The European and International Federation of Journalists (EFJ/IFJ) strongly support the decision of the Spanish Radio and Television Public Service (RTVE) to not broadcast the matches of the football Spanish Super Cup that will be held in Saudi Arabia next January. The competition, organised by the Spanish Federation of Football, is a national trophy that will be played abroad. The EFJ and the IFJ joined the Spanish affiliates Federacion de Asociaciones de la Prensa Espanola (FAPE), Federacion de Sindicatos de Periodistas (FeSP) and Federacion de Servicios a la Ciudadania de CC.OO (FSC-CC.OO) in backing the public broadcaster to not give…

Collective bargaining and agreement play a key role in improving the working conditions of journalists. International solidarity and exchange of good practices sometimes can be very helpful for the national negotiation. Thanks to the EU-funded Managing Change in Media‘s project framework, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) sent the collective bargaining expert Dennis Amour from its Germany affiliate to support journalists in Romanian (FAIR-MediaSind) for an Expert Exchange Visit. Lawyer and journalist, Dennis Amour, director of the Collective Bargaining Department of the Union of Journalists in Bavaria (BJV) spent two days ( 28 & 30 October) in Bucharest with leaders of…

Shortly before the collapse of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition government in May this year, the independence of Austria’s public broadcaster ORF seemed seriously threatened. Government’s attempts to eliminate license fees, if successful, would make the ORF dependant on the government for budgetary decisions. This, in turn, would increase the risk of interference by government’s representatives in editorial decisions. Direct attacks against journalists, both online and offline, also reached unprecedented levels under the recent ÖVP-FPÖ government, raising concerns about media freedom in Austria. At the same time, journalists’ ability to access information about the government’s work was seriously affected by the government’s…