Fairpress.eu portal went live on the 8th July 2014 with initial traffic expectations being far exceed. Over the first 12 month period, we received a total number of 64.617 Sessions and 105.327 Pageviews. 47.542 Users were/are actively engaged with our portal. 8.595 people have liked Fairpress Facebook Page and 371.163 people were reached by our activities on Facebook.86 analytical articles were published in national languages; 49 analytical articles translated in English, 4 articles written by students and 128 articles republished from other media outlets. Fairpress has had some impressive successes during its first year:
Day of Silence
Fairpress initiated and organized an unprecedented initiative – the Day of Silence. On January 14, 2015 at 11.30, exactly one week after a massacre at the premises of the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo, Croatian media have darkened their screens and stopped disseminating information in order to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris, but also all others who were killed around the world because they advocated for the freedom of expression. Almost all media joined the action, darkened their screens, muted their on air broadcast and briefly stopped with publication of information with the aim to point at how the world would look like without journalists, media and information that they transfer to public. The Day of Silence was organized as well in FYR Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In-depth articles
We wrote and published several in-depth and analytical articles, disclosing non-transparent influences of some publishers, politics or financial moguls over the media scene in the SEE region. For example:
- If part of the documentation in the case against Faggian is forged, then we are dealing with a criminal offence;
- Media and Marketing Agencies from Bosnia and Herzegovina amid Money Laundering. Illegal Material Gain Exceeding € 5 million;
- Unraveling the case of EPH together with the interest links of Hanžeković and the Agram case has a significant impact on the public interest,
- The privatization of the media as a stumbling block – inconsistent legal framework and a lack of political will;
- It is to hope that the new laws and withdrawal of the state from media ownership will disable at least immediate control.
Emergency Response
Over the first 12 month period we have filed one criminal complaint against the local sheriff in City of Zadar for threatening journalist. Fairpress published 6 UNCUT interviews with journalists who were victims of clientelism in media without editing the recorder material (Cristi Citre from Romania; Gordana Katana,Siniša Vukelić, Edita Gorinjac and Jasmin Hadžiahmetović from Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Šemsudin Radončić and Goran Ćetković from Montenegro). On the other side, we have published a feuilleton in seven sequels about investigative journalist Željko Peratović’s excruciating life agony. Moreover, Fairpress reported in series of articles about journalist, writer and winner of the European Press Prize award in 2014 in the category for best commentary, Boris Dežulović, being fired from daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija.
See more details on the website of the project, www.fairpress.eu
Fairpress.eu is a part of the project Civic Response to Clientelism in Media (MEDIA CIRCLE), financed by the European IPA CSF program and co-financed by the Croatian Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs. The project leader is Partnership for Social Development, Zagreb, and the partners from five SEE countries are: Expert Forum (Romania), Vesta (BiH),