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MaltaToday 4 June 2017

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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 JUNE 2017 15 Interview A recent Council of Europe study found that almost 70% of European journalists experience psychological violence on the job. Lead report author Prof MARILYN CLARK explains these worrying findings that 36% said: 'despite all of this, I remain committed not to censor myself; and actually, the fact that I get hurtful comments on the so- cial media... these make me think, I must be doing something worth- while. People are taking notice; if I didn't cause a stir, what would be the relevance of my work?' Up to a point, then, journalists are also becoming more resilient and more committed to their goals." It is of particular concern that much of this pressure comes from State institutions that also share in the responsibility of safeguard- ing democracy. Doesn't this point towards a systemic failure of the democratic process itself... even within Western European coun- tries that are supposed to have healthy democratic traditions? If so, how can this failure be ad- dressed by reforming the institu- tional set-up? "One of the main recommenda- tions of this report was that all CoE states would fully implement the recommendation (from the 2016 report) concerning the safe- ty of journalists. This included a number of actions that can be tak- en by member states. For example, the decriminalisation of defama- tion would be one of these strate- gies... while people have a right to have their reputations protected, that right needs to be balanced by the right of freedom of expression. Decriminalising defamation is something the CoE recommends; as many countries bring excessive force in play in this regard..." This is also the direction Malta seems to be moving in. Libel re- mains a criminal offence in Malta, and we have recently seen exam- ples of what might qualify as 'ex- cessive force' (eg, the garnishee order imposed on Daphne Caru- ana Galizia in a libel case filed by Economy Minister Chris Cardo- na). But there is a consensus on de- criminalising libel. But as the study also reveals, such pressures do not come exclusively from politics. Are there any recommendations which address the commercial pressures faced by journalists? For instance, it was recently suggested (controversially, it must be said) that journalism is too important for democracy to be subjected to commercial pressures. The rec- ommendation was for some form of state financing... "Our study did not go into that area; in fact the issue of commer- cial interference would be fertile ground for another study in its own right. I am currently par- ticipating in an open democracy study that is specifically focusing on commercial pressures. But in this study – while there are indi- vidual policy recommendations that might make a difference in this regard – it was not something we really went into." threat

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