The CMEM is established by the Law on Associations and Foundations, in accord with both the domestic Law on Media and the Constitution, and by a Statute which was adopted by the Assembly of the CMEM.
The purpose of the CMEM is to function as a media self-regulatory body – independent of both the media and the Government – to promote and protect professional standards and ethics in journalism, while also providing an impartial and effective complaints service for the citizens. In practice the CMEM will oversee and administer the media’s own Code of Ethics and decide on complaints about media content which has breached the Code.
The CMEM will build and maintain an image as a credible impartial representative body. It will not stand as a court of any kind, nor does it have any sanctions beyond providing journalistic ‘remedies’ for breaches of the media’s own Code of Ethics. The CMEM will put into place a transparent and publicly available complaints procedure which will allow complaints from any sector of society that have been directly involved in an article, programme or news story.
The administrative oversight and governance of the CMEM and its activities will be vested in a number of bodies; the make-up of each and the formal roles, responsibilities and principle activities are described in the Statute. These bodies are:
– The Assembly
– The Management Board
– The Supervisory Board
– The Office of the Chief Executive Officer
– The Complaints Commission
– The Secretariat
Media owners, journalists, media practitioners and civil society are all adequately represented within the governance structures of the CMEM.
A graphic showing the structure of the CMEM is attached at Annex 1.