Businessmen to journalists: Make a register of professional online media and we will follow you

The Association of Journalists of Macedonia and the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia in cooperation with the Economic Chamber of Macedonia today is had a meeting on the topic: “Cooperation between journalists and the local business community through the creation of professional online media”.

The meeting was attended by journalists, media owners as well as representatives of the business community and they discussed about creation of a professional online media registry. The register is expected to be ready during the next month, and should serve to help the public and the business community, to identify which media are professional, respect the Code of journalists and to has transparent ownership and impressum.

Through these meetings AJM, CMEM and the Economic Chamber of Macedonia want to come up with the best solutions and criteria that will lead to greater professionalization of journalism and will contribute to the promotion of self-regulation in the media.

The President of AJM, Mladen Chadikovski said that this Register will contribute to improving the credibility of professional media, identifying those who respect all the standards and those who are the main violators. Representative of CMEM Katarina Sinadinovska said the process would make nonprofessional portals become irrelevant: “Some of them may continue to exist, but the public will know that what they write should not be taken for granted,” she said.

The representative of the Economic Chamber for Pelagonija region, Irena Jakimovska, supported by the present businessmen, said that the Register is a real step in the interest of the business community and that they will follow it as a guide in corporate media policies.

This activity is supported by the Economic Chamber of Macedonia and it is foreseen in the Memorandum of Cooperation, previously signed between AJM and the Chamber. The meeting was attended by journalists from several newspapers from Bitola and Prilep, as well as representatives from the companies Bimilk, Mermeren kombinat, Vitaminka, Comfy Angel, Tutunski Kombinat.