Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

“Practice indicates that responsible and ethical journalism is never the result of state legislation and regulations, but of the voluntary compliance with the code created by the media community itself.”

This statement from the Guide on Ethics in Journalism [mk] opens Žarko Trajanoski's analysis [en] of the “manipulations” by Macedonia's “pro-government journalists” who “fanatically support and promote [the proposed Media Law].” The English-language version of Trajanovski's text was published by Metamorphosis: Foundation for Internet and Society (@fmeta), and it is also available in Macedonian and in Albanian. One of Trajanoski's conclusions is that “the most vigorous advocates for the adoption of a new Media Law since 2011 are exactly the journalists and editors flagrantly violating the ethical norms of the journalist code.”

“Black Monday”: Dec. 24, 2012

In order to shed light on the events of Dec. 24, 2012, when journalists and opposition MPs were thrown out of the Macedonian Parliament [en, es, mk], Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (@fosim) published a study entitled “Black Monday” [.pdf: en, mk, sq], with testimonies of witnesses and participants and analyses by relevant experts. Video from its promotion, with an extensive discussion, is also available online [mk].

THREE YEAR TAX LIFT FOR EMPLOYED YOUTH

In a significant boost to youth employment, the government will decide during the coming weeks about the lifting of taxes (social security, health and personal income tax) and expenses of new trainings of those employed in the private sector. We keep our promises!

The Albanian PM Sali Berisha made this statement [sq] on his public Facebook page on February 10, 2013 [sq].
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Twelve Macedonian women – regular Twitter users – took part in a humanitarian project organized by @IlinaBookbox, two photographers and one designer via the hashtag #ТвитерКалендар (Macedonian for ‘Twitter Calendar'). The resulting nude art calendar was donated to anti-cancer association Borka [wallpapers available via mk, mk, sq]. The original photos are on sale through the exhibition in Lee Cafe in Skopje [mk], and all proceedings will be donated to charity.

On October 9, nearly 200 Macedonian websites participated in a day-long blackout, protesting the censorship-inducing provisions [mk, en, sq] that the Government “sneaked in” within the Draft Law on Civic Liability for Defamation, presented as approved by the EU and COE. Activists from Free Software Macedonia, who provided the JavaScript code for the initiative, also documented the Blackout initiative [mk] on their wiki.

“Attention! Electric fence” sign and a bear at Skopje Zoo. Photo by Vasil Buraliev, used with permission.

Vasil Buraliev blogged [mk] about further improvements of the Skopje Zoo, noted in 2010 by Global Voices [en, mk, sq, nl, zh, zh, es]. More »