Ghent University analysed 333 decisions by nine media councils to understand how journalistic ethics and values are interpreted and applied by different press councils in Europe. The principle considered the most problematic in all regions is accuracy and truthfulness of the news (30% of all complaints analysed).
Special attention was given to offline and online news, in order to investigate how European media councils deal with the challenges of the digital age. The vast majority of complaints (86%) filed were about factual reporting.
In many cases, the complainant disagreed about the veracity of facts reported in the news. But the study notes that it is not the task of the media council to verify the disputed facts and decide who is right. Media councils can only analyse whether the journalist took all necessary steps to ensure that the information in the news is as accurate and truthful as possible.
The second biggest complaint category in this study were cases related to respect for private life and human dignity. The biggest concern was a lack of respect for the privacy of people, but concerns were also raised about unfounded accusations and insinuations, a lack of respect for human dignity, and discriminating, racist or hateful reporting.
In selecting media councils, the selected media councils came from a variety of media system and political contexts. In addition to countries with different media systems, the study included countries with different degrees of self-regulation and in different geographical regions across Europe. Both media councils in EU Member States were selected as well as media councils in Candidate Countries, where codes of conduct and media councils have been installed more recently:
The Press Council of Ireland (°2008) was included to represent the liberal model as it was
installed after strong pressure of the government to intervene in the news landscape.
Raad voor de Journalistiek (RVDJ, Belgium, Flanders, °2002), the Danish Press Council (°1992) and the Council for Mass Media in Finland (°1968) were examples of strongly professionalised media councils.
In the polarized pluralist model, Conseil de Déontologie Journalistique (CDJ, Belgium, Wallonia, °2009) and the Conseil de Déontologie Journalistique et de Mediation (France, °2019) are included.
The Journalists’ Ethics Council in Slovenia (°1905) was included to represent media councils in new EU Member States.
The Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia (°2015) and The Board of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics (°2009) were selected as media councils in EU Candidate Countries.
The majority (83.5%) of all complaints analysed were about journalistic practices that were used to prepare the news message (for example, lack of fairness in information gathering or disregarding agreements made between sources and journalists).
In Denmark, Ireland and North Macedonia, all complaints were directed towards news organizations and individual journalists were never singled out. In Slovenia and Georgia, all complaints were targeting the work of a journalist within a news organization. The two complaints filed against freelance journalists were in Belgium.
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