The journalistic ideal has always been associated to the search of the truth, to the commitment with democracy and  freedom of speech.

We know that a serious economic and social crisis, as the one that we live today, reaches all sectors of our life, but we tend to forget that this crisis can also affect media and a proper journalistic covering. 

Market strategies have a direct influence in the future of media, but in which way can States intervene and in which concrete points should the European Union legislate?  In an attempt to answer to some of these questions, the International Federation of Journalists organized, today, in the European Parliament, a debate with professionals of the sector and representatives of the European Institutions.

The economic difficulties had lead to a great development of online media , “that it is expressed in a spalling of the information and in a reducing research of the subjects and the sources”, defended J. P. Marthoz, journalist in Enjeux Internationaux.  But the need to produce “fast and cheap contents” has serious consequences for the journalists and for the appropriate model of functioning, according to Jeremy Dear, secretary-general of the union of journalists of the United Kingdom. “In recent years, 101 periodicals have closed, thousands of jobs have been lost, several daily newspapers passed to “weeklies”, and the ones that were paid, have passed being for free”.

To prevent a bigger disaster in the quality of the informative contents and within the unemployment in the sector, Aidan White, secretary general of the European Federation of Journalists, explained the necessity of political action at the level of national and European funds. “We need to create new corporative, commercial, modern, informative models, but that allow a public service that safeguard the production and the public interest”.

“The Commission and the Parliament must react on our economic problems and help us to face new media and the giant Google, with its five millions of advertising”, added C. Elliot from Guardian. 

Aidan White finished the discussion, asking to the representatives of the Institutions, what is already being made in this field to prevent the disruption of  independent journalism, in the Europe. But Adam Watson-Brown, from the European Commission, replied with a short commentary: “I will summarize all your production news concerns and its financing to my superiors”.