The interest that journalists and media workers from Kichevo have shown in the past period for their organization and the intention of the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers to be present in all areas of the country resulted in a meeting in Kichevo on April 3, 2024. which was attended by most of the people involved in the local media, the correspondents from this city for the national media, representatives from the RESIS Institute and SSNM.
The sustainability and importance of local media and the transparency of municipal authorities were the main topics that were discussed yesterday, March 26, 2024, at the meeting of representatives of the RESIS Institute and the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers with journalists and media workers from Kumanovo.
The labor rights of journalists and media workers are the basis for free, independent and professional journalism. In order to realize these rights, knowledge of the legal framework in which journalists and media workers act as employees in the media sector is required. The independent union of journalists and media workers, in cooperation with the RESIS Institute, as part of a comprehensive research, publishes the publication entitled: "Working rights of journalists and media workers - legal framework of the Republic of North Macedonia", whose author is Maja Atanasova from the Macedonian association of young lawyers.
The Vardar region is getting an internet platform for information on topics and issues of local interest, which are extremely important for the citizens of this region. It is a community media, which is different from other types of media in the country. The purpose of these media is to give visibility to local topics and voice to the citizens themselves. Such a platform has been operating in the Eastern and Southeastern regions for a whole year, and now it is being launched in the Vardar region as well.
New research indicates that journalists and media workers in the country face a heavy workload, low wages, unpaid overtime and work on holidays, high work stress and concerns about their mental health.
How many journalists are there in Macedonia, where are they employed, how many of them are regularly employed, and how many are freelancers, and do they enjoy the guaranteed rights provided by the Law on Labor Relations? Do they feel free to be members and act in their trade union organizations, and to what extent can activism in these organizations, and above all, in SSNM, affect the improvement of working conditions, safety and professionalism?
The CSOs, signatories to this request strongly react to the verdict in the case against the Investigative Reporter Laboratory (IRL) for defamation that threatens freedom of association and freedom of expression. This violates some of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia.
Activists from 14 civic organizations, members of the online community medium Lokal Aktiv, attended a one-day training session to generate new local topics and write analytical reports that will then be published on their community online platform.
Us, the professional journalist associations and civic organizations from the media sector are categorically opposed to recent attempts to return to state advertising in the media. Our position comes from expert assessments that the proposed changes will be extremely harmful to media pluralism, the independence of media and the freedom of journalists and media workers in Macedonia.
At the online debate held as part of Media Literacy Days, civic organizations working at the local level debated about the factors that prevent the inclusion of citizens with various forms of disabilities in the public sphere. The impetus for the debate was found in the latest research conducted by civil organizations from the Eastern and Southeastern regions, in cooperation with the RESIS Institute.
