The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has expressed its concern regarding “the growing threats to media pluralism and the independence of the media”, citing the increasing editorial control of the media sector by political and economic actors; the mounting pressure against public service media, the emergence of “news deserts” and market dominance from online platforms.
The resolution, adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly on the basis of a report by Valentina Grippo (Italy, ALDE), states that “the sustainability of media outlets is at great risk”, particularly with regard to local, investigative and cross-border journalism. Journalists are vulnerable to pressures from powerful news sources and their employers, which creates a climate conducive to censorship and self-censorship, the parliamentarians emphasised.
Political interference in the media must be resisted
The resolution stresses that “the editorial independence of the media must be protected at all costs”, and that the governance and financing of public-service media must be regulated and monitored “in order to prevent any political interference”.
It therefore called on European countries to introduce “a legal requirement for national media regulatory authorities to regulate and monitor media pluralism in the audiovisual sector” and proposed repealing or amending laws used to intimidate journalists, including criminal defamation and overly broad “fake news” or “state secrets” provisions.
Among the measures set out in its resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly recommended that services of general interest, in particular public-service media, be given appropriate prominence across all platforms, and that the integrity of media services is safeguarded against unfair manipulation by online platforms. Furthermore, it invited the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to collaborate with the member states and the EU to create a pan-European database of media ownership across the continent.
