Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-07-Speech-2-549"
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"en.20100907.33.2-549"2
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"Madam President, the difficulty we have with press freedom is largely a financial one. Where it is felt the press is controlled, it is often due to who owns and funds the media. The digital age has seen profits fall rapidly and many companies thrown into financial turmoil, but how can any political body fund the industry without crossing the line of impartiality?
A leaked letter to President Barroso from the new Commissioner for communications, Viviane Reding, revealed that in order to boost his image, the President will have a photographer and a TV producer on hand 24 hours a day. Not only that, but journalists will be paid to follow the Commission President on foreign trips. Eight staff will even be hired to monitor the blogosphere for criticism and quash whatever unwelcome opinions are found.
In 2009, over EUR 8 million was spent on entertaining and training journalists, including EUR 350 000 on coercing Irish journalists during the referendum using so-called Lisbon Treaty seminars. EUR 700 000 has been spent on journalism competitions and at least EUR 7 000 on cocktail parties.
There is clearly a very fine line between funding the information industry and bribing it. What is not acceptable is for the Commission to launch an attack on state-owned publications when they themselves throw taxpayers’ money at engineering the media to spin us all a web of lies."@en1
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