The necessity of adhering to the Code of Journalists and the most frequent violations of ethical standards in media content during pre-election periods were the focus of the two debates jointly organized by the Macedonian Institute for Media and the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia on 14 and 15 October in Bitola and Skopje.
Journalists, editors, and media experts discussed key aspects of professional reporting in the context of elections, while representatives of the Council of Media Ethics, Biljana Georgievska, Mirche Adamchevski, and Tamara Chausidis presented decisions of the Complaints Commission at CMEM as examples of the most common violations of the Code during the pre-election period.
Ethics and adherence to professional standards in the work of journalists are always important, in every news item, report, or investigative story, but media reporting during pre-election periods carries particular weight, as it can directly influence citizens decisions and the election outcome.
The publication of insufficiently verified or inaccurate information, sensationalism, the mixing of facts with personal opinion, the spread of hate speech, and the failure to comply with the obligation to publish a correction or retraction were identified as the most common violations of the rules of responsible journalism, not only during elections but also in the regular work of the media.
As a serious problem for objective reporting, as noted by Tamara Chausidis, a member of the Complaints Commission at the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia, is the fact that a large part of the media today survives on political funding:
“Paid advertising and mandatory election coverage fill news segments to such an extent that there is almost no space left for ‘ordinary’ topics. Even when they do appear, they are often colored by the logic of the campaign. In this way, journalism lives in a constant conflict between the professional ideal and economic reality and struggles to maintain professional distance, not because it does not know how, but because there is increasingly less space for it”.
Partisan reporting, the mechanical transmission of party and other press releases, as well as the reshaping of facts, that is, manipulation, according to Chausidis, are the most common violations of professional ethics during election periods.
“When it comes to partisan reporting, the problem is not only in propaganda, but in the fact that the sense of shame about it has been lost. Neutrality is no longer even simulated. Party materials are published as news, spokespersons are presented as journalists, and closeness to politicians is an open secret”.
Through dynamic discussions, views were shared on the further strengthening of media self-regulation, the need to align domestic legislation with European standards, and continuous education in order to encourage responsible journalism and increase trust in the media.
The debates were organized within the framework of the regional project “Our Media”, with financial support from the European Union.