21% of the Bosnian citizens share the opinion that attacks on journalists are justified, says a new report made for the needs of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Journalists’ Association (BH Journalists) and the Friedrich Erbert Foundation, published on 16 July. The study titled “Researching Media Freedoms in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2019” reveals worrying trends in the attitude of the country’s citizens towards their media. In the last six years, BH Journalists has documented 121 cases of violence, 44 physical attacks, 21 death threats and 48 serious cases of harassment or verbal pressure. Yet violence against media workers is increasingly accepted in Bosnia…

In June 2019, the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies published the book “Media, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy in the EU and Beyond”. The research paper was edited by Dr. Angelos Giannakopoulos, and gives insights into the media landscape of several European countries. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) contributed to this publication with a chapter titled “Media, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy: Journalists under pressure in Europe”, written by EFJ-Director Renate Schroeder. The book presents the authoritarian media system of Hungary, as well as the role of the state in media ownership in Poland. It…

Media leaders should stop seeing diversity as a “nice to have” and treat it as a a “must have” instead. That was determined by the latest study titled “Are Journalists Today’s Coal Miners? The Struggle for Talent and Diversity in Modern Newsrooms”, published on 15 July by the Reuters Institute in cooperation with the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. The research investigated 28 news organisations and journalism schools in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. “Journalists must reach out to audiences that are becoming more and more diverse while newsrooms must be made attractive to a young and diverse talent…

Update: On 25 July, the District Court in Warsaw ordered to stop the distribution of the sticker ‘LGBT Free Zone’ attached to ‘Gazeta Polska’. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Tomasz Sakiewicz, called the court’s decision “fake news” and announced to refuse the withdrawal. Instead he warned shop owners via Twitter that anyone who “will hide the paper or the sticker, we will sue them.” The Polish weekly Gazeta Polska announced on 17 July plans to distribute “LGBT-free zone” stickers to its readers in its next issue. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ/EFJ) strictly denounce an ‘irresponsible attitude” that…

The Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA) developed resources on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, including the Charterpedia database and a handbook giving guidance on the use and scope of the Charter at national level. Charterpedia Charterpedia is an online tool which provides information on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. For each article, information can be found on related case law by national courts, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, law references and explanations. Click here to read more about the articles 11 and…

The AGEMI project, in which the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has been an active partner, will come to an end at the end of July. Among its achievements stands a series of tools to enforce gender equality in the media and strengthen the links between media professionals, educators and media students. Following the conclusion of the Summer School organised in August 2018 in Göteborg, Sweden, the thirty students from the partnering Universities of Newcastle, of Göteborg and of Padua  undertook internships across the EU at several media organizations, including EFJ and IFJ, as well as groups fighting for gender equality. Students had the opportunity to…