The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has attended at the Brussels Press Club,  the launch of a new book Mapping Foreign Correspondence in Europe showing that London is the world capital of foreign correspondents. The editor of the book Georgios Terzis has conducted a pan-european research for almost two years and gathered data about the 6.600 registered journalists working as correspondents in 27 countries (this first edition does not include information for Poland and Italy). According to the data disclosed, the country that has the highest number of foreign correspondents working there is the United Kingdom (1.700), following by France (945), Belgium…

Joakim Medin, a Swedish freelance journalist arrested by Syrian security forces has been released, on Saturday night, according to the Swedish daily newspaper Expressen, who talked to the journalist. He was arrested by the Syrian forces earlier last week in the Kurdish areas of the country. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its Swedish affiliate, SJ, to welcome his release. “Our thoughts are with the journalist’s family and I hope that they can be reunited as soon as possible,” said Jonas Nordling, President of the Swedish Union of Journalists, Journalist Förbundet (SJ). “It is becoming increasingly common for journalists being targeted…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has today expressed its solidarity with Deutsche Welle (DW) journalists who are participating in this afternoon’s demonstration in Bonn against cost-cutting measures in the agency. Ricardo Gutiérrez, the EFJ General Secretary said: “Cost-cutting measures are used to address the economic crisis but often for the wrong places. In an media organisation, such measures will have great impact on media pluralism, diversity and democracy. “We express our solidarity with DW workers and support the protest action today organised by the initiave of the trade union action circle, of which our affiliates DJV and dju in…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and its Russian affiliate, the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ), are deeply concerned by the new threats against the Mass Media Defence Centre (MMDC), which is the only Russian NGO specialising in media law, as well as providing legal assistance and protecting media rights on a daily basis. Over the past two years, an unprecedented number of laws have been adopted in Russia which dramatically restrict the activities of all independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs). According to a law passed in 2012, Russian NGOs that receive foreign funding must declare themselves as “foreign agents”. This law threatens…

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) had today joined their affiliates in France and Morocco (SNJ, SNJ-CGT, CFDT-Journalistes and SNPM) to strongly denounce the death threats sent from a Twitter account to Zineb El Rhazoui, journalist and contributor of Charlie Hebdo, and her husband, the Moroccan writer Jaouad Benaissi. Rhazoui has received several threats via the social media Twitter containing picture and information on her husband’s home and working place; information that has also been published on social network. The fresh attack on Rhazoui and her husband shows that the Charlie Hebdo perpetrators…

In wake of the events taking place in Copenhagen last weekend, the Danish newspaper Politiken, launches today a project to improve diversity in the news and newsroom practices. According to the chief editor, Anne Mette Svane, the projest is ” about making better journalism”. ”We must be more aware of sensitive issues and question ourselves whether we have done enough in our reporting to reflect the reality;” said Mette Svane. The goals of the project are to achieve an equal representation of women in its news and increase its media coverage of ethnic minorities for at least 10% by 2018. The…