Several hundred journalists rallied in Zagreb on Saturday to protest against a wave of lawsuits targeting the media. According to the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), an EFJ affiliate, which organized the march, politicians, public figures and corporations had filed over 1,100 lawsuits against journalists and news outlets. HND says these court cases are part of an attempt to censor the media and put pressure on journalists. The protest was called after Croatian public broadcaster HRT itself filed 36 lawsuits against its own journalists and others, including HND head Hrvoje Zovko and HND branch in Public Service Media, who complained of…

As the EU’s flagship whistleblowing Directive reaches the final stage of negotiations between national Governments and the European Parliament, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to warn that the EU risks ending up with a Directive that protects companies more than it protects whistleblowers! “Some member states are insisting that whistleblowers must first go through an internal reporting procedure,” said Esther Lynch, Confederal Secretary of the ETUC. “This is not in the interests of those exposing wrong-doing or the public. It would give companies every opportunity to cover up their wrong-doing and to…

Building bridges among journalists, students and media educators to improve gender equality in newsrooms and media content. This is what the Advancing Gender and Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI) project stands for. On 26th February, the EU-funded project launched its online platform on gender and media at the Press Club in Brussels. The web platform provides a resource bank of over 100 best practices on gender equity in media as well as free learning resources to support journalism trainers and educators in their curricula. The project itself also included a summer school and internships for 30 students across the EU.…

In an open letter to the European Council, Commission and Parliament, five well-known European whistleblowers speak out for changing the directive and removing barriers for safe reporting. This letter is published as the negotiations between the European institutions are entering the final stretch. The European Council, Commission and Parliament have started the trilogue phase since the end of January and one main point of discord remains: what procedure whistleblowers should follow to be granted protection against retaliation? The draft directive indicates three reporting channels: internal within the company, external to an authority, and public including through the press. In the…

The Advancing Gender Equality in the Media Industries (AGEMI), an EU funded project, is launching its web platform to build bridges between educators, media and media students to improve gender equality in media content and in the newsrooms. The launch is taking place during a seminar organised by AGEMI at the Brussels’ Press Club in Belgium today. The AGEMI consortium is composed of the Universities of Newcastle, Padova and Gothenbörg, as well as the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the Permanent Conference of the Mediterranean Audiovisual Operators (COPEAM). The AGEMI platform provides a resource bank of over 100 best…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) report “Digital Journalism & New Business Models” underpins the trends in new business models for the digital newsroom: from the British Guardian to the pioneering French Mediapart, from Sweden to Spain, we witness the increase in new funding models, in so-called entrepreneurial journalists who take care of both fundraising and the newsroom and still achieve trusted journalism with the highest editorial standards, values that ground the fourth estate in a democratic society in order to hold the powerful to account. The EFJ Digital Expert Group presents its report on “Digital Journalism & New Business…