Activity Details (ID# 15188)

Activity Synopsis

The objective of the seminar was to discuss how the balance between the right to freedom of expression and information and the right to private and family life should be struck. This was of particular importance in view of the elections to be held in October. 

During the first session, Mr Leif Berg, Lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights provided an overview of the standards under Articles 10 and 8 of the ECHR. To that end, he distributed a list of select case-law which also covered various other points of relevance to journalists. The Convention text and the notice to prospective applicants had also been made available in the local languages. In addition, the file included the following very interesting document: Special report on ombudsman monitoring of judicial procedures conducted in accordance with the law on protection against defamation and their impact on media freedoms (which may be downloaded from : http://www.bihfedomb.org/eng/index.htm).
Besim Spahic, professor at the faculty of journalism, regretted the lack of education of media professionals.

Prof. Dr. Jasna Bajraktarevic, psychologist at the Faculty of Philosophy, drew the attention of media professionals to their responsibilities, in particular towards young people. She stated that the profession had to restore confidence of the public in their media and she questioned what the criteria of “public interest” in Bosnia and Herzegovina were.

Biljana Bokic, Editor in informative/political programme RTRS, reminded the participants that the public interest is not necessarily what interests the public and gave several examples of the difficulties of the exercise of journalism in this context.

It was recalled at the end of the session that Bosnia and Herzegovina has one of the best regulatory frameworks in the region but that the profession was probably not self regulated enough.

During the second session, Ronan Brady recalled that that there are three levels of self-regulation: ethics depend first and foremost upon the reporter, the journalist; some questions cannot be answered by anybody other than the reporter in the field and therefore the ultimate responsibility belongs to the individual journalists themselves. However, if accountability stretches only to the reporter in the field, it is practically pointless; in practice, each media company adopts a particular style of reporting the news and a set of policies which determine how it will cover particular issues and in most Western media these are codified and published as “style guides” or “broadcasting rules” and are given to members of staff as working manuals. Then there is what it is most frequently meant by self-regulation which is some form of national or regional Press Council, Complaints Commission or Ombudsman. He then gave examples of tricky situations for journalists and answered practical questions asked by the participants.

The final activity on the agenda consisted of a case-study. The analyses of the relevant issues by some of the participants were quite impressive and showed that they were capable of translating into practice what they had learnt through the case-law presentation and other preceding interventions.
 

Although it is to be regretted that a certain number of participants left the event following the morning interventions, the seminar was highly appreciated by the attendants and some of them expressed to the Communication Regulatory Agency their appreciation for the interesting topics and debate

Similar training events bringing together ‘mixed’ audiences should be organised again in the same form which allowed for constructive dialogue and enhanced ‘learning by doing’ through case studies.

 

Journalists, Editors, Lawyers and Judges
Prof. Dr Jasna Bajraktarevic, psychologist, Faculty of Philosophy Sarajevo, Biljana Bokic, Editor in informative/political programme RT RS, Ilko Barbaric, BiH Association of Croat Journalists, Eldin Karic, Editor in Chief of the Magazine Start, Press Council, Association “BiH Journalists
Mr Kemal Huseinovic, Director of the CRA
 

Mr Leif BERG, Lawyer at the registry of the European Court of Human rights
Mr Ronan BRADY, freelance journalist, Ireland
 

Ms Charlotte de BROUTELLES, Media Division, Directorate General of Human Rights