Macedonian Journalists ‘Working Under Heavy Pressure’

Eighty per cent of journalists in Macedonia think that conditions are worsening, 17 per cent say that they are stagnant and only 3 per cent believe that they are improving, according to new research published by Macedonia’s Independent Journalists' Trade Union, SSNM.

Sixty-five per cent of Macedonian journalists who responded to the survey have experienced censorship and 53 per cent are practicing self-censorship, says the report, entitled the ‘White Book of Professional and Labour Rights of Journalists’.

“We function in a state of war here where all the institutions of the state are working to annihilate us and to annihilate even the slightest memory of professional journalism. Our struggle is one for survival,” said Tamara Causidis, the head of the SSNM, at the launch of the report.

Many Macedonian journalists are kept on a short leash with fixed-term contracts that are often prolonged for years without the potential of real employment, the publication reveals.

“This instils a feeling of uncertainty in journalists. They feel intimidated because they may lose their jobs,” the survey says.

The study also reveals that journalists in the mainstream media are generally discouraged from having critical views about the government, but also that what is left of the critically-inclined media operate under the constant pressure of potential law suits, state inspections and withdrawal of advertising.

“The fact that the people that inform their citizens are not confident about their profession and the future of their profession should certainly sound the alarm,” Jim Boumelha, the president of the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, told Balkan Insight.

 
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