Reporters Without Borders Archives

Media Freedom Remains Major Concern in Balkans, Watchdog Says

Posted on May 3, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 World Press Freedom Index, published on Tuesday, says that over the past year there has been a large increase in “polarisation amplified by information chaos” – a phenomenon that has also affected the troubled media environment in the Balkans.

The international watchdog organisation says the information chaos is a result of “a globalised and unregulated online information space that encourages fake news and propaganda”.

In the Balkans, the situation declined significantly in several countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece, according to Reporters Without Borders’ ranking system of 180 states worldwide.

However, other states such as Montenegro, North Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia rose in the watchdog’s rankings – although it continued to highlight shortcomings in all Balkan countries.

According to Reporters Without Borders, press freedom in Greece suffered serious setbacks over the past year, with journalists regularly prevented from being able to properly cover issues from migration to COVID-19.

The assassination of veteran Greek crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz in April 2021 remains unsolved despite the government’s promise of a quick investigation.

Last year Greece ranked 70 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders report and this year it has been ranked 108, a fall of 38 places.

Albania fell 20 places in the Reporters Without Borders index, from 83 last year to 103. The report says that the editorial independence in the while journalists are being targeted by organised crime groups and even by police violence, and the state is failing to protect them.

Meanwhile, private media outlets are owned by businessmen who have links with politicians.

Bosnia and Herzegovina also fell in the rankings from 58 in 2021 to 67. The report says that the media operates in a relatively favourable legal environment but in an extremely unfavourable political and economic situation.

“Journalists do not feel protected while doing their work. There are large differences in media freedom and the quality of journalism across the country,” the report adds.

Romania fell by eight places to 56 in the ranking from 48. “Romania can boast of a diverse, relatively pluralistic media landscape that produces hard-hitting public interest investigations. Pressure from owners, lack of transparency in financing or market difficulties, however, hamper the reliability of the information,” the report says.

Several countries rose in the rankings even though problems persisted.

North Macedonia ranked 57, up from 90. But Reporters Without Borders notes that although journalists in the country do not work in a hostile environment, the “widespread misinformation and the lack of professionalism”, contribute to a decrease in trust in the media, which puts journalists at risk from threats and attacks.

“The overall environment remains favourable to press freedom and allows for critical reporting, although transparency of institutions is rather poor,” it adds.

Montenegro was ranked 63 out of 180 in 2022 compared with 104 the previous year.

The report notes that the country’s constitution and laws guarantee freedom of speech and expression, but press freedom continues to be threatened by political interference, unpunished attacks on journalists and economic pressures.

“After [former ruling party] DPS’s first loss of power in 2020, government pressure and attacks on journalists have somewhat weakened. However, there is a fear that foreign owners of certain channels will influence the editorial policies in the interest of other governments or their local political favourites,” the report says.

Moldova advanced from 89 in 2021 to 40 this year. However, the report cautions: “Moldova’s media are diverse but extremely polarised, like the country itself, which is marked by political instability and excessive influence by oligarchs.”

Photo illustration: Pixabay / AndyLeungHK

Bulgaria also scored an improvement from last year, climbing to 91 places from 112, but Reporters Without Borders says that the few independent voices in the country’s media work under constant pressure.

“Intimidation from politicians as well as administrative and judicial pressures against publishers and journalists are a common practice,” the report says.

The report says that Kosovo scored an improvement on last year, climbing to 61 from 78, but highlights that although the media market is diverse, its development is limited by its small size and strict separation along ethnic lines.

Despite improvements, the report says that Kosovo journalists “have been increasingly targeted by SLAPPs [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation] initiated by business groups and politicians”.

It also says that investigative reporters covering organized crime and corruption are regularly threatened.

However, it adds: “Online news portals include strong brands such as BIRN or Kosovo 2.0, the latter being one of the few media outlets publishing in both Albanian and Serbian.”

Serbia ranked 79 on this year’s Reporters Without Borders index, up from 93 last year. In a highly polarised political climate, according to the watchdog, “journalists are regularly subjected to political attacks instigated by members of the ruling elite that are amplified by certain national TV networks”.

“Neither politicians nor institutions, including the Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media (REM), composed mostly of individuals appointed by the government, have been willing to remedy the situation,” the report says

“In addition, journalists critical of the ruling party have restricted access to interviews with government representatives and to public information,” it adds.

It notes that many attacks on journalists remain unresolved, highlighting the case of the 1999 assassination of Slavko Curuvija, which is still waiting for a final court verdict.

Croatia also scored an improvement compared with 2021, jumping from 56 to 48 but the report cautions that “the government is failing to protect journalists against legal attempts to muzzle them, and against organised crime. The government itself represents a threat to press freedom.”

The report says that authoritarianism is gaining ground in Turkey, challenging media pluralism.

“With 90 per cent of the national media now under government control, the public has turned, during the past five years, to critical or independent media outlets of various political persuasions to learn about the impact of the economic and political crisis on the country,” it explains.

It notes that all possible means are being used to undermine critics in the Turkish media and the future looks gloomy with new elections coming next year.

However, Turkey scored better than in 2021 in the watchdog’s rankings, climbing slightly from 153 to 149.

Croatian Journalists Hit by Coronavirus Austerity: Union Chief

Posted on April 29, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

“The crisis has affected journalists, so salaries have already been cut at a number of media outlets,” the president of Trade Union of Croatian Journalists, Maja Sever, a longtime journalist with Croatian public broadcaster HRT, told BIRN in an interview.

Sever noted that some outlets have cut employees’ salaries by 50 per cent, and that “some media did it even before the financial indicators showed that something like this should be done”.

She recalled how the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and the Croatian Journalists’ Association warned the government that measures must be taken to safeguard journalism soon after the crisis began, but did not receive a meaningful response.

For this reason, she believes that the role of the journalists’ union, as well as unions in general, is more important than ever.

“Under labour law, it is the union that has the legal basis to negotiate with an employer about possible cutbacks. Basically, it’s the one institution that we have with which we can fight for our rights, even in crisis situations like this, but also in situations where we are not in some kind of crisis,” Sever said.

Government should protect media workers

Maja Sever, the president of Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and Hrvoje Zovko, president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, on a meeting with Croatian President Zoran Milanovic. Photo: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia.

According to a survey by the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and the Croatian Journalists’ Association, less than a month into the crisis, as many as 28 per cent of Croatian freelance journalists and part-time media employees were left without any media work, 26 per cent lost most of their engagements, and 16 per cent of them lost half of their engagements.

This shows that more freelancers should be unionised, said Sever: “This crisis has shown how unprotected they are; their contracts are simply cancelled and that’s it.”

Both journalists’ organisations have argued that measures taken by the government to support the economy during the pandemic have mainly aided entrepreneurs and commercial publishers.

To avoid more redundancies among journalists and other media workers, they suggested that the measures to safeguard solvency and employment should be urgently extended to all media.

More than a month after these warnings, Sever and Hrvoje Zovko, president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, met separately on Thursday with Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and Culture Minister Nina Obuljen Korzinek, whose ministry is responsible for the media sector.

“The president, in principle, was talking with us and supporting our efforts. [But] he does not have the mechanisms or authority to do such a thing [impose measures to save journalism],” Sever said.

“As far as the minister is concerned… I cannot say that there have been any developments that we have agreed upon, but the fact is that we have begun talks on some topics and started to talk specifically about how to help freelance journalists,” she continued, adding that it is necessary to speed up the disbursement of EU aid funds which will “certainly help many non-profit media”.

Although the Croatian government has enacted a job-saving measure that gives financial assistance to employers to retain employees, Sever warned that the criteria for receiving state aid are related to bans on layoffs, not bans on wage cuts.

Commenting on the meeting with the journalists’ organisations, Obuljen Korzinek told Jutarnji list newspaper on Sunday that “there have already been a number of government measures adopted to assist the economy concerning the media” and that talks continue with journalists’ associations about supporting independent journalists.

Press freedom still endangered

A man wearing a protective face mask reads a newspaper in Zagreb, Croatia. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANTONIO BAT.

Sever argued that Croatian journalists, who are now facing a major threat to their health while covering the coronavirus crisis in the country, are underappreciated.

“For the first week of the crisis, we made a huge effort [to raise awareness] that journalists must be protected… We also wrote to the ministries, to the employers. Then we procured the protective equipment by ourselves and sent it to the people who asked for it,” she recalled.

The union also called for press conferences to be held in a way that would protect the participants from possible infection.

“Unlike most of our fellow citizens who were able to stay home with their families, we journalists go to our job every day, exposing ourselves and our families to health hazards,” she continued, adding that part-time media workers and freelance journalists do not have proper health insurance coverage.

Meanwhile, she added, “journalists are still exposed to attacks”.

At Catholic Easter, on April 14, when a journalist from the local news website Dalmatinski Portal and a camera operator from N1 TV tried to report on an Easter mass being held in defiance of social distancing measures at a church in Sirobuja, a suburb of Split, they were physically attacked by several men.

On the same day in Sirobuja, a rally was held by masked, black-clad protesters to support the priest who had called on worshippers to attend the mass. Two of the protesters displayed World War II fascist Ustasa movement’s insignia and a banner with the slogan “Journalists are worms”.

According to Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, Croatia has improved its press freedom status and is now ranked 59th in the world, whereas in 2019 was ranked 64the. A lower score indicates greater press freedom, but Sever described it as “small progress”.

“We are still in a society that is not known for media freedom. I think we would have to do a lot more, but unfortunately [from] large operations like public media to some kind of support for independent journalism and non-profit media, in principle we are failing to make any significant steps,” she said.

“Politicians still like to have some influence on the big mainstream media and this is really felt in this crisis,” she continued.

Sever dismissed the suggestion that Croatia should take comfort in the fact that, as far as media freedom is concerned, the country is doing better than some of its ex-Yugoslav neighbours.

“Why don’t we compare ourselves to countries that are just a little north of our geographical location and then see how we stand with press freedom?” she asked.

Serbia Urged to Come Clean on Journalists’ Surveillance

Posted on February 20, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, RSF, has called on the Serbian authorities to investigate how much surveillance goes on in the country – after the Serbian news agency Tanjug on February 16 published a response written by the Defence Minister to a never-published opinion piece by a former defence minister.

The former defence minister and current opposition politician Dragan Sutanovac emailed his article on defence issues to the editor of the weekly Nedeljnik, Veljko Lalic, which decided not to run it.

RSF noted its concern that current minister Aleksandar Vulin felt able to respond to the unpublished material – and that he had said in his article that he was replying to the article Sutanovic had published in Nedeljnik.

On February 19, RSF’s European bureau chief, Pauline Adès-Mével, called on the Serbian authorities to investigate whether opposition politicians were being spied on.

“We are concerned that emails between opposition politicians and independent media outlets are being spied on and intercepted by the government,” Adès-Mével said.

“We call on the authorities to shed all possible light on this matter,” the press release added.

After the news broke, Vulin apologized to Nedeljnik and said he would ask the relevant bodies to look into the matter. Vulin’s staff later said its PR team had mistaken Nedeljnik for Kurir, a Belgrade-based tabloid that recently published an interview with Sutanovac.

But in his response article, Vulin only referred to Sutanovac’s comments about Serbia-Russia cooperation, which the unpublished piece contained, and was not mentioned in the Kurir interview.

Nedeljnik also said the authorities needed to find out whether any officials used the resources of the secret services to intercept emails between Sutanovac and Lalic.

“It is hard to believe that a person working constantly with the media, for example, someone in the defence ministry’s public relations department, would confuse the daily Kurir with the weekly Nedeljnik,” the weekly said.

This, however, is not the first time that concern about surveillance of politicians and journalists has arisen in Serbia.

In March 2016, the tabloid Informer published some of the findings of an investigation into the assets of Aleksandar Vucic – now president of Serbia, who was then prime minister – which the investigative website Krik had carried out but never published.

Serbia has been falling for years in the rankings of the World Press Freedom Index. It was ranked in 90^th place out of 180 countries in the 2019 Index.

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