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AEJ Media Freedom Survey

 

 

Documents

 

 

The AEJ published the first Survey of Media Freedom across Europe in November 2007. Entitled Goodbye to Freedom? and edited by William Horsley, AEJ Media Freedom Representative, it was debated at the Media Freedom Workshop on 10 November during the AEJ's 2007 Congress in Dublin.

 

On 28 February 2008, a Survey Update entitled Goodbye to Media Freedom? was published. On that day, William Horsley presented its main findings to the Brussels-based press corps in the Résidence Palace building opposite the European Commission.

 

The Survey was further expanded in November 2008 in the Collection of AEJ Reports presented to the AEJ Congress in Linz. The reports are by authors in 13 countries and focus on two topics: journalism at risk and declining trust in the media.

 

The original Survey covers 20 countries in eastern and western Europe and highlights evidence that media freedom in Europe is threatened by restrictive laws, hidden political and commercial pressures, threats of jail, intimidation and in some cases even murder.

 

The Update contains new evidence from 15 countries that media freedom is in retreat because of widespread violence, censorship, meddling in broadcasting, commercial pressures and security laws. William Horsley charges European governments and EU institutions with complacency and puts forward three remedies for repairing the damage done to media freedom and independence. He argues that journalists should inform the public better about the dangers, and return to the “gold standard” of objective reporting and proper scrutiny of the actions of governments.

 

Resolution adopted by the AEJ General Assembly, 9 November 2007

 

In connection with the issue of media freedom and the obligation of all members of the Council of Europe to abide by the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular article 10, the AEJ's General Assembly adopted the following resolution:

 

RESOLUTION PASSED AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE AEJ IN DUBLIN, IRELAND, ON 9 NOVEMBER 2007

 

The Association of European Journalists deplores the action of Slovakia's Supreme Court in rejecting the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg concerning the right of journalist Martin Klein to publish a satirical article about a church leader, Archbishop Jan Sokol. The position of Slovakia's judicial authorities places the country in breach of its legal obligations as a member of the Council of Europe to uphold freedom of expression. This has happened at a time when Slovakia should be setting a correct example as it starts its six-month term as chairman of the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe's executive body, on 12 November 2007.

 

 

Goodbye to Freedom? A survey of media freedom across Europe

 

Full Survey (535 KB)

Goodbye to Freedom? November 2007

 

February 2008 Update (166 KB)

Goodbye to Media Freedom? February 2008

 

Survey and Update in French (454 KB).

Presentation by the French Section of the AEJ. The translation was done by Le Taurillon, the online magazine of the young people's section of the European Movement in France. Its website includes an interview with William Horsley

 

Transcript in full of William Horsley's remarks in Brussels, 28 February 2008

 

Euractiv report on the 28 February press conference with links to many other useful sources

 

NUJ report of the press conference, written by the NUJ's Phil Hunt, originally published on the NUJ's Brussels website and elsewhere

 

Press releases

publication

workshop

 

 

Country reports

 

These reports combine the texts that relate to each country from the Survey. Those marked * contain extracts from the Update and those marked ** contain extracts from the November 2008 Linz Reports

 

Introduction and Summary (William Horsley)* **

Armenia (Liana Sayadyan)* **

Austria (Otmar Lahodynsky)* **

Belgium (Michel Theys)

Croatia (Zdenko Duka)* **

Cyprus

    Part One (Kyriakos Pierides)*

    Part Two (Hasan Kahvecioglu)*

Czech Republic (Tomas Vrba)* **

France (Régis Verley)*

Germany (Horst Keller)

Greece (Athanase Papandropoulos)

Hungary (József Martin)* **

Ireland (Joe Carroll)* **

Italy (Carmelo Occhino and Elzbieta Cywiak)*

Moldova (Aneta Grosu) **

Netherlands (Fred Sanders) **

Poland (Krzysztof Bobinski)* **

Romania (Ruxandra Ana)

Russian Federation (Manana Aslamazyan and Gillian McCormack)*

Serbia (Nebojsa Ristic) **

Slovakia (Peter Kerlik and Tibor Macak)* **

Spain (Pedro González)* **

Turkey (Dogan Tilic)*

United Kingdom and EU (Celia Hampton and William Horsley)*

 

 

The AEJ and authors are naturally happy for short passages to be extracted for quotation, with attribution, but please contact us if you wish to reproduce any significant portion. Email: william@aej-uk.org

 

 

All the above documents that are accessible on this website are presented as Word documents

 

 

 

 

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