Recent developments in Macedonia, part of the treatment of the media and their use for political purposes are only highlighting the severe picture of the journalism in this country.
Journalists, in response to this, decided that will pressure the public to continue the negotiations about the issue of reforms in the media sector. Part of the media and journalistic organizations agreed to work together to put pressure on political parties and those who signed the “Przino Agreement”, for fulfilment of the taken obligations. The impression of the media representatives is that the media became victim of the political party contracts after the mediator of the working groups, Mr. Peter Vanhoutte, confirmed that there will be no negotiations.
“It’s clear that the political parties do not want serious media reform, which was confirmed in the last few months of negotiations that were taking place in the club of parliamentarians. The whole negotiation process was blocked at the reform of the media only proves that media is misused for the presentation of spreading propaganda.” – said Ms. Zaneta Trajkoska, Director of the Institute of Communication Studies.
Meanwhile, the journalists in Macedonia are faced with numerous problems. According to a recent research made by the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers (SSNM) a third of journalists are freelancers i.e. 150 thousand journalists in Macedonia are with this status.
“One of the serious problems is that most of the young journalists are freelancers, and 30% are unfairly dismissed. The censorship is present in 66%, and the self-censorship with 53%.” – announced the Chairman of SSNM, Ms. Tamara Causidis.
SSNM sent a message to the owners, chief editors of media and their fellows journalists that the freedom of speech, expression, thought are included in the corpus of fundamental human rights and their violation is anti-civilizational act.