Eastland and its status

Regarding Eastland's status in the Eutropolis Conference on Migration-Related Issues and in various Eutropian organizations we have to say that its status has been the same through the conference as before the beginning of the conference.

The status is the following, regarding the Conference chair´s statement from Tuesday, 2nd of December 2008:

1. Eastland is an associate member of the Eutropian Federation. While not a full member of the Federation, Eastland has committed itself to Federation values.
2. Eastland has been a full-fledged member of the Eutropian-based Defense Treaty Organization since 1952.
3. Eastland has been a full member of the Council of Eutropia since 1949.
4. Eastland has been a full member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development since 1961.
5. By participating in this Conference, Eastland is committing herself to the ideals and values expressed in the final Eutropolis Declaration. (It is perhaps worth noting that the Declaration produced during this Conference is named after the Federation's capital, where the Conference is taking place, rather than the Federation, in order to emphasise that the scope of the document extends beyond the Federation's borders.)

Since the cooperation between Eutropia and Eastland in this conference went very well, we assume that the chances for Eastland to become a steady member of Eutropia seem to be good.

No Press Awareness Day – no critical self-reflection!

Now after the ratification of the first Eutropolis Declaration, actually the time has come to reflect critically on our work. Therefore, the Media Watchdogs had organized a Press Awareness Day on Wednesday, 10th December 2008, in order to enforce a critical self-reflection of the media business.
Since nobody showed up at the press conference, the Media Watchdogs unfortunately had to cancel the Press Awareness Day. The journalists neither reported in advance that they will not show up, nor did they react on our cordial invitation. Thus, the journalists of “The Brynn” and “The Eutropian Independent” missed the special opportunity to speak in public about their opinion concerning the freedom of press.
Can we say that we have well-on-going newspapers in Eutropia if they are not willing to reflect on their work critically on a kind of event like this?
Well, we, the Watchdogs also have to admit that the invitation was late, but the constant checking of e-mail-accounts should be taken for granted in the media business. Therefore it also seems to be alarming that delegates from Coastland and Darialand reported during the debriefing teleconference on Monday, 8th December 2008, that their voices have been ignored by “The Eutropian Independent”:
“13:24 Coastland: Our letter to the editor was ignored by the Eutropian Independent. There was no reply whatsoever.”
“13:25 Darialand,: we never got a response to our clarification as well”.
But there was also some positive feedback on the journalist´s work about the conference given by some delegates on the debriefing teleconference: The International Association for Human Rights for example stated that they “especially enjoyed the Independent's satirical work”. Or Brynnland praised the healthy relationship between the Eutropian government and the press by saying that their “press spokesman got in contact with the Brynn several times”.
As a conclusion, we would like to say that we really regret that the journalists did not take the opportunity to reflect on the current situation in Eutropia and on their work.

Interviewing the Eutropian Independent

Since the broadsheet magazine „The Eutropian Independent“ is celebrating its recent foundation, we interviewed Victoria Guerin and Bob Woodstein, two of their reporters, since the beginning of the magazine, about the history of “The Eutropian Independent”, their team and about the current situation of the press.

“The Eutropian Independent” is a brand new newspaper which began its work at the beginning of the Eutropolis Conference on Migration-Related Issues. Like all the other Eutropian newspapers, “The Eutropian Independent” is seated in Brynnland. Woodstein justifies this by saying that “you cannot ignore your cultural background which influences your writings.” The original idea was to found a newspaper that goes beyond the boarders of Brynnland and reflects the opinions of all Eutropians in general.
This “new invention” of an Eutropian newspaper worked out very well so far. The seven members of “The Eutropian Independent” are working together on a democratic basis: the newspaper has no chief editor, but they all share some responsibilties.
Concerning the current situation of the journalist´s rights, Woodstein and Guerin stated that they are happy to work in Brynnland since they believe that its government generally speaking guarantees the freedom of press. They just have heard of ”small incidents” in former times. According to Woodstein there exist “countries that are more problematic than Brynnland”: he mentions Eastland as an example where the journalists might suffer some restrictions on their freedom.
The journalists of “The Eutropian Independent” fortunately have their own philosophy about what are their duties. Its their convention to distinguish between “news” and “opinion”. Therefore they try to “give neutral information or at least both parts”, so that their readers can shape their own opinions. In addition, they use a couple of clearly labelled formats such as news bulletins, news articles, feature articles, (ironical) comments and even caricatures . “The Eutropian Independent” also wants to encourage the their readers to write letters to the editors in order to be able to reflect the opinions of all Eutropians.

To read the online blog of “The Eutropian Independent” click here.

Dispute about censorship and irony

The Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Athena B. Wyse, requested a correction and a formal apology of “The Eutropian Independent”.

On 24th November, 2008, the Eutropian Independent published an article ("Bad Dreams", by Bob Woodstein) which stated that the Eutropian Commissioner had "censored" the text of the article.
The Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Athena B. Wyse, reacted on this article on 2nd December 2008 in an official announcement stating that neither she nor any member of her staff has at any time "censored" any article published by any of the media organizations.
In an exclusive interview, Victoria Guerin and Bob Woodstein from “The Eutropian Independent” answered that they “will contact the Commissioners and explain the matter, stating that the sentence was not meant to be insulting or offending”. However, they complained that they “would have estimated a greater sense of humour by the Commissioners, since the criticised sentence is part of an ironical (!) comment, which should be regarded as such.”
We agree that irony and appropriate criticism is part of the freedom of press.
However, the Media Watchdogs think that published news which turn out to be incorrect must be rectified in an appropriate manner, since this is part of our recently composed Press Code. The Eutropian public also has the right to know that the article actually has not been censored. “The Eutropian Independent” therefore already has explained their intentions in their article from 5th December, 2008, “the Downsides of Irony”. The Editors commented that “irony obviously has its downsides - not everyone understands it” and explained that “the mentioned "censorship" was part of a cleary labeled "Ironical Comment" and thus meant ironically”.

When we interviewed the journalists of “The Eutropian Independent” in the morning on the 5th December, 2008, they have not read the message from Athena B. Wyse until that moment. It is good to see that problems can be solved so quickly, when a mediator like us keeps an eye on potential conflicts.

Invitation to the Press Awareness Day on Wednesday, 10th December 2008, 19:00-19:30

The Media Watchdogs would like to invite all delegates, all journalists and, of course, the Commissioner to reflect critically on their work. After the ratification of the first Eutropolis Declaration, the time comes to look retrospectively on the relation between the Eutropian governments and the press:
· Do we have well-on-going newspapers in Eutropia that stick to certain norms?
· Are there any restrictions the journalists have to fight with? Do they for example suffer censorship?
· Is there a healthy relationship between the Eutropian governments and the press without intimidations and corruptions?

Everbody is cordially invited to attend the special meeting to discuss some of these questions.
The journalists of “The Brynn” and “The Eutropian Independent” will be given the special opportunity to give a short speech about their opinion concerning the freedom of press.
The Press Awareness Day will take place in the online press conference room of Moodle on Wednesday, 10th December 2008, 19:00-19:30.


For everybody you wants to get more information on the meeting, here we publish our agenda:
1. Welcome and introduction to the topic and introduction of the journalists

2. Short speech of journalists about their opinion concerning the freedom of press
· Are there any restrictions the journalists have to fight with? Do they for example suffer censorship?

3. Open discussion with all attendees:
· human rights of journalists, restrictions on the freedom of the press, censorship
· Do we have well-on-going newspapers in Eutropia that stick to certain norms?
- be independent
- avoid discrimination
- respect religion, philosophy and custom, rights of the individual, truthfulness and human rights, professional secrecy, limits of research, accuracy.
- correct news which have been incorrect
- protect young people
· Is there a healthy relationship between the Eutropian governments and the press without intimidations and corruptions?
We want to enforce a critical self-reflection of the media business.

4. Thanksgiving

We hope for a large turnout and we are looking forward to seeing you.
Best wishes,
The Media Watchdogs Ellen deGeneres and James Fox

Press Code as an Eutropian Guideline

Finally, also "The Eutropian Independent" has reacted on our proposal for an Eutropian Press Code. As it seems, the journalists of the broadsheet also agree to the Press Code stating the following:

“Regarding the press code published on your webpage, we were glad to see a guidance stating our freedom and our power. Luckily, this did not have to be accomplished in reality in order to find a conclusion which we are grateful for. Apart from that, the Eutropian Independent never followed any rumours spreading within the Conference but concentrated on the important, political matters. Therefore, the press code was helpful but behaving truthful and in no way discriminating was in any case one of our main goals.”
by "The Eutropian Independent" broadsheet, Bob Woodstein and Victoria Guerin- Friday, 5 December 2008, 01:04 PM.

The journalist´s work on the Eutropolis Conference on Migration-Related Issues is nearly finished, but we hope that the Eutropian press will stick to this new Press Code in future.

Resuming the 2nd week of negotiations

Last week the Eutropian Conference started working in the different groups on Immigration and Integration.
While “The Brynn” did not mention anything about the first meeting of group 1 and 2 on Monday, “The Eutropian Independent” (EI) stated in their article “The First Working Groups” from the 24th of November, that “the group delegates discussed legal immigration including visa related issues, and which qualifications an aspirant for a citizenship should possess.” The EI described the process of discussion like a “list of statements instead of a real conversation”.
The meeting of group 2 was moderated by a delegate of Brynnland. They “collected topics for further discussions” on Wednesday. Whereas the first discussion was productive, the second turned out to be rather unstructured and ineffective”, states the EI.
“The Brynn” called the first meeting of group 3 and 4 on Tuesday “Goodwill Hunting” in their article from the same day, 25th of November.
The Topics of the second day of conference this week were “Human Rights and Integration” for group 3 and “Relationships with Migrant’s Countries of Origin” for working group 4.
Regarding to “The Brynn”, the International Association for Human Rights working in group 3 spoke “the naked truth” by saying that ”Although most governments theoretically provide for freedom of religion, speech, press and peaceful assembly and association, some of them do not provide for sufficient control and adequate protection against violaters.”. Although this statement lead to a vivid discussion, group 3 seemed to have drifted of their topic for a little while. The EI called the announcement of the International Association for Human Rights accusing some governments.

The working atmosphere in group 4 seemed to have “started quite unprofessional, until Brynnland stated that they do not want to have anymore conferences and congresses, but results.” Apart from these problems at the beginning, group 4 also managed to agree on certain topics, as “The Brynn” says.

The EI stated that group 4 came to some agreements, as “Brynnland suggested to build an EF organization to coordinate the issues of international relations. A possible name would be “EDCE – Eutropian Department of Cultural Exchange”.”

Both of the newspapers realized that Eastland was not taken very seriously in the discussion of working group 3.
In their article „Who will be Eutropia´s Next Top Immigrant?” from November 25th the EI calls “Immigration, legal and illegal, is an omnipresent problem in the Eutropian Federation, whereas the latter is affecting some countries more severely than others.” The International Association for Human Rights “assumed the role of a social watchdog at the conference”, while the delegates of group 3 focused on their different views of legal immigration. “During the one hour conference the delegates of the countries compared their images of the perfect immigrant for their country in order to have unified standards in the near future.” Another idea with which the EI came up with was to “assemble a jury which can find Eutropia’s Next Top Immigrant. Each immigrant has two minutes in front of the jury, explaining why they are worthy to live in their beautiful federation.” In our opinion ironic statements like this one are not very helpful, but maybe it will make the delegates think about the dimension of the topic again. Furthermore the EI states, that “the criteria which qualify an immigrant mentioned in this meeting were rather preposterous.”

While “The Brynn” stated “DO something, do NOT only talk about it.” And “Hopefully delegates get to real work on the next conference”, “The Eutropian Independent” said “losing the focus was the reason why the delegates struggled so hard to come to a “fruitful” conclusion – as Indianaland might state it.”.

In their comment “Don´t TALK…Just WORK” from the 26th of November, “The Brynn” stated: “Indeed concerns about risks such as exploitation and discrimination were voiced, but did not enjoy any serious treatment. Instead, some delegates switched to another topic regardless of, as formerly mentioned, the diversity of opinions.”

“As a conclusion, the delegates made a good job in both working groups and Eutropia is eagerly looking forward to Thursday's further discussions”, said the EI.

Press Code accepted

We are very pleased to announce that one of the Eutropian newspapers, the tabloid magazine "The Brynn", accepted our composed Press Code as a guideline for their journalistic work:

"We, the Brynn, fully agree to the Press Code published by the mediawatchdogs group.
We thank them very much for their effort. We appreciate your work.
Best regards,
The Brynn"
by "The Brynn" Tabloid, Anis Trip - Tuesday, 2 December 2008, 02:42 PM

Sadly we have to announce, that "The Eutropian Independent" did not react so far.

Press Code

Since we all know that as journalists we are steadily confronted with certain dangers, we feel that it is time to bring more security into the journalists´ lives.

That´s why we drafted a press code that gives the journalists the security that they need. On the other hand, of course, the press code demands the acception of certain rules of behaviour. Here is the press code that the newspapers hopefully will accept. We do not want to put any pressure on the newspapers in Eutropia. This Press Code should be seen as a guideline.

We are waiting now for the responses of The Brynn and The Eutropian Independent.

Preamble
The freedom of the Press includes many different facets. We consider the independence and freedom of information and the right of expression and criticism as some of the most important facets. Publishers, editors and journalists should always be aware of their responsibility towards the public and their duty to uphold the reliability of the Press. They should always try to work to the best of one´s knowledge. They should always try to not get influences by personal interests or motives.

From the start of research until publishing a story, the Press must respect people’s privacy and right to self-determination on information about them.

We see this preamble as a part of the ethical standards, every human beeing should try to rely on.

_____________________________________________________________

Section 1 - Truthfulness and Human Rights
Respect for the truth and the preservation of human rights should be at the top of the Press´principles. Violating the dignitiy of a person is not concordant with the ethical standards.
Following this guideline, every person active in the Press preserves credibility of the media.

Section 2 – Care regarding research and publishing
Research is an indispensable instrument of journalism. The publication of specific information in word, picture and graphics must be very carefully checked in respect of accuracy. Its sense should not be falsified under any cicumstances. Unconfirmed reports, rumours or assumptions must be quoted as such.

Symbolic photos must be clearly marked as such.

Section 3 - Corrections
Published news which turn out to be incorrect must be rectified in an appropriate manner.

Section 4 - Limits of Research
Dishonest methods should not be used to acquire personal news, information or photographs.

Section 5 – Professional Secrecy
The Press shall respect professional secrecy and not reveal informants’ identities without their explicit permission.Confidentiality is a very important issue.

Section 6 – Separation of Contents
The responsibility of the Press towards the general public requires that publications are not influenced by the private or business interests of third parties or the personal economic interests of the journalists. Journalists must reject any try of this nature. If a publication concerns the publisher’s own interests, this must be clearly identifiable.

Section 7 – The Rights of the Individual
The Press should respect the private life and intimate sphere of persons. If the private behaviour of a person touches the public interests, then it may be reported on in some individual cases. Uninvolved persons rights should not be violated. The Press shall guarantee editorial data protection.

Section 8 – Religion, Philosophy and Custom
The Press should not vituperate against religious, philosophical or moral convictions.

Section 9 – Sensational Reporting, the Protection of Young People
The Press should desist from inappropriately sensational portrayal of violence, brutality and suffering. The Press shall respect the protection of babies, kids and young people.

Section 10 – Discrimination
There must be no discrimination against a person because of his/her sex, a disability or his membership of an ethnic, social, religious or national group.

Section 11 – Preferential Treatment
The acceptance of privileges of any kind that could possibly influence the freedom of decision of a journalist are irreconcilable with the independence and responsibilities of the Press. Anyone accepting bribes for the dissemination of news acts in a dishonourably and unprofessional manner.

Section 12 – Publication of Reprimands
It is considered fair reporting when a public reprimand issued by the Media Watchdogs or any member of the Eutropian Federation is published, especially by the newspapers or magazines concerned.

Interviewing "The Brynn"

Since the tabloid magazine „The Brynn“ is celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, we interviewed Kathy Prize, one of their reporters, since the beginning of the magazine, about the history of “The Brynn”, their team and about the current situation of the press.

The history takes us 10 years back, in a small town in Brynnland. Amanda Perez, todays chief editor of the magazine, was one of the founders of “The Brynn”. “The original idea was to establish a good relationship with the government and work side by side as a team. In the last couple of years that changed, due to alerting changes in the work of the government”, says Kathy Prize. In these days “The Brynn” sees its duty in checking the government and their work, what they say, what they do. One of the magazine´s main concerns is, that politicians in charge should not see immigrants as a danger and they should think more about the economic situation of the country.

In the past 10 years the magazine extended itself quite a lot. 6 departments are working day by day to inform and entertain people. Prize says, that ““The Brynn” is the perfect magazine for people with just a little bit of time, since our format, an online blog, is available 24/7.”

Concerning the situation of the press in Brynnland, their rights and their freedom, basically everything is alright. “The only problem the magazine has to deal with sometimes is that politicians from different countries try to influence us indirectly via the message center, for example”, says Prize. Regarding the norms and duties of the press, “The Brynn” feels that people expect them to write about everything. “But since we don´t want to be hated by the people, we don´t write about topics our readers would not appreciate. But we are not afraid! Our main goal is to inform the people.”.

To read the online blog of "The Brynn" click here

Brynn Brother is watching you?

The Financial minister of Brynnland, Hugo Bolivar, gave us an exclusive interview about the current co-operation between the sector of media and the government of Brynnland.

Is the freedom of the press in Brynnland in danger? Some recent events suggested this idea: When The Brynn took a photo of Brynnland´s working members of parliament, one Brynnland member protested saying that no photos were allowed. Another example is when, after The Brynn article, we heard one Brynnland official say that from now on they were not going to co-operate with The Brynn and say anything to them in future. The Brynn even published the provocative statement “Brynn Brother is watching you!”.
Therefore we, the Media Watchdogs, felt that it was time to demand an official statement from Brynnland´s government.

During our interview the Financial minister of Brynnland, Hugo Bolivar, only praised the work of the press and spoke of a very good relationship between the government and the press in general: “we are happy to have such excellent newspapers in Eutropia.”
However, he as well acknowledged that there have ocurred some “misunderstandings”, as he called it: “Sometimes we are unhappy about some misrepresentations”. Bolivar stated that in some cases deeper investigations would be more helpful.
According to the Financial minister of Brynnland, the government at least is not planning to place more restrictions on the press: “the freedom of the press is an important good in our country and absolutely necessary for our democratic country”.

Nevertheless, we want to emphasize that a free press has the right to report on the government as it sees fit. We will not tolerate any government that tries to publicly intimidate and muzzle the press.

We feel by taking the advice of intensifying the co-operation, both, the press and the governments, will achieve their aims easier. Therefore, we hope that Brynnland´s government will put into practice what Bolivar anncounced offcially:
“We always will be willing to cooperate with the press as long as it keep its integrity.”

The first week of the Eutropian Conference

Soap operas, technical problems, irony and rivalry between newspapers.

Concerning the first week of the Eutropian Conference on Immigration, we have to say that there occured no serious problems.

The first two tele-conferences itself were so harmonic that The Brynn spoke of “the next best soap opera”. The Eutropian Independent on the other hand praised the delegates´ “hope for a productive and cooperative summit”.

However, both newspapers of Eutropia criticized the slow progress to discussions on important issues. The Brynn even declares that the citizens money has been wasted.

Whereas, The Eutropian Independent focused on reporting about “minor technical difficulties” with the software Moodle, The Brynn this week wrote about the irony that was not tolerated by some delegates.

The only more serious problem can be seen in the upcoming rivalry between the two newspapers of Eutropia: The Eutropian Independent published a provocative news bulletin critizing that the first edition of the Brynn was not released as planned. The Brynn felt offended by The Eutropian Independent writing that “this fact does not support the idea of a well ongoing newspaper”. As a consequence, The Brynn fought back: “if those [the journalists of The Eutropian Independent] are unable to find a newspaper online, are they competent enough to report reliable news to their readers?”

As media watchdogs, we want to make clear that we consider rivalry between newspapers as a natural and essential part of business. Now we all know about the political situation in Brynnland and thus why The Brynn was not able to publish their first edition earlier. There is no need to dramatize the problems anymore. However, we can not support any inadequate, offensive provocations which offend the human rights. In order to prevent those kind of unnecessary problems we will in future take further measures.

Official Announcement

False statementes exposed in "The Brynn´s" article "Brynnland MP vanished"

Both members of the watchdog organization used to be members of the Brynnland government and it was our own decision to take up the occupation as press watchdogs. We have been working on a concept for several years.

“Maybe the current press situation was maybe one reason why our ministers felt the duty to found an organization that watches the media. We didn´t lose them. It is part of our politician´s rights to decide which position they want to hold” stated the Financial minister of Brynnland, Hugo Bolivar.
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Concerning the recent government crisis in Brynnland, we have to express our firm opinion that is would have been a restriction of freedom to restrain the size of representatives who are sent to the upcoming Eutropean Conferences. We are happy that Brynnland has overcome the crisis and reached an agreement with the Eutropian Commissioner. The watchdog´s primary goals are to prevent any restrictions on the freedom of the press and to prevent them from writing untrue statemtents reported without reliable sources.

Unfortunately, this announcement could not be published earlier in order to prevent these rumours.

After the marriage the couple DeGeneres is leaving to the party

Concerncing the statement in the Brynn article from the 18th of November 2008, we want to make clear that Ellen April de Generess (former Chavez) just got married in Valencia in the state of Carabobo/Venezuela last weekend. Therefore there is no reason to talk about “private tete-a-tetes” or “wild romantic develops” between the two Eutropian watchdogs, Ellen de Generess and James Fox.

Policy Document

As the media watches the world we watch the media.

Profile:

• Independent non-profit media watchdog organization that is not controlled by the government.


• International organization whose headquarter is located in Brynnland, but several other branch offices are spread around Eutropia


• Heads of the organization: Ellen DeGeneres and James Fox


• Apart from the three branches legislative, executive and judiciary, a fourth branch seems to exist, which marks more and more the public discourse about politics, economy and society: the media. We as fifth branch supervise and criticize the fourth branch of media.


• We think that in a democracy the freedom of press is one of the highest values.


• We want to enforce a critical self-reflection of the media business in form of media journalism.

Our goals:

• We want to…
  …reveal hidden truths, e.g. corruptions
  …protect the public´s rights to know
  …crosscheck information (sources and factcheck)
  …see the importance of reliable sources critically
  …bring balance to the news media
  …cover a wide range of topics
  …expose tactics used to intimidate journalists or governments
  ...appeal to the people´s sense of consciousness
  … make the steady growing sector of media more comprehensible or at least give people an overview
  …take care of that the press sticks to the journalistic norms
  … protect with special effort human rights of journalists
  …take care of that journalists are not censored by governments
  …prevent journalists from disturbing the public privacy

Our strategies:

• We might…
  ...publicize our investigations (about abuses or violations) that we learned about in weekly reports
  ...maintain a regular dialogue with reporters at news outlets
  ...encourage the public to contact media with their concerns, to become media activists rather than passive consumers of news
  

The document is subject to alterations at any time. Our actions will depend on the recent events.

Bibliography

http://www.mediachannel.org/
http://www.fair.org/
http://www.aim.org/
http://www.mrc.org/
http://www.grin.com/e-book/28299/watching-the-watchdogs-medienjournalismus-in-den-usa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_journalism
http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_8940-544-1-30.pdf
http://www.info-rlp.de/lernteams/eli05/abschnitt_3_mikrocontroller/watchdog/watchdog.jpg