Europe’s newsrooms are still predominantly white and middle class, though societies are changing at rapid speed. How to better reflect all members of the increasingly diverse European societies within Europe’s Media and public sphere is crucial; the issue of diversity and gender is and important element in EFJ’s project work. The European Federation of Journalists has published a new report about how to get newsrooms and editorial teams more diverse. As part of the EFJ project ‘Managing change in media’, supported by the European Commission, one of its contributors, Alexandra Borchardt, drafted ten recommendations for newsrooms to be more diverse,…

BBC presenter and National Union of journalists (NUJ) member Samira Ahmed today won a landmark equal pay victory against the BBC. The European and International Federation of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ) congratulate her and the NUJ for its excellent and inspiring work and hope this victory will encourage all women journalists seeking equal pay to make sure they are in a union and media employers to learn the lessons. Journalist Samira Ahmed, backed by the NUJ, first appeared at The Central London Employment Tribunal on Monday 28 October to challenge unequal pay at the BBC. The journalist has been presenting the BBC…

The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ and IFJ) join their Spanish affiliate Federación de Servicios a la Ciudadanía de CC.OO. in the call for the defence of Madrid’s public service broadcaster RTVM (Telemadrid and Onda Madrid) from the blocking situation its management is suffering by the regional government. The Government of the Community of Madrid has not been allowing the replacement of medical leaves for months, it has not yet authorised the broadcasting of women’s sport or second division football matches that have been taking place since 2017, nor has it approved the expense accepted in the Program Contract for…

Journalists have always been in the spotlight and now, with the rise of the use of social media, they are one of the main targets for online harassment. These attacks often includes threats to the journalists themselves and their families and are most commonly directed to women and their biggest consequences are psychological, according to an IFJ survey. Anxiety, stress and fear are, together with self-censorship, the main effects of online harassment on journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has published a short guide on how journalists should protect themselves from this harassment: prevention measures to take in advance, how to…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) welcomes Council of Europe Rapporteur on media freedom George Foulkes‘ call for better protection for journalists in Europe. Over the past two years, George Foulkes, who is a British Labour Co-operative politician and former Scotland minister, has been investigating this issue as General Rapporteur on media freedom and the safety of journalists for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace). His report points out that the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism shows that the situation is getting worse in Europe. From 2015 to date, 26 journalists have been…

Julian Assange, publisher of Wikileaks, is currently detained in Belmarsh high-security prison in the United Kingdom. He faces extradition to the United States and criminal prosecution under the US Espionage Act. He has been charged for publishing the Afghanistan and Iraq war diaries and US embassy cables, important documents that many journalists around the world used and helped to publicise. The “War Diaries” provided evidence that the US Government misled the public about activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and committed war crimes. “We believe that the arbitrary detention and criminal prosecution of Julian Assange set an extremely dangerous precedent for…