Albanian media and the disinformation phenomenon was the topic of a roundtable organized today by the Audiovisual Media Authority and Faktoje Center. Following a several-month training cycle for journalists conducted by the Faktoje Center in the Tirana, Durrës and Elbasan municipalities, today’s roundtable attended by representatives from Parliament, civil society and journalists presented the findings of this project. Participants also discussed key issues and challenges currently observed in the Albanian media landscape.
“We will continue to call on the media to uphold professional standards in reporting, ensuring the dissemination of accurate, well-sourced and verified information for the responsibility and importance that the proper reporting plays in informing the public”, AMA’s Chair, Ms. Armela Krasniqi stated during her word and she emphasized that technological developments have created new challenges not only for regulators but also for the media themselves. “Given the scope of the Authority’s work, among the main pillars of our work are the public’s right to information and freedom of expression, two fundamentally guiding rights. These are essential not only for our work but also for the obligations that the media must fulfill. It’s no coincidence that today, across the civilized world, concepts such as self-regulation, co-regulation and European acts, among others are central topics that aim to find a balance that serves both the media and the audience, ensuring that public opinion is not distorted, misled or in certain cases, as events in various countries have shown, not harmed. For this reason, it’s really important not only for the media to act responsibly toward its audience, but also for this kind of collaboration, such as today’s roundtable, where all stakeholders come together to exchange ideas and experiences and to support one another”.
According to the findings presented today by the Faktoje Center, 60% of the journalists surveyed were unable to accurately define disinformation, while 100% of journalists working in online media admitted to publishing information without prior verification due to time pressure. Furthermore, data collected by Faktoje reveal that all journalists report political statements without verification; the urgency to publish news increases vulnerability to disinformation; providing proper context and including all relevant parties in news reporting is not considered a necessity etc. Reflecting this reality as acknowledged by journalists themselves, the report was accompanied by a set of recommendations, including: media literacy at all levels of the education system, promoting higher standards for online media, encouraging cooperation between media outlets and fact-checking organizations, integrating disinformation-related curricula into social sciences and communication studies programs etc.
Participants discussed the online media challenges and potential solutions.
