| FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, BACK IN THE NEWS (05/05/2008) |
| (2008-05-05) |
| Last updated: 2008-05-07 17:20 EET |
The third of May, the international freedom of the press day, has brought back in the news a sensitive topic: the manner in which journalists manage to present the realities of the world we live in, and the risks they take to do so.
A lot of reports on the freedom of the press have recently been published, reminding us that free and independent information is fundamental for democracy. The UN considers ‘unacceptable’ any infringement on the freedom of the press, and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly expressed its concern about violence against journalists and the restrictions that the press is still subject to in certain countries.
For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders, an independent organization, published a poll about violence on journalists in many countries, including Romania. The document indicated that the EU does have a free press, that no government had journalists assassinated or arrested, and that official censorship is a thing of the past. However, the situation is far from perfect, and Reporters without Borders listed some serious risks facing journalists in Europe, such as threats or attempts on their lives made by private groups, or threats and attempts at intimidation against their families.
The Freedom House Report on the freedom of the press in 2007 listed Romania as 94th in the world among the 150 countries that were evaluated, down four places, of countries with a partially free press. Here is Ioana Avădani, executive director of the Center for Independent Journalism:
“It is irrelevant that we rank 90th or 94th. It is important that, for years now, we are among countries with a partially free press, without managing to take the crucial step forward, in spite of visible efforts and progress. The criteria used by Freedom House are the legislative, political, and economic environments. We got the lowest ranking in terms of the legislative environment, in other words in terms of the legal framework defining the freedom of the press”.
Mircea Toma, director of the Press Monitoring Agency, an institution that issued the FreeEx Report “Freedom of the press in Romania in 2007”, believes that, aside from the political influence in public media, there is also a progressive concentration in media ownership, where the control of the owners on content still has no legal regulations. This makes it more likely that politically or, more often, economically partisan owners may use the media to promote their own interests.
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2025-04-03
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