Fake news have become an unavoidable term when talking about (digital) media. They are seen as an effective tool of manipulating political discourse, a way for content creators to generate revenue from advertising and are easily widespread on the social media. The parliamentary group of social democrats in the European Parliament organised on Wednesday (06/09/2017) a conference to tackle the political and legal challenges linked to fake news and invited Ricardo Gutiérrez, General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, as an expert to the panel. Arnaud Mercier, professor of political communication at Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, said that fake…

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 EFJ urges the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union to reconsider denied accreditation to three Russian journalists for the EU informal meeting of the EU ministers of Foreign Affairs in Tallinn (Estonia) to take place on 7-8 September 2017. The Estonian Presidency refused three requests for accreditation from Russian state owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya to cover the EU informal meeting. The requests were filed by the Brussels based correspondent Vladimir Dobrovolskiy, and by Moscow based journalists Maria Kiseleva and Anastasia Sedelnikova. No explanations were provided by the Estonian authorities for their refusal. Sergey Kochetkov, first…

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,…

A Special report on the status and cases of threats against journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was published on Monday 28 August 2017 by the Institution of Human Rights Ombudsman of BiH. The publication highlights the very bad employment status of journalists in the country, as well as the increase of violence, harassment and attacks against them. Some of the key findings highlighted in the report are: According to the BiH Journalists’ Association research, between 34% and 40% of journalists work in Bosnia and Herzegovina without adequate employment agreements, while those working with agreements are not sufficiently protected. Journalists…