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Today’s media ecosphere is difficult for newspaper publishers, particularly those serving local areas. Consolidation and cost-cutting have run their course. Policy makers continue exploring transfers of buckets of money from the digital giants through taxes, fines and fees. Problems exist for all these solutions. What remains is state aid.
The Swedish government’s expanded state aid provisions for newspapers and news providers has come into effect (February 1). Previously newspaper publishers received certain tax breaks and distribution subsidies. New provisions are meant to attack issues specific to local and underserved areas with direct subsidies. Aid for innovation and development can accrue to any publisher. These are also “technology-neutral.” (See more about media in Sweden here)
The new media support provisions come, understandably, rules. Those publishers granted aid must provide “high quality” and “independent” news as well as comply with “good media ethical practice,” noted journalisten.se (January 31). Needless to say, strong objections have come from publishers, advertisers and journalists. (See more about media ethics here)
The Swedish Media Authority (MPRT), through the Culture Ministry, interprets the rules as requiring all those accepting the new subsidies either belong to the Press Council or “otherwise show that they adhere to industry-accepted rules and practices.” Advertising people say this “undermines the credibility of the self-regulatory system.” Publishers call the ethics rules an “unfortunate entanglement of the regulations.” The Swedish Journalists Association is less uncomfortable with the ethics component but wary that support for local publishers could eventually wane.
A year ago Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak was murdered with his fiancee. He had been investigating corrupt practices of prominent Slovak political figures, related to diverted European Union (EU) funds and Italian mobsters. The Slovak public was aghast - as was the entire Slovak media sector - and took to the streets. A few arrests were made, later dismissed, and a few politicians were forced from office.
Jan Kuciak worked for online news portal aktuality.sk, owned by the multi-national publisher Ringier Axel Springer Media (RAS), a joint venture of Swiss publisher Ringier and German media house Axel Springer. The publisher was also outraged. RAS chairman Ralph Büchi flew to Bratislava for a meeting with PM Fico. Herr Büchi, according to several reports, told PM Fico that the publisher would never let go of its investigation of the murders. PM Fico, who once referred to journalists as “anti-Slovakian prostitutes,” resigned a month later. (See more about media in Slovakia here)
RSA and its parent publishers set up a newsroom in Bratislava to focus on the investigation. That structure has now been formalized, announced Herr Büchi at the Ringier management conference in Zurich, Switzerland this past week. The Investigative Journalism Network combines reporters from several of the company’s outlets to work on “cross-border, data-based journalism,” said Ringier spokesperson Manuel Bucher, quoted by Swiss media portal kleinreport.ch (January 29). (See more about investigative reporting here)
Publications involved, according to the presentation, include Swiss news outlets Le Temps, Blick, Handelszeitung and Beobachter, German outlets Bild and Welt, Business Insider, Politico Europe, Romanian news publisher Libertatea, Polish online news portal Onet, Slovak online news portal Aktuality and African news portal Pulse. Eight reporters work full-time, one subject at a time.
Several ad-hoc investigative reporting groups have grown to prominence in recent years. Most of these are based on sharing sources and talents from widely scattered news organizations. Some are structured and marketed like news agencies, though roughly focused on corruption, money laundering and the dalliances of dictators.
Nothing grinds on like the mills of corruption. Reporters covering that beat continue to feel the heat. Following dirty money means walking into the fire. It’s just getting worse.
The house of Serbian journalist Milan Jovanovic was fire-bombed last December. He and his wife escaped by jumping out a window. He has been reporting for online news portal Zig Info on the dodgy doings of a local mayor with ties to the ruling political party. He had been warned. (See more about media in Serbia here)
Over the last month authorities rounded up suspects and prosecutors have been holding hearings. The mayor of Belgrade municipality Grocka, Dragoljub Simonovic, has been detained, referred to as the “mastermind” of the violent act. Mr. Simonovic is an active member of Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and had been chief executive of Serbian Railways. He had complained that Mr. Jovanovic “wrote about him almost daily.” And it wasn’t flattering: “a series of critical articles about financial fraud, corruption and abuse of an official position.” (See more about corruption here)
A local police officer, it was alleged at a prosecutor’s hearing this week, offered to “solve the problem,” reported Serbian daily Danas (January 28). He, who was arrested, engaged a local thief, also arrested, to cause a fire “with the help of two Molotov cocktails.” Gunshots prevented Mr. Jovanovic and his wife from exiting through the front door. At the hearing, Mr. Simonovic denied involvement.
Two other threatening incidents related to Mr. Simonovic took place in recent months, said Mr. Jovanovic, quoted by Danas (January 29). After reporting these to authorities, nothing happened. After reporting other gems of corruption in Grocka, Zig Info editor Zeljko Matorcevic was beaten up last October by assailants still unknown.
Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, feeling the pain, issued a stark warning as he returned from the World Economic Forum. “The (SNS) party will not protect you from liability. The press will be protected, whether you like it or not. The violence will be punished in the strongest terms,” quoted by Serbian tabloid Blic (January 28).
“Serbia has become a country where it is unsafe to be a journalist,” noted press freedom advocate Reporters sans Frontières (October 25). “This is clear from the alarming number of attacks on journalists that have not been investigated, solved, or punished, and the aggressive smear campaigns that pro-government media orchestrate against investigative reporters. Some courageous journalists continue to cover dangerous subjects such as crime and corruption, but their stories are usually published by online media with a limited reach.”
In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018, released January 29, Serbia ranked 87th in the world, tied with China.
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