Independent media institutions are crucial for genuine democracies. The most important institutions are national and regional public service media and regulatory bodies that are responsible for the allocation of frequencies and licenses to private media, media market regulation, and protection of media independence.
For this reason, it is essential to ensure the political and economic independence of public service media and of new regulatory bodies for the audio-visual sector.
A key factor is the composition and function of the governing bodies and the procedures for the selection of chairpersons and general directors.
In a worst-case scenario, the government is mandated to appoint members of the boards of regulatory bodies and the public service media. This jeopardises media independence and limits media’s ability to hold the government accountable towards the public.
It is slightly better when members of the Parliament choose the members of these ruling bodies, because opposition parties at least will have a minority influence in the decisions. However, this type of procedure makes independent regulatory bodies and public service media accountable to political parties rather than to the public.
A third procedure for choosing members to the governing bodies is used in the Western Balkans. As part of their decade-long preparation for membership of the European Union and their compliance with EU standards, the six potential candidates in Western Balkan have implemented improved media legislation and regulatory measures with regards to the election of board members for public service media and regulatory bodies.
The measures to protect the political independence of these institutions constitute a promising step forward but do not fully prevent undesirable politicisation. Characteristically, the potential Western Balkan EU-members (Albania, Bosnia-i-Herzegovina, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia) explicitly define what public or civil society organisations are eligible as nominators of candidates for the governing body.
In most cases, a parliamentary committee invites these nominating organisations to nominate candidates. In one country, the nominating organisations may propose four times as many candidates as the number of available seats in the governing body, whereas only the required number of candidates are nominated in other places.
The recommendations above are based on the experience not only from Western Balkans but also from member states in the European Union. These recommendations intend to support and safeguard media independence, prevent politicisation of the regulatory body, and to contribute to democratisation.
Read and download the full document: How to ensure independence of public service media and regulatory bodies.
