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Fighting back against Portugal's media crisis
Granville Williams
DATELINE: 24/10/12
On Friday 19 October around three hundred journalists from the newspaper Publico, the national news agency LUSA and the public service broadcaster RTP gathered in solidarity in Lisbon outside the headquarters of Sonae, publishers of Publico.
Adelino Gomes, who worked on Publico when it was founded in 1990, was one of the journalists present. The day before he was also one of eighty journalists from the print and broadcast media who signed a Manifesto, 'For Journalism, For Democracy'. The document warns that 'downsizing, job insecurity and lack of investment in newsrooms' will not guarantee the survival of newspapers but rather lead to 'a loss of accuracy, quality and reliability.'It points out at that journalism is at the heart of democracy, and especially at a time of financial crisis, privatisation, cuts and austerity in Portugal, journalists play a vital role in researching, reporting and describing the impact of austerity in the country.
It is a timely warning in a week which saw the closure by Impresa of five magazine titles with the loss of 50 jobs and Publico journalists in Porto and Lisbon walk out for a one-day strike in protest at the axing of 48 jobs, 28 of them journalists, on the paper.
Meanwhile journalists at LUSA held a four-day strike in protest against government plans to cut state funding of the news service by thirty per cent next year. The strikers' banner had the strong message 'TO DESTROY LUSA IS TO ATTACK DEMOCRACY'.
The price of Portugal's €78 billion bailout by the EU has been a programme of savage cuts in public services coupled with planned increases in a range of personal and housing taxes. These are been pushed through by a Conservative coalition of the CDS and PSD parties under Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
LUSA is one of the targets for cuts announced in the state budget for 2013.
The state has a 50.14% stake in LUSA and in order to fulfil its public service function, provides 70% of its revenue. Now that will be cut from the current €19.1m to €13.2m in 2013 with a clear impact on the agencies 291 staff, 80% of whom are journalists. A letter supporting the LUSA strikers in Diário de Notícias put it well. As a citizen interested in 'free and independent information' he praised the way the agency spread the news of Portugal's language, culture and concerns both in the country and throughout the world and concluded it was 'an independent, plural voice indispensable in a democratic society.'
The other target is the public service broadcaster RTP. The state budget announced a cut of 42.2% in RTP's budget for 2013. In addition there are plans to privatise RTP. The government is thinking about several options from offering the management of RTP1 (the main channel for news) to a private group, the privatisation of the second public channel RPT2 or even closing it down.
Such policy ideas, apart from the obvious threat to journalists' jobs, also represent a real threat to media diversity and to the core role of public service broadcasting in Portugal. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) issued a strong attack on the 'reckless' proposals, arguing 'public service broadcasters cannot be privatised like electricity companies or a staff canteen. The character and values of RTP must not be put at risk by putting the organization in commercial hands'. The EBU added, "Such a reckless move would add to the strain on Portuguese society during this time of crisis, and put at risk a public institution that has served Portugal well since the Salazar dictatorship".
It is quite clear that the present government's brutal and broad assault on public services in Portugal also includes public service media.
The Sindicato dos Journalistas has called a major conference on 24 November to discuss the policies which can mobilise journalists and the wider public to challenge the attack by government and media groups on journalists and their vital public role.
Last modified: Wednesday, October 31, 2012
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
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MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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