Izlaganje sa skupa
Indenpendent News Agencies
Wolfgang Vyslozil
Sažetak
Independence is frequently considered to be a prerequisite and guarantor of
reliable, balanced and credible reporting, as basis of “truthful unbiased
news”. The “Group 39” agencies, the association of state-independent news
agencies in Europe, point out the close connection between freedom of the
press and independence of news agencies in their mission statement, as stated
above. In the long run news agencies which are or want to be fully independent
of the state or of the government can meet their public service function
only through private-ownership and profitable business models. In addition to
the ownership structure the economic situation is considered decisive for the
degree of a news agency’s independence. A profitable news agency is not susceptible
to possible influences by financial backers. It seems significant, that
all privately owned news agencies which are members of the EANA generate
profits (all figures from 2001) whereas almost all publicly owned European
news agencies report losses. The big differences in terms of profitability of
their activities are best shown in the per capita turnover figures: The average
per capita turnover of privately owned news agencies is € 112,000 and almost
four times the average per capita turnover of € 31,000 of publicly owned
agencies. The covetousness of politics and politicians towards news agencies
is to be explained by the key role news agencies play in the media system.
Usually an average of at least 50% of all articles published in daily newspapers
is directly based on news agency content. The same applies even to a
higher degree to news on the radio and on television. Moreover, news agencies
decisively determine the global image of a country due to the existing
global network between the agencies, in spite of the Internet. Unfortunately, it
must be observed that many political institutions all over the world show
strong ambitions to control news agencies and use them as an instrument to
influence the media.
Ključne riječi
Independence; profitable news agency; public service function
Hrčak ID:
22969
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.6.2006.
Posjeta: 1.694 *