35 youth journalists from all over Europe met in Berlin, discussing freedom of press. The situation of freedom of press in each country was presented, and the participants identified common problems and possible solution.
The main problem discussed was the freedom that young journalist have when trying to begin their career. They are faced with problems in every country, the biggest one being the lack of payment. Among other problems, the participants identified the political involvement, censorship, and the lack of real professional universities.
There were visible differences between countries from western Europe and the countries of the old communist block. There were many questions, and the young journalists discovered many new things about the different problems of other countries in the European Union. Many of the participants learned from each other, as the western journalist brought solutions adapted to the freedom of press problems:
I think that the countries that have a problem with freedom of press should use all the opportunities that they are in other countries. First of all, they can learn from the countries that have a good level in freedom of press, and if they are people politically active, they can really act like changing the laws – Joeri Oushdorn.
The freedom of journalists can be improved in the eastern countries with a stronger democracy, with better politicians which must work more seriously, and through that they can take the example of more developed countries in Europe – Alfonso Cobo.
There were also opinions from the countries that have freedom of press problems, but in the end, the participants were able to identify some common problems and some solutions applicable to everyone.
I think it’s more of politics, and if we change the communist party, then can you can improve our freedom of press issue in Moldova. I think it could be done only step by step, and the first step is changing the communist party in our country – Dumitru Iovu.
About the freedom of press in Eastern Europe, especially Russia, we must understand they have had many problems and many changes of regime. So we must understand the problems and give them time to solve them – Kaveh Rostamkhani.
Posted in | 05.03.2009
By: Petre Fluerasu
