Pak Sahafat – The representative of the European Parliament said: The European media sector is facing multiple challenges – from decreasing public trust to increasing political interventions and financial insecurity.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency’s report, Sabine Verheyen, the head of the culture and education committee of the European Parliament, said in an interview with the EU Active website that free and pluralistic media are the pillars of democracy, and for this reason, it is worrying that the media face such challenges. Some member states are witnessing attempts to interfere politically in the media, and in recent years, the employment conditions for journalists have become more hostile and in some cases threatening.
According to him, at the same time, the power and influence of large technology companies, mostly non-European, is constantly increasing. Along with these developments, trust in traditional media has decreased in some social classes and fake news has increased. We should not forget the financial problems of many media.
This official of the European Parliament said about the financial security of the European media: In order to act independently, the media should not be concerned about economic and financial issues. Especially smaller media, such as regional and local newspapers, are financially unstable. They often have to merge and cover more topics with fewer reporters.
Read more:
He also said: We must prevent the journalism profession from being damaged. If the media have to be financially dependent on external forces such as investors or private companies, we risk their independence. Free and diverse media need financial security.
Varhin said about the European media freedom law, which was published by the European Commission last month and met with various reactions, this law covers a difficult and very important issue. We are pleased that at the political level the challenges of media freedom have been recognized, however, there is much room for improvement in the proposal.
The head of the culture and education committee of the European Parliament warned that as I mentioned before, the media is only part of the European competence. Also, it does not make sense to impose very strict rules at the European level, because the conditions are different in all member states. We want to address certain issues, but we have to be very careful not to disrupt the structures of the profession and not worsen the situation in the media sector.
For example, he said about the German media system: In Germany, we have a very special media system that many other countries do not share. When we want to regulate the media sector we have to consider the differences and we can only decide on frameworks.