Envia per correu-e aquest* Article
Notícies :: mitjans i manipulació
Journalists and unions accuse EU-backed Euronews of pandering to oppressive regimes
per Rory Mulholland	18 des 2016
Euronews, the rolling news channel which was set up to provide a European counterpoint to the American news network CNN, has been reduced to a second-rate news service broadcasting ­“sponsored” propaganda programmes for oppressive regimes, its journalists and unions say.
Staff at the multi-language channel – which gets about a third of its funding in subsidies from the European Union – went on strike this week after ­workers backed a no-confidence motion against the ­station’s management. “A broadcaster with a public service mission that prides itself on objectivity cannot at the same time produce ­sponsored content for dictatorial and undemocratic regimes. “It is a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics,” said one Euronews ­journalist based at the station’s headquarters in the French city of Lyon. Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are among a list of ­undemocratic regimes – where human rights abuses are widespread – which have paid the network to send a ­broadcast team to produce short ­programmes that are noticeably free of any ­criticism. Several Euronews journalists ­complained that many of the channel’s news programmes now avoided ­criticising Turkey ­following the failed coup there in July. They also pointed out that being openly critical of Russia’s “assertive” ­foreign policy ­towards its neighbours and towards the European Union was also to be avoided. The one-day strike this week came as NBC Universal, the US media ­conglomerate, was in negotiation with Euronews to buy a stake of up to 30 per cent in the European broadcaster for around €25 million (£20 million). The strike was “against the management's plans to slash jobs and change working conditions” as part of its new business plan, Force Ouvrière union said in a statement. A European Parliament report last year on Russia’s manipulation of information about Ukraine said that “there are growing concerns about the independence – or alleged lack thereof – of Euronews,” which also broadcasts in Russian and Ukrainian. Euronews has also recently come under fire for teaming up with the president of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for three decades and is accused of stifling freedom of speech and political opposition, to launch Africanews, a pan-African television news channel. The European Commission subsidises Euronews - last year it gave it €24.7 million - and in return it says it expects that “Euronews must keep intact its independence and its mission of European general interest.” Discontent among the station’s 200 journalists, who produce programmes in 13 languages, has also been fuelled by what many see as the channel abandoning its public service mission and selling out to corporate interests or oppressive regimes. Euronews was set up after the Gulf War of 1991 as a counterweight to CNN, which was then the predominant 24-hour rolling news channel. State-owned public broadcasters from across Europe got together and launched the channel with a brief to present the news from a European perspective, promote European cohesion, and act as a counterweight to the US channel. “Today nothing is left of that ideal,” said another Euronews journalist. Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris now owns 53% of the broadcaster’s shares, and if the NBC deal goes through only a small stake will still belong to European public broadcasters. Asked if it was proper use of EU taxpayers’ money to subsidise a channel that broadcasts programmes “sponsored” by oppressive regimes, Commission spokeswoman Nathalie Vandystadt said: “The Commission has no relation with those programmes.” “The (Commission’s) contract with Euronews protects the channel’s independence and editorial freedom, and as such it is totally unfounded and unfair to state that the EU funding qualifies as 'propaganda',” she said. Euronews for its part denied that there was any pressure on journalists to avoid producing reports that were unfavourable to the Turkish or Russian governments. Spokeswoman Lydie Bonvallet also rejected the accusation that programmes “sponsored” by countries like Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan were propaganda. “Euronews is a private company… and, (as) for all international news media, advertising and brand content is a key source of revenue,” she told the Telegraph. She said all journalists at both Euronews and its sister channel Africanews adhere to an “editorial charter based on the fundamental principles of freedom of expression… and editorial independence limited only by respect for the facts.” With respect to the African channel, which launched this year, she said: “We defy anyone who will watch Africanews day after day to find a biased story about the Republic of the Congo.”
Mira també: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/18/journalists-unions-accuse-eu-backed-euronews-pandering-oppressive/
This work is in the public domain

Ja no es poden afegir comentaris en aquest article.
Ya no se pueden añadir comentarios a este artículo.
Comments can not be added to this article any more