Research reports on media ownership and state-media financial relations in the countries of South East Europe

Within the South East European Media Observatory project, coordinated by the Peace Institute, the 2015 series of media integrity reports for seven countries were released in December 2015. The topic for three new countries in the SEE Media Observatory project – Kosovo, Montenegro and Turkey – has been “media ownership and media finances”, while the research in four countries which were covered by the Media Integrity Matters research report 2014 (including mapping of media ownership and finances), i.e. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia, focused  on state-media financial relations.

The headlines of the latest media integrity reports reflect the grave situation. Albania:

Nurturing client-based media practices, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Increasingly dependent and disciplined media, Kosovo: Legal vacuum and lack of transparency, Macedonia: Media freedom curbed with public money, Montenegro: Weak regulation enforcement and persistence of media control, Serbia: A transitional year – who will benefit from the media reforms?, Turkey: Increasing concentration and clientelism.

The research reports are available at the web site of the SEE Media Observatory at http://mediaobservatory.net/media-integrity-reports-2015.