Increasing the credibility of journalism in the Balkans was the theme of the conference on peace, security and development in the Western Balkans
At the Conference of Balkan Leaders on the theme “Peace, Security and Development in the Western Balkans”, held in Prishtina, the issue of increasing the credibility of journalism in the Balkans was also discussed.
Representatives of the region’s media and journalism professors discuss current media challenges, highlighting competition, political pressure, the rapid development of the Internet and fake news.
Journalism professor Lutfi Dervishi said that currently it is positive that there are many media outlets. “Today we have a problem, the message and the messenger are one, the time we have today is much more difficult because we are not alone in the market. If anyone asks me what is the state of the media in Albania, in one word I would say good, while in two words I would say not good. Why is it good, it is good in the sense that there are a lot of media, nothing is left unsaid, in terms of quantity we have nothing to complain about, it’s not good because we don’t have much quality, it’s good because all the televisions and agencies are public, it’s not good because they don’t belong 100% to the public, it’s more the next power,” he said. Emilios Perdikaris of the Greek news agency ANA said the war in Ukraine raised fears of a wider conflict and uncertainty about the future. “The war reminds us of something else, namely that peace, stability and security are necessary conditions for all Balkan countries. We have experienced this in the past and we know today that these principles can be guaranteed from the European perspective of the Western Balkans. Our role as journalists is very important. Our cooperation is in our interest. We have many reasons to strengthen our cooperation. I strongly believe that we can do this, aiming to mitigate our contradictions. We live in the same region, we have something in common,” he said. Speaking about the development of the Internet and social networks, Branka Gabriela Vojvodic, general director of the Croatian news agency HINA, said that rapid digitalization has posed challenges for journalism as a profession. “What is the role of the media today, then I will only mention two sentences about the role of agencies and this role should be twofold. We are also victims of this process, but we are also part of the problem, so the media is involved in all the ills that are happening, given that platforms today are dominated by digital advertising. Media are forced to develop other business models to maintain sustainability and be relevant. In this process, the imperative timeliness is tracked, it is more important than accuracy, editorial decisions are based more on the economy of attention given to web analysis and not on reliability and verified content. This process of deprofessionalization of journalism and incompetence of the media to respond adequately and quickly to technological changes, opened the It is necessary to create special organizations to verify information, and here I am talking about software and different types of “fake verifiers””, she declared. Whereas Erman Yuksel of Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said they are committed to improving quality and combating misinformation. “The strong point is only real news, we publish all this in 13 languages for all our subscribers, and our products contain more than 3 thousand photos and thousands of other media sources that we do every day for our regular subscribers and for more than 100 different countries around the world. We look forward to growing our subscribers and increasing the quality and content not only in the Balkans but also beyond the Balkans. We are committed to being accurate, despite the information we have, and to combat fake news and misinterpretations, and I think we as an agency will definitely work harder,” he said. Halit Hajdini, from North Macedonia’s MIA news agency, spoke about the conditions in which journalists work, but also stressed the need for a more advanced education system. “We have an extremely poor education system and journalists who finish their journalism have problems with the basics of journalism. We don’t have professional journalists for medicine, we don’t have any for economics, we have big flaws in schools and in the coverage of journalism. The burden placed on journalism is greater than it can bear. We have pro institutions and news agencies, the media in general, just as we have society “Unfortunately, in my opinion, our society in the Balkans is not too lazy, but I don’t think so. to ensure that we are at the required level in all areas, including journalism,” he said. he declares. This conference is organized by the Universal Peace Federation, in partnership with the KosovaPress news agency, the Washington Times Foundation, the International Association of Media for Peace (IMAP) and the International Association of Youth and Students for peace (IAYSP).
