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 News From You
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Week ending February 1, 2014
RCS MediaGroup announces that the Editor of El Mundo, Pedro J. Ramírez, will leave his position as head of the newspaper and of the publishing department of the Unidad Editorial Group.
During the Board of Directors meeting of the Spanish subsidiary Unidad Editorial - held today - the Publisher decided to start a new phase for El Mundo, whilst still safeguarding its independence and objectivity, together with its high quality content.
The editor Ramírez, founder of El Mundo and undoubtedly a key player in the Spanish news media, who will continue to have a relationship of collaboration with the Group, will sign off on his last edition of the newspaper on Sunday 2 February.
Editorship of El Mundo will be assigned to Casimiro García-Abadillo, currently deputy editor of the newspaper, with the objective of relaunching its hard copy circulation and further strengthening its digital leadership. The Publisher firmly believes that this new phase will create the primary conditions to re-establish the newspaper’s financial and economic stability.
The Board of Directors of Unidad Editorial and the entire management of the RCS Group would like to thank editor Ramírez for his contribution to the creation and growth of one of the most important Spanish newspapers and managing it over this long period of time.
Die möglichen Planungen des Bayerischen Rundfunks, die UKW-Frequenzen des Kulturradios BR Klassik komplett auf das bislang digitale Jugendprogramm BR Puls zu verschieben, kritisiert der VPRT scharf und fordert den BR-Rundfunkrat auf, dies zu verhindern.
Klaus Schunk, stellvertretender Vorstandsvorsitzender des VPRT und Vorsitzender des Fachbereichs Radio und Audiodienste: „UKW-Frequenzen werden bei den ARD-Radios mittlerweile wie auf einem Basar hin und her verschoben – und die Politik schaut zu.“ Nach den Frequenzverschiebungen beim Hessischen Rundfunk und beim Südwestrundfunk im vergangenen Jahr soll jetzt ein klassisches Kulturprogramm komplett in der Nische verschwinden und der kommerziellen Jugendwelle Platz machen. Ein solcher Programmtausch sei rechtlich höchst fraglich, zumal sich bayerische Landesgesetzgebung und Rundfunkstaatsvertrag widersprechen. „Kostenneutral ist es jedenfalls nicht, wenn der BR im Telemedienkonzept für die Neugestaltung und Digitalverbreitung der Klassikwelle insgesamt fast 1,2 Millionen Euro Beitragseinnahmen ausgeben will.“
Der VPRT appelliert an den BR-Rundfunkrat, solchen Plänen nicht zuzustimmen. Medienpolitik und insbesondere die Staatskanzlei sind aufgerufen, den Programmtausch zu überprüfen, Umverteilungen nur unter Einbeziehung der privaten Seite zu diskutieren sowie dem Expansionsstreben der Anstalten in Richtung kommerzieller Jugendwellen Grenzen zu setzen. Schunk: „Solche Entscheidungen kann und darf eine ARD-Anstalt nicht autark treffen, da sich die Marktsituation auch im Wettbewerb zu den Privaten massiv verändert und der bayerische Medienstandort gefährdet wird.“ Schunk verwies darauf, dass sich die Privatradios stets einem fairen Wettbewerb stellen. Dieser sei aber mit Blick auf Frequenz- und Finanzausstattung zunehmend schwieriger. „Weniger Auftrag und mehr Frequenzen für kommerzielle Programme kann nicht das Credo eines gebührenfinanzierten Angebots sein“, so Schunk abschließend.
Press freedom is Europe is facing a widespread and growing threat by “soft” censorship that includes governments’ use of financial power to pressure news media, punish critical reporting and reward favourable coverage. While Europe’s press is not generally threatened by the jailing of journalists or the closure of media outlets, “soft” censorship is a more subtle but significant new danger, according to new reports released Tuesday by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
The reports demonstrate how the governments in two European countries – Serbia and Hungary – use their financial power to pressure media outlets, punish critical reporting and reward favourable coverage.
Economic pressures are especially devastating in times of economic instability and lead to unbalanced reporting and to self-censorship among media professionals, and thus constitute a real threat to press freedom, the reports found.
“Soft censorship,” or indirect government censorship, includes a variety of actions intended to influence media, short of closures, imprisonments, direct censorship of specific content, or physical attacks on media outlets or journalists.
“Although it is less visible, soft censorship can be equally insidious, and must be recognised for the very serious threat to media independence and press freedom it is today – in Eastern and Central Europe and also around the world,” said Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of WAN-IFRA.
“Unlike jailings, closures and other direct attacks on press freedom, soft censorship is far more subtle and rarely generates the same level of international outrage as direct attacks on the press,” Mr Peyrègne explained. “The jailing of a journalist is guaranteed to draw attention. But a tax case? If a government uses tax laws, or withholds advertising, or carries out similar measures in response to criticism, it does not generate the same level of condemnation.”
WAN-IFRA and its partners, supported by the Open Society Foundations and Open Society Justice Initiative, have launched a series of reports that will investigate the practice of soft censorship worldwide. The first two reports, released Tuesday 28 January, focus on such practices in Serbia and Hungary.
“Soft Censorship: Strangling Serbia’s Media” and “Capturing Them Softly: Soft Censorship and State Capture in the Hungarian Media” identify major trends and abuses, such as the biased allocation of government subsidies and advertising, evaluate their impact, and propose recommendations. The findings aim to contribute to the implementation of fair and transparent rules necessary for the development of independent media sectors.
The Serbian report, produced by WAN-IFRA and the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, shows that soft censorship in Serbia is pervasive and translates state financial power through media subsidies and advertising placements into political pressures that influence media content.
The report also shows that implementation of laws and regulations proposed in 2011 that could end soft censorship has been delayed, and the laws may be diluted or discarded. It calls for immediate implementation of these laws. “Adopting the Media Strategy and related proposals will ensure that Serbia’s media serves society as a whole, not only partisan and special interests,” the report says.
The Hungarian report, produced by WAN-IFRA and CIMA in cooperation with Mérték Media Monitor, concludes that State influence over Hungarian media is unfolding “slowly but surely” and has accelerated under the current government, which provides state advertising to reward friendly media and denies it to punish critical news outlets.
The study calls for implementation of a system of transparent procurement for all state advertising and the establishment of an independent body to administer and monitor all state funding to media.
The report also draws attention to the subversion of public-service media, which are being transformed into government mouthpieces. It calls for the government to ensure that Hungarian laws and practices conform to European regulations designed to safeguard the integrity of public service media.
AT rates on all French digital press products and services, on all platforms, are to be charged at 2.1% in line with the rate charged for the France’s printed press in a new move from the French Government this week that is sure to encourage the European Commission to publish its own overdue legislative proposal on VAT.
The European Publishers Council (EPC) has long called for the European Commission to allow Member States to charge the same reduced or super-reduced VAT rates for online publishing as they charge for the printed press.
Rates for the printed press currently vary enormously from Member State to Member State with Belgium, Denmark and the UK having zero-rates for newspapers and Bulgaria and Slovakia charging 20%, for example.
EPC Chairman and Chairman of Impresa in Portugal, Francisco Pinto Balsemão, said, “Since there is no EU allowance for reduced VAT rates for digital press at the moment, the French Government is making a stand with this announcement and we publishers applaud it for taking a lead to end this discriminatory tax system that is holding back the EU digital economy. The future of publishing lies in developing innovative online business models so that consumers can enjoy our content online on tablets, pcs, mobile, whatever they want. If we are to encourage both innovation from our content providers and consumption of high quality, authoritative, reliable content from our consumers, there should be no discrimination between the modes of delivery.”
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