Statement by the EANA Board

To the Government of Greece

The board of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) appreciates the statement by minister and spokesman Elias Mossialos that the government will secure the independence of national news agency ANA. However, we can feel an uncertainty about how this harmonises with the decision to formally regard the agency´s journalists as civil servants.

As we have earlier said, the EANA board cannot serve as consultancy but we are after having studied the Greek situation happy to contribute some aspects on ANA in an international perspective.

True and unbiased news reporting is always crucial, especially for countries in difficult transition. National news agencies, like ANA, contribute to the quality of democratic processes. A precondition is a framework that allows the agency and its journalists to fulfil their mission to provide information on internationally agreed editorial standards.

News agencies work within an international network of news agencies. Mutual news exchange between these news agencies is based on delivery agreements and joint professional standards. A national news agency is first and foremost a hub for relevant information to the nation´s media but also to the global news community. Only following those international professional standards makes the news agency a reliable national source within the international news distribution network.

Structural and other changes, like the ones Greece is now is in the process of implementing, can be a momentum to emphasise the national agency´s role as an independent supplier of news to traditional and new media nationally and abroad.

A crucial precondition for an independent news agency is a transparent legal framework. Such a framework should ensure the independence of the news agency but also the independence of the individual journalists involved. The formal inclusion of ANA journalists in the category civil servants should be changed not to undermine the trustworthiness that the agency and its staffers have built up over decades. To work under the condition of formally being civil servants is an obstacle to secure that the journalists can fulfil the mission of an independent news agency providing information to national and international media.

November 17, 2011

Mika Pettersson, Editor-in-Chief, STT-Lehtikuva and President, EANA, Helsinki
Lola Alvarez, Chief Operating Officer, EFE, Madrid
Peter Kropsch, CEO, APA, Vienna
Clive Marshall, CEO, Press Association, London

via Erik Nylén
Secretary General, EANA
email: erik-n@telia.com
tel: +46 8 301324
mobile: +46 739 865272

website: www.newsalliance.org