Summary
Editorial independence, including of online media, should be protected and free from political or economic interference.
Obligations
Election Parts
Quotes
- States parties should ensure that public broadcasting services operate in an independent manner. In this regard, States parties should guarantee their independence and editorial freedom. They should provide funding in a manner that does not undermine their independence.
- Notwithstanding these measures, continued targeted investments in the media ecosystem are indispensable to restore and maintain journalism that combines editorial quality, integrity, independence and a high level of ethics with sustainable technological and economic development.
- In view of the foregoing, the Committee of Ministers: (...) - reiterates member States’ commitment to ensure stable, sustainable, transparent and adequate funding for public service media in line with the principles and standards of the Council of Europe, notably Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on media pluralism and transparency of media ownership.
- The Assembly therefore calls for greater commitment to safeguard journalists’ security and freedom and to uphold media pluralism and independence. It recommends that the Council of Europe member States: (…) 7.7. review their (national, regional and local) funding systems for PSM and private media outlets in order to: 7.7.1. avoid mechanisms being used (directly or indirectly) to exercise editorial influence or to threaten the beneficiaries’ institutional autonomy.
- The following enables journalism to contribute to the maintenance and development of genuine democracy: b) genuine editorial independence vis-à-vis political power and pressures exerted by private interest groups or by public authorities.
- Public service broadcasting…enhances social, political and cultural citizenship and promotes social cohesion. To that end, it is typically universal in terms of content and access; it guarantees editorial independence and impartiality.
- Calls on member states to: provide the legal, political, financial, technical and other means necessary to ensure genuine editorial independence and institutional autonomy of public service broadcasting organisations, so as to remove any risk of political or economic interference.
- National legislative and policy frameworks should safeguard the editorial independence and operational autonomy of all media to ensure that they can carry out their key tasks in a democratic society. These frameworks should be designed and implemented in a manner which prevents States, or any powerful political, economic, religious or other groups from acquiring dominance over and exerting pressure on the media.
- States should adopt specific measures to protect the editorial independence and operational autonomy of public service media by limiting the influence of the State. The supervisory and management boards of public service media should be able to operate in a fully independent manner and the rules governing their composition and appointment procedures should be transparent and contain adequate checks and balances to ensure their independence.
- States should also ensure stable, sustainable, transparent and adequate funding for public service media on a multiyear basis in order to guarantee their independence from governmental, political and market pressures and enable them to provide a broad range of pluralistic information and diverse content.
- The editorial independence of media operating on the Internet is guaranteed in law, policy and practice. They are not subjected to pressure to include or exclude information from their reporting or to follow a particular editorial direction.
- Accordingly, the Assembly calls on member States to review, where necessary, their regulatory frameworks governing media coverage of election campaigns, in order to bring them into line with Council of Europe standards, ensuring in particular that they: (...) 8.10. guarantee the editorial independence of public service media, putting an end to any attempts to influence them or transform them into governmental media: the use of public service media to promote a specific political party or candidate must be classified as illegal misuse of public funds.
- While it inevitably remains the State’s responsibility to set both the method and the level of funding, it is nevertheless imperative that the system should be so designed that: - it cannot be used to exert editorial influence or threaten institutional autonomy – either of which would undermine the operational independence of the public service media; - the public service media is consulted over the level of funding required to meet their mission and purposes, and their views are taken into account when setting the level of funding; - the funding provided is adequate to meet the agreed role and remit of the public service media, including offering sufficient security for the future as to allow reasonable future planning; - the process for deciding the level of funding should not be able to interfere with the public service media’s editorial autonomy.
- The first priority for public service media must be to ensure that their culture, policies, processes and programming reflect and ensure editorial and operational independence.
- States should put in place effective systems to ensure transparency, fairness and nondiscrimination in access by the media to State resources, including public advertising.
- States should put in place a range of measures, including those highlighted in our Joint Declaration of 12 December 2007, to create an environment in which a pluralistic media sector can flourish. These should include, among others, obligations of transparency of media ownership, licensing of different types of broadcasters to promote diversity, rules to prevent undue concentration of media ownership and measures to promote content diversity among and within media outlets.
- Domestic law may also include provisions regulating how private broadcasters must behave during an election campaign, intended to ensure balanced coverage of parties and candidates. Occasionally, such regulations may also cover the print media. In the absence of such laws and regulations, however, there are no international standards requiring private media to adopt balanced editorial positions. For example, it could be expected that a political party newspaper would serve as a platform for that political party, and it would not be unreasonable for other private newspapers to endorse specific candidates or parties.
- Media owners have a responsibility to respect the right to freedom of expression and, in particular, editorial independence.
- In cases where publicly funded media provide free access to the parties for party political broadcasts, these should be broadcast without editorial interference.