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 have become one, the time we have today is much more difficult because we are not alone in the market. If someone asked me what the state of the media is in Albania, I would say in one word good, and in two words I would say not good. Why is it good, it’s good in the sense that there is a lot of media, nothing is left unsaid, in terms of quantity we don’t have to complain, it’s not good because we don’t have a lot of quality, it’s good because all television and agencies are public, it’s not good because it’s not that they belong 100% to the public, it’s rather 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: peace, stability and security are necessary conditions for all Balkan countries. We have experienced this in the past and today we know that these principles can be guaranteed from the European perspective of the Western Balkans. Our role as journalists is very important. Our cooperation is to our advantage. We have many reasons to strengthen our cooperation. I firmly believe that we can achieve this, by aiming to alleviate our contradictions. We live in the same neighborhood, we have a common lifestyle, we face the same problems. This is why we must have a common goal: to leave the past behind and work for a better future,” 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? I will then only mention two sentences on 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, which is why the media is involved in all the evils that are happening, given that the platforms today are dominated by digital advertising. Media outlets are forced to develop alternative business models to maintain their sustainability and be relevant. In this process, the imperative of speed is respected, it is more important than accuracy, editorial decisions are based more on the economy of attention paid to web analysis and not on reliability and verified content. This process of deprofessionalization of journalism and the incompetence of the media to respond adequately and quickly to technological changes have made it necessary to form special organizations to verify information, and here I am talking about software and types of different “False -ladies’,” she said.
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 are looking forward to increasing our subscribers and increasing the quality and content not only in the Balkans but also beyond the Balkans. 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 complete their journalism have problems with the basics of journalism. We don’t have professional journalists for medicine, we don’t have any for the economy, we have big flaws in schools and in journalism coverage. The burden placed on journalism is greater than it can bear. We have professional institutions and press agencies, the media in general, just like we have society. Unfortunately, in my opinion, our society in the Balkans is not too lazy, but I don’t think we are at the required level in all areas, including journalism,” he said.
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).
