The European Federation of Journalists welcomes the initiative of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) to launch a new platform for the online safety of journalists, “On The Line“. The platform is based on a protocol written by the International Press Institute (IPI) and gathers resources and tools designed to help newsrooms and journalists deal with online threats. It was created following the increasing number of online hate speech in the country. Two sections refer specifically to online menaces and attacks on female journalists and on freelance journalists. The protocol is based on the importance of peer support and cooperation, the…

President of the Republic of Srpska Milorad Dodik has requested to re-introduce defamation and insults as “criminal offences” in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Srpska, one of the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The BH Journalists Association (BH Novinari) raises the alarm in the face of the increasing threat that would cause the impending criminalisation of defamation, which has been a civil wrong in the country since 1999. The European and International Federation of Journalists join their affiliate, the BH Novinari, in warning of the dangers of criminalising defamation and ask for the European Commission and the…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) sent on Friday its contribution to the Commission’s Rule of Law report, which reviews every year four key areas: justice systems, the anti-corruption framework, media pluralism and freedom, and checks and balances. The issues found in most of the countries surveyed are all related to media concentration and the increasing number of SLAPPs. The objective of this consultation – jointly carried out with the EFJ affiliates – is to feed the assessment of the Commission with factual information from the ground in each Member States. Read more of the EFJ’s contribution:   EFJ Contribution…

Is there a story in your local town, somewhere in Europe, that you think is worth sharing with the rest of the world? If the answer is yes, but you lack resources, we may have the solution for you: a grant to support local investigative journalists and/or local news media outlets from several European countries who want to do investigative reporting at the local level in resonance with the European level. Why local? In every nook and cranny of the world, there are many stories waiting to be told. This grant programme aims to tackle the shortage of local journalists and…

In a new survey launched by the Federation of Journalists’ Unions in Spain (FeSP), 52% of journalists say that their professional and working situation has deteriorated, 45% point to a greater workload with the same income and 39% of freelancers say they have fewer assignments. The Federation of Journalists’ Unions-FeSP has launched a survey in October-November 2022 to find out the impact of the pandemic on the professional situation of women journalists and freelancers at the national level, as well as to identify possible training needs, mainly regarding ICT tools, that could help improve their employability and adaptation to the…

Ukrainian journalists’ organizations are sounding the alarm. The new Media Law signed by President Zelensky threatens media freedom. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) call on the European Commission and the Council of Europe to convince the Ukrainian authorities to review the law, in consultation with journalists’ organizations and the media. The representative trade unions of Ukrainian journalists, NUJU and IMTUU, denounce multiple problematic provisions, starting with the political dependence of the state regulator and the widening of the spectrum of extrajudicial sanctions against the media. On 29 December, president Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a controversial bill…