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 News From You
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Week ending January 25, 2014
A draft EU Regulation designed to restore confidence in financial benchmarks[1] following the LIBOR and EURIBOR scandals is set to undermine press freedom and journalists’ right to protect their sources, if MEPs fail to adopt important amendments to the proposal on 30 January.
A coalition of leading European publishing and journalists’ associations (EANA, EBP, EFJ, EMMA, ENPA and EPC) is calling on MEPs in the lead committee, ECON, and in ITRE which is providing an opinion, both due to consider the Benchmark Regulation this week and next in advance of a full Plenary vote, to adopt amendments that would exempt the press, other media and journalists from the Regulation. The European Parliament Plenary vote is expected to take place on 3 April.
As it currently reads, financial information reported by journalists could fall under the scope of the Benchmark Regulation if this information is subsequently used as a benchmark – even if the journalist researching and reporting this information is unaware that it is being used in this way.
Director of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) Renate Schroeder said: “As it stands, this Benchmarking Regulation will seriously undermine the relationship between journalists and their market sources and threaten the role that journalists play in bringing transparency to financial and commodity markets by providing independent information to the public.”
On behalf of the coalition of press and business publishers, European Publishers Council (EPC) Executive Director Angela Mills Wade said: “The media cannot determine what uses are made of the content they publish and certainly cannot tell their readers what to do with the content they receive, as the Benchmark Regulation inappropriately would require them to do. We deplore the LIBOR and EURIBOR benchmark scandals, but we must be clear that they arose because of the clear conflicts of interest that were present. The media does not have these conflicts. The press is independently funded and our revenues are not related to how financial markets move. This is a fundamental distinction. We are confident that MEPs will understand the inappropriateness of-- for the first time in Europe-- extending financial service regulation to journalism and that they will instead vote to protect the vital role that journalists play in bringing transparency to financial and commodity markets. After all, this is exactly what their predecessors did in 2003 in the very similar circumstances of the Market Abuse Directive.”
MEPs are reminded that the media was exempted from the 2003 Market Abuse Directive[5] following similar discussions with the media and resulting in the agreement that in any democratic society and market economy, regard must always be to the fundamental right to receive and impart information freely without State interference in accordance with Article 10 of the European Court of Human Rights.
Broadcasting Board of Governors' (BBG) Chairman Jeff Shell and RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin Klose expressed outrage at the bloody attacks by police on dozens of journalists in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, including RFE/RL Ukrainian Service reporter Dmytro Barkar and cameraman Ihor Iskhakov. The U.S. international media leaders demanded that Ukrainian authorities immediately investigate the incident.
"We condemn in the strongest terms the violent attacks on journalists of RFE/RL and other media in Ukraine," said Shell, chair of the agency that oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting. "Attacking journalists under any circumstances is unacceptable. This was an egregious and shocking suppression of free press that left our reporters badly injured and in need of emergency medical care. There needs to be a prompt and thorough investigation."
Klose added, "A free society does not beat professional journalists while they are performing their duties. I find these actions by Ukrainian law enforcement officials contemptible. Those involved in the beatings, as well as any supervisors found to have ordered such behavior, must be held accountable for their actions."
Barkar and Iskhakov were in downtown Kyiv providing RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, known locally as Radio Svoboda, with live video coverage of the violent protests on January 20 when they were attacked by members of the elite Berkut police force. The two were separated and held for five hours without access to a phone or legal aid after being beaten and struck on the head and body with batons. Both reject police accusations that they were involved in the violence or provoked police in any way, and this is confirmed by the video footage they were obtaining for Svoboda's live online broadcast.
According to the Kyiv-based Institute of Mass Information (IMI), 35 journalists were injured while covering the violence on January 19-20. A January 20 Reporters Without Borders statement says many were injured by stun grenades, rubber bullets or other non-lethal projectiles. Fourteen of them said they were deliberately targeted by the security forces.
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service has been providing livestreamed video coverage and comprehensive reporting of the Euromaidan protests since they broke out in late November 2013, following the Ukrainian government's decision to back away from an Association Agreement with the European Union.
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