Orange Magazine 2015 - EYMD by Orange Magazine

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MEDIA FREEDOM IN THE EU AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD

EDITORIAL

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MEDIA Je suis Charlie. Words that flood the internet on 7 January 2015. The world was shocked by the brutal murder of eight reporters of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. No man should die for making cartoons. No woman should die for publishing an opinion. France would not bend its knee to terrorists and leaders from across the European Union marched through Paris to show their support. Freedom of speech in the media, everyone agreed, is a given. Less than one year later, almost 50 more journalists have been killed because of their activities as a reporter. 332 media makers are imprisoned. Most of these cases have gone by unnoticed. There was no creed on the internet, no statues or flowers, no march by politicians. Furthermore, some of the politicians that walked the streets of Paris on that cold winter’s day in January are responsible for silencing reporters. Media freedom is a wonderful concept. But if we allow it to be pushed to the background, then that’s exactly what it becomes: a concept. Not a reality.

Editor-in-Chief Izabelle Devulder, Belgium Design Melody Da Fonseca, France FACILITATORS Thomas Seymat (multimedia) Izabelle Devulder (print) Martin Hanzel (photography)

Reality is a grey area sometimes. Not all bad guys have guns. Not even all bad guys have bad intentions. We live in a new world, with new media and new structures. Internet is accessible to anyone who wants to send any type of information out into the world. Media organisations are merging, even globally, and at the head of those big companies are often

Writings and comments of any contributor do not necessarily reflect that of Orange Magazine. Find more on orangemagazine.eu

FREEDOM politicians or powerful businessmen. The decision of what gets published is being made by fewer and fewer people and the motives are getting blurrier with every new take-over. Journalists that go against the flow find themselves without jobs, together with their colleagues who don’t sell enough exciting stories. How free is a society where only those that follow, make the news? To what extent are journalists willing to go to keep their jobs? To what extent should they go? This edition of Orange Magazine is filled with stories from young journalists, with a fresh point of view, who spent three days getting submerged in this very topic during the EYMD in Brussels. They really are Charlie. They are bringing the bad news, and the hopeful stories. They show the dangers of misinformation and examine the hoaxes, and they are doing this while talking about burning issues like migration. Because even a topic that gets reported about daily, can be censored. These aspiring media makers will make sure that the truth never gets swept under the rug. As long as they continue todo that, at least a part of us will always be free. Izabelle Devulder Belgium

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European Youth Press The European Youth Press (EYP) is an umbrella organisation for young journalists in Europe. The EYP reaches more than 60,000 young journalists across Europe with 25 member organisations and several working groups, forming a solid volunteer and professional infrastructure. It is a democratic, non-profit organisation founded and managed by young media makers all between 20 and 30 years of age. The European Youth Press aims to enable young people to give voice to their opinion on issues in their country and how it relates to the global media landscape by providing access to attend and cover global conferences.

6 WOMEN STRIVE TO BE JOURNALISTS, STILL REMAIN A MINORITY 7 SO WHO PAYS THE BILLS?

Orange Magazine

Orange Magazine was a journal founded by the European Youth Press in 2004. It caters to an international audience of English readers to address the gap of limited content produced by young Europeans that can be shared with youth outside the region. It is available in both print and online editions. All print and online editions of Orange Magazine are published on www. orangemagazine.eu, with PDF copies of print issues available for download, too.

A CRIME OF #DISAGREEMENT 10 FOREIGNERS IN EUROPEAN LANDS 14

European Youth Media Days For eight years now, the European Youth Media Days are annually being organised by the European Parliament in cooperation with the European Youth Press. Hundred young journalist from all over Europe gather at the European Parliament in Brussels for three days of discussions and media production. This year the inspiring topic is Media Freedom. The media makers are getting workshops from professionals in the fields of print, photo, radio and TV, resulting in creations from all genres, crossworkshop productions and a documentary about the course of the European Youth Media Days 2015.

ANTI-MIGRATION HOAXES: THE GREEN LIGHT TO THE DARK AGES? 16 Q&A :THE THINNING LINE BETWEEN JOURNALISM AND POLITICS

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EUROPEAN YOUTH MEDIA DAYS TEAM AND PARTICIPANTS

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WOMEN STRIVING TO BE JOURNALISTS, STILL , REMAIN A MINORITY . although women make up around 75% of

journalism students

they are still a minority in the newsrooms

According to a recent report by Women’s Media Center, there are only 36% female journalists working in the newsrooms that remain dominated by male employees. The women also tend to appear less on the television as anchors and media experts, and they usually report the lifestyle while men are assigned political and technological topics. “Women are more than half of the population, but we don’t see or hear them in equal numbers to men,” responded to the report Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center. Taking into consideration the number of female graduates and the amount of women actually working in the media, the general tendency shows that sexism prevails in most of the Western media. The gender quotas which are applied in various European countries and are meant to fix the gap between men and women have not solved the issue. “When it comes to equal opportunities or the treatment of women, we still have a very long way to go,”says journalist Rania Tzima. She covers politics for the Greek TV-channel MEGA. After being in journalistic sphere for a long time, she admits that women have achieved a significant progress. However, they are still treated with less trust and are often assigned the tasks of less importance comparing to the topics men cover. “Sometimes, you are not given an assignment simply because you are a woman,” she adds.

The general focus on men shows the undermining issues regarding sexism in journalism. For instance, at the present moment, women make less than one fifth of all the experts interviewed by the journalists. They are also less likely to be featured on the front pages or be quoted for the political stories. Besides, there is still a lot of sexism whenever the women are being represented in the media.

“When it comes to equal opportunities or the treatment of women,we still have a very long way to go” Rania Tzima

Political campaigns are good examples; whenever there are women participating in elections or acting as significant political figures, they tend to be singled out by the media through the sexist remarks. For instance, Angela Merkel has been called “black widow spider”, and American politician Hilary Clinton was referred as too old to participate in the presidential elections in 2016. There is a negative tendency of focusing on body parts or the appearances when talking about the women; and this is something absent from covering the men. Women tend to be portrayed differently from men, with a specific

focus on the feminine qualities and traditional female features. “Women are usually presented as mothers and caretakers of the family,”says Ukrainian researcher Oksana Kis, “This contributes to the double harm for the women’s consciousness”. According to a researcher, sexist portrayal limits the women to a private sphere and separates them from the public life; and it also makes it look like women need to follow the traditions and identify themselves with the stereotypical female roles only. Sexism remains strong when it comes to the job division inside the media sphere. Just as female

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reporters tend to be assigned “more feminine topics”, there is lack of balance in the news and other programs where female anchors are a minority. They make less than 10% of sports columnists strengthening the stereotype that sports is a male prerogative. Women are also less likely to get recognition for their work. For instance, in 2015, only four women out of 14 winners received the European Press Prize which is an annual competition for the journalists. Despite some successful examples of women-anchors or womenreporters, there is also a gender gap when it comes to management roles. “Although there are more women in the intermediate positions, the majority of executives are men,” says Catalan journalist Laura Pus Trull, correspondent for the Catalan News Agency in Brussels. She admits that women receive much more scrutiny than men in their appearances, and it is more difficult for them to secure assignments because they are treated with less trust and confidence. Although the gender equality issue is a solid problem, it does not get the necessary coverage. With the many crises affecting the EU, the problems of sexism and women’s roles has dropped from the priority list. Solving the gender gap can lead to positive consequences in the media sphere as well as help European journalists to work more professionally; however, as long as this problem is not recognized, the two sexes are deemed to have unequal opportunities and representation. Anna Romandash

SO WHO PAYS THE BILLS? instead of replicating catchy images about evil migrants, let’s look at the numbers.

Like it or not — refugees/migrants are an inevitable and increasing part of the European reality. Think of political instability of the Middle East, poverty in Africa or climate change that makes portions of the world uninhabitable day by day. People will have to resettle — and The Old Continent is one of the safe zones, promising safety and a good life standard. Various new media, in forms of amusing memes, vlogs and plethora of blogs and alternative newspapers, spread around key ideas about the future of Europe under this new scenario. One of which is “Schrödinger’s immigrant” — the fear of migrants taking the jobs while using social benefits. The intrinsic lack of logic here is symptomatic to propaganda, based rather on irrational fear and strong emotions than consistent data. Conservative and liberal-market-oriented circles contribute to building mental fences and try to inflence public moods and national politics. But why not look around and see if someone is actually fact-checking and proving the outcomes of European hospitality? I decided to look at a research based on national statistical data in the UK, a highly mixed country that experiences constant influx of immigrants and becomes

increasingly sceptical about this development. Tommaso Frattini and Christian Dustmann from 2013 from Centre of Research and Analysis for Migration (CReAM) conducted an extensive analysis based on data from British Labour Force Survey, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses and Office for Budget Responsibility Economic and Fiscal Outlooks. Researchers have shown that immigrants from non-EU contries have been 1.7% less likely to benefit from social housing than the natives in the years 2001 and later. They profit from the transfer and tax credits 16% less than the UK-born residents. Their contribution to the fiscal budget has been higher than that from the natives in the years 2001–2011.5 billion pounds to the fiscal budget was earned by the non - E.U. immigrants. Later on the numbers dropped and there was a negative outcome, but nowadays the tendency started to reverse and it seems that revenue/ expenditures ratio among this group will shortly become plausible again (not to forget that these results were 15% better among migrant workers than natives in the same period). Conclusion? Immigration in UK has generally helped reduce the fiscal costs for the native workers since 2000 and has had a positive impact on the fiscal deficit. Internet has become a useful tool for propaganda these days — but it also contains all sort of wellbacked, approved information that could counterbalance the flow of negative, emotional opinions and prevent the construction of mental fences. Natalia Skoczylas

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A CRIME OF #DISAGREEMENT social media censorship stops debate, not harassment

Hard-core Human Rights defenders confidentially stand together when it comes to defending democratic values – equality, liberty or justice. Unfortunately, freedom of speech seems to be posing challenges even to the leading EU countries, which frequently fail to defend its social rebels. The internet essentially has the same advantages and characteristics as democracy and free speech – the ability to participate, to debate, to criticize and disagree. Sadly, if one side of the debate is silenced, all of the advantages lose their meaning. Problems, however, do not disappear. Free speech in the social media at its best is indeed a right to express yourself disregarding factual or humanitarian incorrectness. And there are many different factors (the public, politicians and social media networks) responsible for assuring the rights to speak and to insult.

age of political correctness’ social media finds itself playing a bossy teacher’s role, where it should be just a classroom for people to debate. In the interview Lukas said: ‘The best way to tackle the nastiness in social media is calling it out and debating the ideas behind. Censorship, on the contrary, allows nastiness to persist and creates its own martyrs.’

officer at Goldsmiths, University of London, provoked a storm of protest after she tweeted a hashtag #killallwhitemen. Following that, she is to apear in court 5 November, while change.org’s petition to expel her from the university received almost 27,000 supporters. It suggests that jailing instead of educating is a more promising solution. Right-wing British columnist Milo Yiannopoulos, who would normally oppose Bahara in every argument concerning feminism or sexism,

#RightToInsult Lukas Mikelionis, controversial London-based columnist, defended a Canadian comedian Nicole Arbour, after her video ‘Dear Fat People’ was temporarily suspended from YouTube. His article for The Spiked, British online magazine focusing on politics and free speech, argued that ‘no one should be safe from mockery’. ‘Like progressive ideas, good comedy often comes from those who aren’t afraid to cause offence’, he writes. Unfortunately ‘in the

#KillAllWhiteMen vs. #JailForBeingStupid Furthermore, while the EU institutions shame imprisonment of opposition even outside the union (e.g. Alexei Navalny, Khadija Ismayilova, Oleg Sentsov, Nadiya Savchenko, Pussy Riot), its member countries do not always set the right example themselves. Especially when it comes to minor provocations on social media. Recently Bahar Mustafa, a 28-year-old student diversity 8

stood up for her tweeting: ‘Totally disagree with Bahar Mustafa being arrested for saying the wrong words. Free speech means nothing unless applied to everyone’ #StopTheSilence Meanwhile, Brussels tries to find a balanced stand. Inside the European Parliament Tanja Fajon (S&D), a Slovenian MEP and a former journalist, says that being indifferent to the hate speech is not an option. ‘We have to counter the

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Illustration: Agnė Dovydaitytė & Heta Hassinen

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hatred for example with satirical or humoristic ways. It’s not good to be silent, it’s good to react and be engaged’. This week Fajon participated in the discussions at the European Youth Media Days and chaired the Hate Speech vs. Free Speech panel discussion organised by the S&D at the parliament. As an example MEP Fajon points out that the refugee crisis in Europe has brought the xenophobic rhetoric to the public debate, therefore hate speech appears even between European politicians. ‘If we choose to ignore them, we have to come up with alternative proposals and be proactive,’ she says. #BannedOnInstagram Social media networks get involved in this complicated ‘content cleansing’ process themselves, although made decisions sometimes seem rather random. This year

Instagram made the headlines by blacklisting hashtags such as #curvy, #goddess or #EDM. The network sticks to the policy that certain hashtags get banned if they are consistently being used to share content that violates the Community Guidelines of the service. For instance, the guidelines outlaw nudity images and advise users to share content that suits the diverse public. Nicky Jackson Colaco, Instagram’s director of public policy, defended the Instagram’s policies on The Washington Post by saying that the company keeps developing photo recognition and filtering software in order to balance between the freedom of expression and safety. Restrictions on social media and disagreements between the public, politicians and social networks go to show the way broader issue of silencing ‘wrong’ opinions

beyond the computer screen and beyond the borders. Whether it’s the jailing of racist British novelist David Irving in Austria due to the denial of holocaust, banning Russian propaganda channel RTR Planet in Lithuania or expelling Milo Yiannopoulos from the Slut Walk in LA because of his posters ‘Regret is not a rape’, bans haven’t actually solved any problems. They have only stopped potential debates that are (or used to be) a long tes,ted practice of democracy. Agne Dovydaityte & Heta Hassinen

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FOREIGNERS IN EUROPEAN LANDS tourism and migration have been discussed in terms

of economy, history and

sustainability among others.

Unsurprisingly,

tourists are

most likely welcomed in countries, however, the

appearance of migrants usually heats up tension within a

country, a region and in the eu as well.

Tourism and Migration in Numbers Statistically speaking, in 2013 and 2014 the number of international travellers was five times higher than the number of migrants. Even if this rate has changed due to the recent influx of people arriving from the Middle East or African countries, this data not only evokes questions about tourism and migration, but also about the correlation between them and the way that these phenomena are represented in the media. According to UNWTO Migration Policy1, in 2013 and 2014, 231 million migrants were registered, which makes up 3% of the world population. 10% of them, namely 21.3 million individuals, were considered refugees and asylum seekers. Compared to that, during these years 15% of the world population, that is 1.1 billion people, travelled internationally, which is five times more than the actual number of migrants. In addition to that, this number will without doubt increase in the future. The European Union is definitely working on this.2 The phenomenon of mass tourism will probably draw more and more attention on local, regional, national and international level.

The Competitiveness of the Tourism Sector

The Connotation of Those Well-known Words

As Carlo Corazza, the Head of the Unit Tourism, Creative and Emerging Industries, DG Growth, European Commission, says, “[t] he main aim is to support the effort of the sector to amplify its competitiveness and to attract more tourists from the emerging country markets”. Therefore, they are focusing on several priorities. They want to improve the business environment by making

Unfortunately, the word migrant (“a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions”) and refugee (“person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster”carry more negativity than the word expat (“a person who lives outside their native country”). According

the administration such as the visa procedure easier, and they also try to adapt to the digital revolution. While he was elaborating on the competitiveness in the sector, he also spoke about the unskilled labour. “There is a lack of skilled people available, and this is a big problem for the sector. We try to correct this.” He hasn’t touched upon how they aim to solve the lack of workforce, but why not with skilled migrants and/ or refugees? 10

to the definitions given by the Oxford Dictionaries, it becomes obvious that all migrants are in fact expats, but not all expats are necessarily migrants, and it shouldn’t be forgotten either that refugees are also looking for better conditions. According to Corazza, a relation between tourism and migration can be hardly found. He stated, “it is the basic of logic that these are two completely different things”. The EU official also focused on people who cross the borders

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Photography by Stacy Wyss from Unsplash.com, modified by Ingi Mehus.

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as tourists on paper , but who really want to stay and work in the country – consequently as an illegal immigrant. “This is cheating, this has nothing to do with tourism,” he explained. Nevertheless, the UNWTO Study on Tourism and Migration4published back in 2009 investigated the scope of these global phenomena, their impacts and the possible link between them. Researchers found that tourism and migration are interlinked, and both MigrationLed Tourism (MLT) and Tourism-Led Migration (TLM) contribute economically and socially to countries ranging from short- or long-term cultural exchange to entering the workforce to provide labour for tourism related to industries. The Next Step Forward In the fast-growing landscape of tourism and migration enhanced by either the market needs or violent forces, double standards

For every 7th migrant residing in France, there were one hundred tourists arriving in 2014.

1_http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/international-migration-statistics 2_http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/tourism/offer/sustainable/index_en.htm 3_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9jgMmdi98w 4_http://ethics.unwto.org/en/content/tourism-and-migration 5_http://www.trueactivist.com/despicable-british-tourists-complain-of-refugees-ruiningtheir-holidays-in-greece/

and stereotypes need to be addressed and diminished on every level – from the personal to the international one. This becomes more and more urgent, since a growing tension has been detected between tourists and migrants in popular tourist destinations such as Greece.Five decisionmakers inside and outside EU Institutions and Bodies have to act on this, but in strong connection with journalists, since these latter have the power and the opportunity to reach out to

the public and inform them about the disparate aspects of tourism and migration. By doing this, not only the representation of tourists and migrants should be altered, but also a more open-minded society could be established. Barbara Majsa

The first 4 journalist’s concerns are economic ones 1 JOB CUTS, LOSS OF JOBS

2 COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS 3 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES

4 INCREASINGLY PROBLEMATIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS FOR FREELANCE JOURNALISTS ( PRECARIOUS JOBS)

SOURCE : report of the European Federation of Journalists, 2014 : “ CONFRONTING AUSTERITY, Financial and employment Models in Journalism

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13 © Loanna Lougari / Greece

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ANTI-MIGRATION HOAXES: THE GREEN LIGHT TO THE DARK AGES? Ignorance

is a given when it comes to understanding implicit

matters and their social consequences, especially those with worldwide implications.

“They take the jobs” In Czech Republic, the antiimmigration propaganda is one of the strongest. Among others, the popular hoaxes some politicians use to appeal to the public opinion include : those dealing with immigrants possible impact on job availability in the country, and their demand for social benefits. On May 2014, Klára Samková, a candidate of the Úsvit přímé demokracie party , running for elections to the European parliament in 2014, said that the influx of immigrants will harshly affect the labour market and the state will not be able to handle large numbers of immigrants. The website eurozpravy.cz presented this quote from a TV debate between Samková and Ondřej Liška, a member of the Greens party. The University of Pittsburgh attempted to tackle this issue on October 2014 and pointed out that refugees do compete for jobs, but that they are also consumers, therefore they will also increase the demand for jobs, not take them away. However, Mrs. Samková previously commented quite contradictory to her later remarks. On February 2014, she published a statement saying the state will be burdened by increased expenses on social benefits for the unqualified immigrant workers, who will have problems finding jobs because they dont understand our culturally determined system of work. This statement was also re-published on a facebook page of Úsvit

The

role of media would be to eliminate

ignorance, but the reproduction of lies and all kinds of

misleading arguments can only prove that they don’t. In the contrary, the unstoppable flood of hoaxes has only become graver after the development of digital media.

přímé demokracie partys leader Tomio Okamura. University of Pittsburgh also countered this statement by pointing out that although newly arrived refugees have higher unemployment rates than the community average, this is usually due to the significant number of entrants whose qualifications are not recognized and also to the necessary time to learn English. However, special programs targeted at increasing immigrantsability to joint the workforce have successfully tackled this issue in many cases.

“The sick are coming” The nightmare of returning to the ages of massive pandemics in European continent has been pointed out as a possible outcome of the flow of refugees and immigrants as they are considered carriers of extinct diseases. On June 2015, Islám v České republice nechceme “We dont want Islam in Czech Republic”, an informal group of supporters of a newly established political party Blok proti Islámu “Bloc against Islam”, published a disclosure on their website stating that immigrants are allegedly brining diseases with them and claimed that Italy is facing an epidemic of scabies.

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No study or survey shows this. There is no outbreak or bump in disease attributable to immigrants, said Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York Universitys Langone Medical Center. These kind of arguments have actually been part of the political agenda of several parties in many countries. Populist/far right party LAOS leader in Greece, Giorgos Karatzaferis tackled the issue of migration and refugee flow in connection with the supposed return of tuberculosis during 2001 and 2010 parliament speeches. Terrified of terror The dramatic expansion of ISIS terrorist actions in the Middle East and the fact that most refugees originate from the same area ,was enough for many media to claim that refugees and terrorists are pretty much the same thing. Linking to the UK tabloid Sunday Express, Infodirect.eu and Antizensur.de and Scheizz online magazine attempted to convince readers through photos that the same individuals depicted as ISIS fighters were the ones arriving in the European union as refugees. “The new gold diggers” Only young men are coming. They left their wives and children back in the war in order to have a better life in Germoney. An article in the xenophobic and racist German blog www.zukunftskinder. org (Zukunftskinder= children of the future) claims that stonehearted men are deserting their families in the chase of success in Germany. The saddest part is that this kind of argument has been multiplied through posting in

social networks and gaining the general acceptance as a fact. Of course, when 65 % of the people, who sought asylum in Germany in 2014 are men, it is legitimate to ask questions. However, this is no proof that they are so obsessed with wealth as to desert everything.

would prefer and trust German products and services. Sylikiotis says that internal crisis and the tensions between member states inevitably enforce xenophobia and racism within the European Union itself. Yes, some political actors do have a lot to profit from racism, he concluded. The MEP also mentioned that stories about possible ISIS terrorist attacks are actually contradicted by the fact that any such incidents so far have been organized by citizens – usually Muslims – permanently living within the member states of the EU. Integration is actually a very important parameter here, he claimed, but any programs that aim to fight social exclusion have not been as effective and that is a big issue. Having ghettos of suppressed minorities is the greatest risk here.

Waiting for the barbarians

Hoaxes it is

”Invasion is now! More than 100.000 migrants arrived in Europe in July.” After mainstream media have disseminated information that describes the refugee flow as an invasion, several blogs and even an entire hashtag on Twitter have reproduced this kind of arguments. However, even if the recent amount of migrants coming to the EU is bigger than before, it is not comparable to an invasion of the continent. Other than the number itself, there is nothing else to support this general belief.

Being able to tell the truth from the lies has never been easy. The digital era has made that even more complicated. Blogs, videos, digital print and social networking have made the dissemination of false information the latest trend. The accessibility and the velocity in spreading the information through the web would and should encourage the audience to doublecheck the facts. Still, it seems that when lies are part of political agendas, they are more likely to be perceived as absolute truths. After all, as the MEP Sylikiotis stated: When democratic parties begin to accept or neglect to react to racist behaviours, that is simply a green light for fascist and neo-nazis to step forward.

Tackling the lies Neoklis Sylikiotis, MEP, Vice-Chair of GUE/NLG, the Confederal Group of the European United Leftplatform was quite critical on the aforementioned arguments. When asked about the amount of truth that lies in the previous statements, he claimed: Basically, the miracle of German economy was based on a work power cconsisting mostly of immigrants. The budget a country provides to support people is a minimum amount in comparison to what the long-term investment on human resources will return. Even when Germany would sponsor the education of foreign students, it was certain that they, as professionals, 15

Eva Gianoukou, Jakub Hein, Christoph Chattleitner, Joana Pinto Oliveira, Leonard Kehnscherper, Marine Leduc

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On July 2015, Politifact.com published a piece dealing with such claims. After consulting The American Centre for Disease Control and several experts, no hard evidence pointing out to the infections spreading across borders, in this case between Mexico and the States, was found.

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Q&A

THE THINNING LINE BETWEEN JOURNALISM AND POLITICS calin mihai racoti,

eu official, is one of the few romanians who have been working in brussels for several years.

he shared with us his views on the wide spectrum of media

landscapes in the eu,

the structural problems of the eu decision making process and the complex linkages between journalism and

politics.

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“If you’re going to have show politics, you’re going to have show countries and you end up with a comedy.” calin mihai racoti

Q: Explain the differences between the media markets of Western Europe and Eastern Europe? There are many differences, but I think the main thing you have to take into account is the past. In Eastern Europe, media freedom is quite a new thing and it takes a while to implement. In Eastern Europe, we are looking now at 15 years of developing a media landscape. In Western Europe, of course, there were several phases, but the first steps of dealing with Human Rights were taken in the 1940s. In Eastern Europe, it was more or less the other way around. These different backgrounds changed the mindset of journalism. What I see in Eastern Europe now is that it is not very transparent where the money is coming from. Q: Are there plans in the European legislation to counterfere crossmedia ownership? In order to get EU-wide acceptance, you need consensus, which is very difficult to reach. But I see several chances to ensure media plurality: One would be workshops like this [EYMD, editor’s note]. The second one is through the European Council and works by example, e.g. of European countries that show where the money is coming from and why. Thirdly, there are several organisations, like NGOs dealing with media transparency, that push for the exchange of good practice examples.

Q: Are there any fears that the media owners in Europe might not be able to compete with the global players due to stricter media regulations on the European level? I think they will always find a way to bypass the regulations. As I’ve already mentioned - the governments will never go so deep, because these things require a lot of balance. We need to take into account the economic side as well as the influence. I wouldn’t put the subject on competition, but on the political agenda in different countries. And in the absurd situation where media would be regulated up to 100%, I’m pretty sure that some clever financial bookkeepers will find a way out. Financial services are a different market and that would also have to be regulated. You can regulate a lot in the written press, TV and video content, but not much on the internet - the more you try, the less you succeed. Q: You’ve been in Brussels for several years now. How would you describe the way media are reporting on what is happening here? I’ll answer this question from the point of EU events - summits and conferences. There are only very few journalists who are really knowledgable and can report on what’s really happening. Many journalists work with the press releases they receive before the event takes place, accompanying that with a couple of quotes and some punchlines. But to report in a real coherent and transparent way, that’s not happening very often. 17

And it’s not so complicated to do! It just takes some effort to get into the story and not be a generalist. Q: Do you see a link between politicians and media makers, or a lot of informal connections? I think that is now a big issue in Eastern and Central Europe. It’s a trend and if you dig deeper, you can see that it all started with some really good journalists back in the time,who switched sides. We have plenty of examples of those. And personally, it makes me very sad. We have been seeing a lot that people are crossing the line from journalism to politcs. If they don’t become politicians themselves, they become consultants. Naturally, you have the skills, you know about the political game and you know the internal system in the press, so as a journalist, you get a head start. In the end, journalism is all about selling your own image. Once journalists who want to get into politics start gaining power, you can see that they are not really following the goal of improving something. And this can really disrupt the system: If you’re going to have show politics, you’re going to have show countries and you end up with a comedy.

Lisa Zeller, Adam Englund, Oana Vasiliu

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EYMD team 2015

Martin Maska Main coordinator

Claudio Tocchi Main coordinator

MĂŠlody Dafonseca Designer

Workshops coordinator

Tatiana Tilly

the orange magazine european youth media days 2015 project is done in partnership with the european parliament.

Ekaterina Kuznetsova

Participants person

Dmitri Romanovski Moldova

Get updates on latest opportunities: @EYP_Orange Orange-Magazine

Haris Dedovic President of the Prix de lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;EYP jury

Jonathan Karstadt

Communication

www.orangemagazine.eu

Dobriyana Tropankeva

TV workshop

Thomas Seymat Multimedia workshop

Izabelle Devulder Print workshop

Daniela Sala Radio workshop

Martin Hanzel Photo worshop

Anna Saraste Documentary worshop

Milena Stosic Moderator

ÂŠ Martin Hanzel / Ringier Axel Springer Slovakia