Regional conference on media ownership trends

TIRANA, Nov 2 – The Albanian Media Institute, with the support of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, organized in Tirana a regional conference called “Changes on media ownership trends and their influence on media independence and pluralism of information conference” trying to identify and discuss the changes in the trends of media ownership in the region and their ramifications for media independence and pluralism.
Participants were from Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, including media experts, members of regulatory authorities, academics, media owners, editors, journalists, and NGO representatives.
The conference focused on country presentation and discussions regarding the situation of media ownership and its impact on media quality in each country.
The main topics addressed were: identification and transparency of media owners, research facilities on the media market and media outlet shares, economic sustainability of media outlets, transparency of funding, advertising market transparency, government or state ads and their influence on media content and independence, the different privatization schemes employed in each country regarding media, media diversity in the region, the role of regulatory mechanisms and framework on securing transparency of media funding, the role of public broadcasters vis-ஶis commercial media in securing public interest content, and editorial standards as related to journalists’ work conditions.
Special attention was paid to digitalization, discussing the way this would change the landscape of media outlets in these countries, the ownership schemes, and the impact on the public.
In another media event Jordi Socias, a well-known Spanish photographer, met with Albanian photojournalists and reporters focusing on the main aspects of working as a photojournalist, the ways of expression this tool provides compared to text, ethical aspects involved, ways to approach the subjects, and so on.
Deutsche Welle Akademie announced on October 26th the start of a major 18-month training project for small and medium-sized Albanian media outlets, with the support of the European Union and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation, aiming to assist the media for achieving better commercialization and economic sustainability, as well as increase editorial independence.
The project is called “Independent Professional Media: the Road to Europe” and consists of 12 training modules that targets two groups: management training for media owners, managers, and directors, and professional journalism training for political reporters, editors, and correspondents.