legacy media business models. All three concepts were rather agnostic of the organisational framework and primarily investing for the benefit of journalistic stories, individual journalists’ professional capacities, media variety in general, and a European public sphere.

Of foam and sphericules

However, people have for a long time discussed whether a European public sphere is possible at all and if so, how it could be achieved. The reasoning is that European integration can only be strengthened if citizens eventually stop identifying only with their countries of origin and consider Europe as a common political space of action that goes beyond petty particular interests of the Member States. Arguably, we are light years away from such a state of European bliss.

Nonetheless, two cheeky and yet apt new metaphors were introduced into the discussion recently. Alexandros Koronakis finds the European public sphere “fragmented into sphericules”, where many more special interests are served by all kinds of media than ever before, while at the same time there remains a lack of an overarching and encompassing awareness of EU-related topics.

And Ronny Patz discovered what he calls “the EU foam”, a term nicely picking up on the idea of the “EU bubble” or “Brussels bubble” that is often used to describe the close-knit community of EU experts knowledgeably communicating with each other while usually remaining obscure for the public at large. Ronny explored how European topics occur in blogs that are not exclusively about Europe and which are written in many different languages rather than only English and French, the de rigueur lingos of EU aficionados. His diagnosis: Once you can be bothered actively to look for them, European topics actually permeate the wider blogosphere. What makes them foam rather than a bubble is their lack of interconnection – they rarely link to each other and hardly ever engage in an actual debate.

Given that blogs tend to be much nimbler than legacy media and that many of them cater to more specific areas of interest than mainstream publications, I take the “EU foam” observation as an indicator that at least the substrate for a European public sphere already exists. The challenge now is to create more awareness for that fact and to start connecting the dots – or, to remain consistent, merging the bubbles.

To-do list

So what can the European Union do about this? It all boils down to one word: CONNECT. A quantitative study (PDF) related to the abovementioned “Erasmus for journalists” project showed, not surprisingly, that on average media in EU Member States devote a low single-digit percentage of their overall news coverage to issues concerning other Member States, never mind the European institutions.

This sorry situation could perhaps be improved in several ways:

• Make journalists more aware of what happens in other Member States and more competent in covering them. An Erasmus-like exchange programme (which was recently also suggested by the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, PDF) would be a great start. It could include seasoned professionals as well as journalism students and bloggers.
• Continue and massively expand initiatives such as blogger accreditation to meetings of the European Council, Council of the European Union, or other high-level events of the European institutions as well as national governments. Bloggers add a greater variety of voices and perspectives to the coverage of EU and cross-national issues and adopt more reader-friendly tonalities than many jaded correspondents.
• Support meaningful aggregation and competent translation of European coverage. As yet, Google Translate is more often than not impeding comfortable reading, whereas for the time being human translations can provide a more natural experience. The portal presseurop.eu, which is paid for by the European Commission to the tune of €3.2 million annually, is an excellent start, as is the volunteer project bloggingportal.eu.
• Create incentives for cross-border syndication of articles in all media categories, for instance through a simplified copyright regime and investments in free open-source translation tools. Particularly when media companies cut back on foreign correspondents, it becomes all the more important to find competent contributors on the ground.
• Set up a general-purpose travel grants fund for reporters. Several initiatives like this exist specifically for investigative journalists, which is good, but narrows the field down too much to create an impact on overall European coverage and awareness. It is not the spectacular case of whistle-blowing that creates cohesion between the Member States’ news audiences, but rather the exposure to mundane everyday issues
• Find ways to foster overarching European media such as the European Daily, i.e., publications that do not primarily address the Brussels Bubble (like, for instance, the European Voice). Addressing the entire EU as an audience automatically changes perspective, as long as the coverage does not become too technical, but rather covers current affairs of general interest.
• Start developing a concept for a full-service European public service media organisation. Television news channel Euronews receives almost €19 million per year in subsidies from the European Commission (PDF) with, however, essentially unquantifiable audience ratings – not to mention the roughly €9 million spent annually on the largely ineffectual EuroparlTV. This could be converted into some seed funding.
• And finally, the European institutions should heed the advice of Robert Madelin, Director-General of the European Commission’s Information Society department (which is soon, and fittingly, to be renamed DG CONNECT) as rendered in this Guardian article: Follow an open, authentic, and personal social media communications strategy at all hierarchy levels, while deliberately cultivating a high level of tolerance towards any mistakes and missteps that might happen.

*Original article can be found at the European Journalism Centre,  August 16, 2012.

Journalists arrested, netizens remanded to trial. A petition calls on EU authorities to intervene as the media in Athens faces a new season of menace.

Economic crisis is bearing down hard in the Hellenic country. Ongoing violence continues to rattle the capital while the nation remains far from uncovering a definitive solution to its economic woes. Newspapers all over the world reported on recent strikes and anti-austerity protests in Athens as parliament discusses a new €13.5 billion austerity package, yet there’s another matter of concern: freedom of speech. Index On Censorship has denounced “multiple instances of censorship and attacks on the press” and “systematic efforts to curtail media freedom” since the tension began. Kostas Vaxevanis’s story is emblematic of the precarious atmosphere among media outlets in Greece.

Vaxevanis, investigative journalist and founder of Hot Doc, was arrested in Athens on October 28^th after his magazine published a leaked list of prominent Greek citizens with bank accounts in Switzerland. The list, as stated by Business Insiders, contains the names of people directly connected to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, and has been known by the government since 2010 but kept secret until published by Hot Doc last month. Vaxevanis spent time in jail and was acquitted and released on November 1st after a blitz trial. His arrest raised condemnation all over the world. Reporters Without Borders and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, called for his release while an online petition on Twitter gathered approximately 16,000 signatures.

Unfortunately, Vaxevanis’ story is not the only recounting of attacks on free speech in Greece over the last few weeks. Journalist Spiros Karatzaferis was also arrested on October 31^st after threatening to publish “damaging allegations” about the Greek economy. The reporter claimed to receive burning material (classified documents and emails) from the hacker collective Anonymous, which proved the Greek deficit was actually fraudulent. Two journalists working for the Greek public service broadcaster ERT, Kostas Arvanitis and Marilena Katsimi, were removed from the palimpsest after investigating an alleged case of police torture committed against anti-fascist protesters. Other cases of digital censorship against netizens have also been reported.

For these reasons, Index on Censorship and nine other media freedom organizations drafted an appeal addressed to EU authorities requesting an intervention to stop censorship in Greece, reading:

“We urge European Union institutions to make a clear stand in favour of freedom of expression and publication in the public interest in Greece. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is legally binding on EU members. This includes the right under Article 11 “to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers,” and the obligation that “the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.”

When democracy is weak, risks for media freedom grow. Even the New York Times cut in on the debate with an editorial about the Greek media, defending journalists’ right to publish public-interest stories. According to the NYT, “Greece’s elected leaders need to pay more attention to investigating possible financial crimes and less to prosecuting journalists.”

Photo credits: Kostas Vaxevanis – International Support Group on Facebook

Digital rights deserve just as much protection as the fundamental rights according to the European Parliament in Strasburg, which recently endorsed  a  report on “Digital Freedom Strategy in Foreign Policy.” The Dutch Member of Parliament, Marietje Schaake – undoubtedly the most “wired” politician in Europe –  introduced the report  which will hopefully influence future European policy in the field of digital freedom and the Internet. The report, approved in Strasburg with a wide majority, lays out many concrete initiatives which, if formally adopted by the Union, will make Europe one of the most progressive regions for rights in the digital sphere. In fact, the report affirms that “uncensored access to the open Internet, mobile phones and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have impacted human rights and fundamental freedoms, exerting an enabling effect by expanding the scope of freedom of expression, access to information, the right to privacy and freedom of assembly across the world.”

Presentation of the report in the Parliament’s plenary meeting

The 71 points detailed in the report consider many highly contested issues pertaining to the digital world, such as social media which “enable[s] governments to engage in direct diplomacy” and ICTs in conflict areas “to promote peace-building activities at civil society level”. The report also emphasizes the need for transparent and collaborative decision-making in political discussion about the Web, stressing its essentiality in ensuring respect for the open and participatory nature of the Internet. The same is needed for the support of Net neutrality and the principle that Internet providers “do not block, discriminate against, impair or degrade, including through price, the ability of any person to use a service to access, use, send, post, receive or offer any content, application or service of their choice, irrespective of source or target.”

Moreover, the report describes how new technology is often used in dictatorial countries to violate human rights with censorship actions, digital surveillance and the tracking of netizens’ activities in order to arrest and silence them. To inspire EU-driven policy against these dystopian acts of democratic violations, the report calls for “a ban on exports of repressive technologies and services to authoritarian regimes,” and asks the European Commission to “address the fact that there are countries practicing the repression and control of citizens, civil society organizations and activists, while business in some countries involves a growing technological component in terms of the blocking of content and the monitoring and identification of human rights defenders, journalists, activists and dissidents.” Further, it calls on the Commission to “act against the criminalization of legitimate expression online.” Considering recent events  in Syria and many other countries where the Internet has been used to help organize protests, these are matters of urgency.

According to Marietje Schaake, the European Parliament’s endorsement of her report confirms how “new technologies bring huge opportunities, but people can only really enjoy them if we also tackle the threats emerging from the rise of ICTs, for example by authoritarian regimes.” Her work aims to address a communitarian strategy in the technology field of EU foreign (and domestic) activity. Digital freedoms, as stated in the report, should be taken into full consideration in the EU’s relations with third countries in such a way that the European Union becomes a global player in the defense of the new rights generated by new technology. Just as with the No Disconnection Strategy revised and supported by Neelie Kroese, the European Union has once again demonstrated a concrete interest in digital and Internet-related issues. The hope is that Schaake’s report will have enough force to become the cornerstone for the European Commission and the European Council to, according to the report’s closure, “adopt a Digital Freedom Strategy in EU foreign policy as soon as possible.”

The European Union’s proposal to strengthen national media self-regulatory bodies has triggered a new debate on whether or not regulatory institutions carry out their tasks effectively and efficiently. A Europe-wide research project “Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe” (MediaAcT) polled journalists from 14 countries to see how effective media regulation is, and how it should change. This report outlines some of the preliminary findings.

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, caused a stir among journalists and media managers when she released her proposals on media regulation and measures to protect press freedom, in January this year. Her “High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism” focused on the consequences of high media-concentration in Eastern and Southern Europe. It also proposed strengthening national media self-regulation bodies, recommending that all European member states have an independent media or press council, which – in contrast to the current state of affairs in many European countries – should be able to impose strict sanctions.

Several journalists and media associations interpreted the report as a sign that the EU wanted to restrict the freedom of the press. British journalists were especially sensitive to the debate, as the British government and media are currently battling over the shape of their own regulatory bodies. The British government ordered a review of the media after it emerged that some reporters from the News of the World had hacked into the voice mails of people in the news. Lord Justice Leveson, who carried out an extensive investigation into the matter, criticized the failure of Britain’s self regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission to check tabloid excesses. pleaded for a system of “controlled self-control,” a system whereby the media self regulated within a legally agreed framework. His proposals have divided the British government and media.

Old versus new models of media accountability

With the pressures of today’s highly competitive and increasingly digital market, are traditional models of media self-regulation, using professional codes of conduct and press councils, still relevant? Or do we need new forms of participative media accountability that involve both journalists and those who use the media? What role do traditional and new, often web based, tools of accountability play within the different media systems and journalism cultures in Europe?

A research team addressed these questions within the framework of the international research project “Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe” (MediaAcT) at the Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism at the Technical University of Dortmund. 1,762 journalists from twelve European (Germany, France, Italy, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, the UK, Estonia and Spain) and two Arabic countries (Tunisia and Jordan) were surveyed in 2011 and 2012.

More piercing force for media accountability

According to the survey results, journalists know about the existence of laws, guidelines, and regulations, that can affect their work. In almost all of the 14 countries involved in the study, journalists said they consider media laws and the ethical guidelines set by their newsroom as having the biggest impact on their work. They also note that traditional instruments of media self-control such as press councils and professional codes of conduct, exert much less influence than the codes of their own newsrooms.

From an empirical point of view, it is understandable that the European Union questions whether the current potential of sanctions that European press councils have at their disposal are sufficient. And while press councils are often derided as ‘toothless tigers’, media professionals consider the alternatives to be even less acceptable.

The journalists who participated in the study believe ombudsmen and criticism of the media made in trade magazines, the mass media and external bodies such as NGOs and scientists, only have a marginal impact. They also believe that recently developed models of media observation, such as journalists’ blogs, or the citizens themselves, are not yet able to compete with the traditional instruments of regulation.

Younger journalists are more willing to consider alternative forms of regulation and accountability. Social media platforms are rated as the most important instrument of media accountability. The surveyed journalists state that they have received an increasing amount of feedback and criticism from their audience via Facebook and Twitter. The dialogue with their audience via social media is particularly important for the journalists in the two Arabic countries who are affected by their experience with governmental censorship.

It is the media companies’ responsibility

Looking at how the journalists’ points of view on media self-control and accountability differ in several countries, it becomes apparent that journalists in the Northern European countries which have a long history of self-control and professional structures appreciate press councils and press codes much more than their colleagues in the other countries. In Eastern and Southern European countries the professional culture of journalism is less developed, and professional consciousness is less distinctive. Professional codes of conduct have a much lower value in these countries where the journalists rely more on the guidelines used within their own newsroom.

The survey highlights the key role media companies have in the protection of professional and ethical standards – they play a bigger role in this context than the professional associations do. Journalists who work in newsrooms that support the debate on quality journalism attach greater importance to instruments of media self-control and seem to be more sensitive towards the topic of media accountability in general.

The MediaAcT study also shows that freelance journalists are noticeably disinterested in the topic of media self-regulation and media accountability. Journalists who are not deeply-seated in a newsroom seem to worry more about the marketability of their next story than about media responsibility. Besides, freelancers only rarely become the target of criticism from ombudsmen, media bloggers and others.

The dangerous effects of outsourcing

Media companies need to realize that they endanger their own success by continuing to outsource editorial tasks. In doing so they create a less engaged journalist class, which is less concerned with professional standards. The danger is that this downward pressure exacerbates the existing problems of the media’s credibility.

In Eastern and Southern Europe, journalists are even more skeptical about concept of media transparency. Many Spanish, Italian, Romanian and Polish journalists believe that publishing corrections or making newsroom processes transparent online will damage the bond of trust between journalists and the audience. More than anywhere else, the journalists from these four countries as well as from Jordan and Tunisia told the researchers that they worked for distinctly politically orientated media outlets, and therefore felt pressured by the government or that their work was constrained by a specific political idea.

In these countries, journalists and media users probably have different expectations of journalistic credibility and an efficient media self-regulation system. But are the Northern European “model” countries of media accountability immune to the influence of Southern and Eastern European models in the long-term?

Criticism by the audience is not appreciated

Only half of the respondents admit to taking audience criticism seriously. Journalists prefer to define what “good journalism” is on their own terms or among their colleagues. When asked to whom journalists feel responsible, 95 percent say their own conscience – they feel less constrained by “professional journalistic standards” or their “sources” and even less so by “the target audience” (82 percent) and the “public in general” (74 percent).

The study’s conclusion is that on the one side, journalism is still a profession affected first and foremost by individual ethics, and less by common professional standards, while on the other, many journalists are too ignorant of their most important stakeholders: their audience, even as the future of traditional media itself looks precarious.

In general, journalists claim that they are transparent and open in their work. The support calls for the disclosure of media ownership and say they want to be contactable by their audience online, but they dislike bodies and processes that question their traditional role as gate-keepers.

Criticism of colleagues is not common

In many countries there is hardly any culture of criticism from peers within newsrooms. Just a third of all the journalists surveyed admitted to criticizing their colleagues often or frequently. One of the rare exceptions is Finland, where newsrooms are less hierarchically organized, are journalists criticized more often by their peers.

External criticism by politicians, scientists or media users is also considered unwelcome and is often perceived as unfair by journalists. But howdoes this attitude sit in an era where influential institutions call for more media transparency? A model of journalism that fails to initiate a critical debate about its weaknesses and problems possibly misses the opportunity to highlight its strengths and its essential role within an efficient democracy in the digital age.

More incentives for self-regulation

This study should act as a wake-up call. On the one hand, almost 95 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement “media responsibility is an indispensable prerequisite for press freedom”, while on the other, the data shows that journalists exactly calculate what it “costs” them to follow the rules – or not.

If the media wants to avoid political repressions in the medium term, we can’t just pay lip service to the above-mentioned statement. Models of regulated self-regulation – where the government stimulates the media’s self-control by setting financial and legal incentives, but of course refrains from any sanctions – could be a solution. Our data clearly shows that journalists don’t want state intervention – the statement “formal systems of media regulation are open to political abuse” was widely supported by the almost 1,700 journalists who responded to our survey. But they perceive the existing instruments as insufficient as well – in sharp contrast to the industry representatives who, in reaction to the High-Level Group report, claimed that the existing systems of media self-regulation work properly and well. For example, while many UK industry representatives vocally opposed any form of co-regulation, journalists in the UK gave highest support to the statement “to be effective media self-regulation needs more sanctions.”

There is a wide divergence of opinion on how media self-regulation may become more effective but there are already some inspiring examples in Europe. Irish newsrooms receive legal benefits when they actively engage in media accountability. These examples could become trend-setters in a time when journalists from Finland to Romania regard economic pressure as the most serious threat to quality journalism.

Methodology

This report presents the results of the international research project “Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe” (MediaAcT) for the very first time. The project is based on a cooperation of partner institutions in Eastern and Western Europe and the Arab World. The Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany, has been responsible for the project’s coordination. The project is running for a period of three years and will end in July 2013. The study focuses on a culturally comparative analysis of traditional and innovative media accountability instruments (MAI), both online and offline. The empirical core of the study is a standardized online survey of 1,762 journalists across 14 countries. The survey which identified the attitudes of media professionals towards different media accountability instruments was conducted in 2011 and 2012. Further information is provided on the project’s website www.mediaact.eu .

A German version of this article was published in the German trade magazine “Message – Internationale Zeitschrift für Journalismus” No. 2 / 2013

Photo credits: MediaAcT

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