OSCE encourages creation of media self-regulation mechanisms in Albania
Albania boasts a rapidly developing media market. There are more than 60 TV stations, 25 daily newspapers and a media community numbering in the thousands.
Flip Voets of the Flemish Press Commission in Belgium, one of the media experts invited by the OSCE Presence in Albania to hold seminars on self-regulation for media outlets in early 2009, says that this is logical: "After so many years of censorship and oppression, there is an urgent need for the Albanian people to express their views and to discuss the evolution of society."
Yet much remains to be done for the development of truly free media in Albania. The country's ranking in international indexes measuring media quality is low: fifth-last in the 2008 IREX Media Sustainability Index for Europe; 87th - together with Honduras and Nigeria - in the Reporters Without Borders' 2007 Freedom of Media Index; and 105th in Freedom House's worldwide rating, which qualifies its media as only "partly free".
Edison Kurani, Editor-in-Chief of Koha Jonë, one of Albania's leading daily newspapers, says that many internationally accepted ethical norms are simply not respected, apart from efforts by some media outlets to enforce their own in-house codes of ethics.
Part of the problem is a lack of awareness of ethical standards among media professionals. Although Albanian journalist associations do subscribe to a Media Code of Ethics, drafted in 1996 with OSCE support and revised in 2006, there is currently no widely recognized mechanism that oversees its implementation.
Need for self-regulation
Many journalists believe that the creation of a self- regulatory body could be the answer. "Self-regulation would allow the media to develop a debate among themselves and work as a team for issues of joint concern," says Zana Spahiu, the political editor at Kukes TV.
Laurentiu Stinga, the Presence's media development officer, agrees: "A national self-regulatory body would support the media community in its professional development, promote the views of the media establishment regarding important legal developments that influence the freedom of expression and actively uphold a media ethics code."
National media club
In September 2008, the Presence launched a project to encourage the media community to develop its own self-regulatory mechanisms. The goal of the project is the creation of a voluntary national media association, an institutionalized framework that will enable the media to act collectively to promote their interests, strengthen their editorial and economic independence and enforce media ethics principles.
A series of expert seminars on media self-regulation, led by Voets of the Flemish Press Commission as well as senior officials from the German Presserat and the Office of the OSCE Representative on the Freedom of the Media - which has strongly supported the idea and published a guidebook on it - were held throughout the country in March, April and May 2009. Each presented the concept of self-regulation, how such a body is structured and how it works in different countries.
In addition, two international conferences were held in Tirana in November 2008 and May 2009. They brought together media representatives from across Albania to discuss self-regulation and draft the statute of a possible media self-regulatory body.
All of the media outlets that participated in these events recognized the need for self-regulation, particularly the need to uphold the Media Ethics Code. Twenty-one media outlets from Tirana and the regions have so far confirmed their interest in registering a self-regulatory body for the Albanian media.
The next step to be taken within the OSCE project will be to support the registration of the self-regulatory organization as a legal entity. At a final national conference, planned for this year, interested media outlets will sign its statute, paving the way for registration of the body in September 2009.
Taking ownership
While the OSCE Presence in Albania will continue to act as a catalyst for the establishment of media self-regulation in the country, the ultimate success of this process will depend on the will of national media professionals to take full ownership of it.
The Albanian media community has to find its own way of developing checks and balances, says Voets. "There is no single model that fits all. Each country has to find the system that is best for it, because one always has to take into consideration the laws of the country, the culture, the media context, the readiness of journalists and publishers to work together, and so on," he concludes.