Ideas factory: Who is watching EU media?

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Who is watching (Brussels based) EU media? Do we need some sort of ‘EU media watch’ site?

The EU media landscape is changing. It has become more aggressive and more driven by business interests. So, do we need a place that keeps an eye on what EU media is doing?

How do media outlets operate? Who is writing for them? What sort of of journalism are we exposed to? In Germany there is Über Medien or BildBlog; in the UK there are blogs like zelo street — and a network of other ‘media watch blogs’.

The idea of a ‘EU media watch’ is simple: keep an eye on EU media, point out factual errors, expose lazy EU journalism and other ‘dubious’ activities.

It’s about transparency and accountability. Obviously the concept needs to be developed — but it’s an important issue:

How do we make sure that EU media stays honest and accurate? And how do we keep them accountable?

What needs to be done?

First of all, a few people who want to write regularly about EU media in Brussels (and elsewhere). As you can imagine, his is a bit tricky as many people who have a strong opinion on these issues also rely on the Brussels media for their day-to-day work. So, we would need to work out a clever way how to operate such a site. The technical stuff is straight forward and not complex.

But in the long run, this project would need some funding to keep it going. Being able to criticize EU media needs solid editorial and financial independence.