European broadcasters face political ‘counter-reformation’

Media News - Friday, March 20, 2009

European broadcasters face political ‘counter-reformation’

Broadcasting across Europe, particularly in the east but also in Italy, is undergoing a 'counter-reformation' - a backsliding towards overt political control after the post-Cold War period, when leaders relaxed their grip on TV and radio, warns a new report. In a survey of the European broadcasting landscape presented in Brussels on Wednesday, the Open Society Institute found that many public broadcasters are heading into the economic crisis deeply underfunded and unable to meet public service requirements, while political elites are returning to appointing partisan allies to key positions, secure in the knowledge that no penalties from the EU await them for doing so. 'Professionals are being replaced by loyal mediocrities,' the document says, adding that the politicisation and lack of funds are undermining quality cultural content and critical journalism. 'You could call it a sort of 'counter-reformation',' said Mark Thompson of the Open Society Foundation Media Programme when presenting the report. 'Why refrain from exercising political control over these very important institutions when there are no penalties?' The European Commission comes in for criticism for not holding new EU member states to account after promises concerning media freedom were made ahead of accession. The re-politicisation of public service media is clearest in Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the report says, but is also evident in Lithuania and elsewhere. But eastern Europe - both EU member states and beyond - is not alone in the report's gallery of rogues. The situation of broadcasting in Italy is also condemned as 'a dark farce.' (EU Observer)