LETTER TO EU - Press freedom organisations call for urgent EU action to prevent political take-over of Slovak public media - Article

OBCT joins international journalists’ and media freedom organisations in expressing its concern to EU leaders over Slovak new public broadcaster's law

Coalition calls for effective implementation as the Parliament adopts the EMFA - Article

OBCT, as part of the EU Media Advocacy Working Group, welcomes the adoption of the European Media Freedom Act by the European Parliament and calls for an effective implementation of the new regulation

Georgia: MFRR partners denounce smear campaign against journalist by speaker of the Parliament - Article

The partner organisations of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) today express concern at the discrediting of a prominent Georgian journalist by Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament. The comments come amid a broader wave of smear campaigns against independent media in Georgia by Papuashvili and others

Italy: MFRR partners strongly condemn investigation into Domani journalists - Article

OBCT and MFRR partners note with concern that Italian press freedom has fallen under renewed pressure. We call for the preliminary investigation of three Domani journalists to be immediately dropped, and we urge Italian authorities to respect the confidentiality of journalistic sources in line with international and European press freedom standards

Türkiye: reverse a critically hostile environment - Reports

The country increasingly turning into a hostile environment for freedom of expression and for journalists, human rights defenders and civil society

Türkiye: Big tech should protect free speech and resist state censorship - Article

Ahead of Türkiye’s municipal elections on 31 March 2024, 22 rights groups and journalists’ organisations jointly call on social media platforms to uphold the free expression rights of their users and resist state censorship. They should also fully disclose all government requests to restrict accounts or content, and be transparent about informal government pressure to restrict content on their platforms.

Journo News Monitor: an AI-powered study on Turkey’s news media - Reports

Amidst significant technological advancements reshaping the media landscape, notably in Generative AI, Turkey's news media are grappled with mounting political pressure and contended with the adverse impacts of platforms on journalism. This report focuses toward two mediums, Turkish news websites and Google's search engine, as previous studies have identified them as the predominant digital channels for news in Turkey. The aim is to assess the potential biases in Google's algorithm and the coverage of news websites throughout 2023.

Two years on, Ukrainian journalists still pay a heavy price for the war - Article

February 24 marks two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, the organizations of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) reaffirm our solidarity with Ukrainian journalists and call for guarantees of their safety and full freedom to report, as well as a renewed effort to provide the necessary financial and technical support for them to continue their work.

Slovakia: Lack of justice for Kuciak and Kušnírová’s assassination exacerbated by growing attacks on press freedom - Article

On the sixth anniversary of the brutal killing of investigative reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, the undersigned organisations renew our call for long-awaited justice for their killings and the imperative to break the cycle of impunity.

Montenegro: Jelena Jovanović, journalist targeted by the mafia - Article

Dealing with organised crime and risking your life, needing police protection just to be able to do your job and live your everyday life. Jelena Jovanović, journalist from the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti, explains what it is like to live under police protection

By Vukašin Obradović

Originally published by OBCT . Also available in ITA and BHS