Tirana: Roundtable on Improving Transparency of Government Media Funding

media integrity

A roundtable on transparency of government and of its media funding was organized in Tirana by the Albanian Media Institute on January 13, 2016 within the advocacy component of the South East European Media Observatory project, funded by EU.

Participants included journalists from mainstream media, civil society representatives, and officials from public institutions.

The aim of the roundtable was to discuss the current problems in transparency of use of public funds for the media and the main practices in this field, as well as identify potential recommendations for improving the situation.

During the roundtable the findings of a SEE Media Observatory flash report on state-media financial relations in Albania were presented. The findings focused on main practices in distributing government ads, the role of advertising agencies, the selective transparency vis-a-vis media businesses, the problems with labor relations in the media and other issues.

In addition, the results of the testing of the new law on freedom of information were presented, in an exercise that involved obtaining information on government advertising in the media through FOIA requests. The discussion with the participants highlighted the problems in implementing this law and the main trends in lack of government transparency vis-a-vis media and citizens, the way this affects media practices, the role of the Commissioner for Right to Information, etc.