Gentiana Begolli Pustina on Protecting Journalism and Countering Fake News
It’s the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, so we spoke to Gentiana Pustina, a journalist, VV Peace Fellow and former Chairwoman of the Kosovo Journalists Association, an NGO affiliated to the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) that aims to ensure freedom of expression by defending Kosovarian journalists from threats, pressures and physical assaults.
Gentiana shares her thoughts on the challenges facing journalists, the need for financially sustainable journalism, and how we can counter fake news —
On challenges journalists face in Kosovo
“Being a journalist in Kosovo means being a professional that is underpaid, with some of our colleagues being paid 130–200 EUR a month, working 6 days a week for long hours, without basic working conditions. On top of this, journalists work without security and justice when they are attacked by different political, economic, or other interest groups.
If a media outlet is facing financial difficulties, it is without any hesitation and without respecting any law that journalists are fired; this happened a few months ago, where without any legal procedures tens of journalists were fired, including two pregnant journalists. At times when a journalist decides to seek justice, such cases are prolonged indefinitely! Even when judicial organs reach verdicts, such verdicts are ridiculous, which encourages culprits that in utmost easiness attack journalists verbally or physically.
Besides these problems, our country is facing the issue of journalists who are missing and murdered in wartime, but also after the war. Every year, we raise our voices about these cases, but our institutions and Serbian institutions are not very interested in dealing with these cases. This is something that needs political will to deal with the issue in a more serious way.”
On the need for financially sustainable journalism
“Where I work, in public broadcasting, we are not financially independent, we are financed by the Government of Kosovo. So far, any political parties that has had the most power in parliament has attempted to control the public media. With a lot of media here, we don’t know exactly who is behind financing or who is in control. So we now have the problem in Kosovo that, because of political parties and economic influences, nobody now believes in journalists and journalism. The main problem is that we don’t have financially sustainable media.”
On countering disinformation and fake news
“As journalists, all the time we ask each other as colleagues, ‘if people don’t believe in journalists, who will they believe?’ We have a lot of fake news in Kosovo, and a lot of intimidation because of fake news through social media. This is a huge problem because media, especially some online media, wants to achieve those clicks from fake news. I think this issue is very connected to education. For me, it’s very important that we have media literacy classes for children who are in secondary school. I also think that we as journalists need to report on this on a daily basis.”
