The Bulgarian journalist and human rights activist Nickolai Staikov sued the inline tabloid PIK.bg for insulting and defamatory statements. The articles have been published over the past two years. The Court ordered PIK to pay about 6.500 euros. PIK.bg is one of the media outlets, associated with the Bulgarian oligarch and deputy from the ethnic Turkish party DPS - Delyan Peevski.
More than 20 Polish media outlets on Friday took part in the protest against the government's plan to restrict the work of journalists in the country's parliament building from January 1, 2017. Polish authorities are planing to restrict access to some parts of the parliament building, as well as to limit the number of journalists accredited there. Protesting the plan, the staff of newspapers, internet outlets, broadcasters and radio stations have decided to abstain from covering the parliament activities on Friday altogether.
Macedonia is among the lowest ranked countries in the region's index (2016) of clientelism in the media, suggests a researche published by the Public“ Association.
Public media during the first half of the year were focused on political issues, due to the electoral campaign. Media covered above all the activites of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. However, despite the coverage, there were little analytics contributions and the interviews covered a narrow range of opinions, negating in practice the pluralist function, linked to public media's role.
Ombudsman Saša Janković on 9 December expressed dissatisfaction regarding the results of the privatization of the media with regard to the representation of national minorities. Still too little room is left to broadcast in the languages of national minorities, as only 13 of the privatized media include plans to broadcast in the language of national minorities.
Curated by the "Foreign affairs" desk of Radio Popolare, the fifith episode of the second year of the ECPMF project of which Radio Popolare is media partner. Irina Nedeva, president of the Bulgarian Chapter of the Association of European Journalists, analyzes the situation of press freedom in the country.
177 media outlets have been closed in total as part of three Statutory Decrees put into effect during the State of Emergency, 11 of them reopened. Balance sheet of unemployment has reached 2,500.
