The debate was attended by around 20 representatives of civil society organizations active in the area of protection and promotion of human rights. Self-regulation and the way the process of filing press complaints were among the topics of discussion in the debate.
“In the past two years we have received over 150 complaints. The situation with the media ethics in the region is deteriorating and we have witnessed this happening both in Europe and worldwide. Hence the calls to seek a solution to balance between freedom of expression and the responsibility around the freely expressed, especially when it comes to violation of professional standards” Mirce Adamcevski, President of the Press Complaints Commission.
The most common grounds for breaches of professional standards were presented by Sefer Tahiri, member of the Press Complaints Commission. The public often complains on one-sided and unbalanced reporting and cases of discrimination on different grounds are often reported.
While presenting commonly observed problems in media reporting, civil society representatives were introduced to the mediation process and the manner of filing press complaints to the Council. “We call on citizens’ associations to actively contribute to the work of the CMEM by reporting cases of unprofessional reporting”, called Goce Gerasimovski, member of the Press Complaints Commission.
The agenda of the meeting can be found here.