The journalists from the eastern part of the country, shared their challenges arising from the journalist reporting in the course of the COVID-19 crisis
The COVID-19 crisis did not spare the media workers who were among the most affected. At today’s debate organized by the Council of Media Ethics they shared their experiences and challenges alongside with the experiences of CMEM pertaining to the pandemic. Reporting in a balanced, fair and unbiased manner in pandemic circumstances is yet an additional challenge.
The Executive Director of the Council of Media Ethics, Ms. Marina Tuneva, elaborated on the different changes that all media underwent globally due to the current state.
The COVID pandemic even resulted in imposition of freedom restrictions by certain governments. ‘We are in continuous contact with the councils from the other countries and the challenges are quite similar to the ones shared across the region. We were also faced with the issue of limited access to information,’ stated Ms. Tuneva.
The online meeting was within the framework of the Project Support to Freedom of Expression in the Media in North Macedonia implemented by CMEM with the support of the EU Delegation to the country.
Mr. Daniel Dimitrieski, the Program Coordinator of CMEM, presented the statistics of lodged appeals to the Commission. It is rather interesting that the number of appeals is continuously on the increase.
‘Last year we received the highest number of appeals so far. Namely, in 2020 we had a total of 140 appeals and this is almost double the number of appeals we received in 2019. In comparative terms, in the year 2019 we had a total of 83 appeals. As for 2020, a total of 109 were reached, 18 appeals were defined as unjustified whereas 13 appeals were resolved by virtue of mediation, i.e. reconciliation between the parties. In the year 2020, 15% of the appeals were resolved by virtue of mediation whereas in 2019 only 4% were resolved by virtue of mediation which indicates that the media are more and more willing to cooperate with a self-regulatory body. As for this year, up to present date, 93 appeals have been received and our expectation for 2021 is to have an increase by 20 to 30%’, stated Mr. Daniel Dimitrieski, the Program Coordinator of CMEM.
The journalists who attended this online meeting also participated in the discussion and put forward some of the challenges they encountered in their line of work.
‘There are journalists and media that make unintentional errors in their reporting. They acknowledge their mistakes, apologize and rectify them. Nonetheless, there are others that pursue different agendas and do not adhere to the standards applicable to journalists and they report on somebody else’s behalf and interests and are not concerned with self-regulation,’ stated the journalist Mr. Toni Mihailov from Shtip.
This series of meetings on media reporting in COVID-19 circumstances shall continue in the other planning regions of the country as well with the engagement of any other relevant stakeholders, such as non-governmental organizations or local government bodies.