“Top Story”, Government, media and fake news

Journalist Sokol Balla moderated a panel made of colleagues from other media outlets, such as Carlo Bollino, Cim Peka, Ilir Babaramo and Eni Vasili.

Peka said that the messages of the EU Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, was that there were many fake news, but for Peka the main problem is that the Albanian Prime Minister has no media making opposition.

Bollino underlined that fake news is a widespread phenomenon throughout the world, and that journalists are responsible for the news they write. “Everywhere, journalists are held responsible for the news they report. If the news appears fake, journalists in Italy have to leave the profession”, Bollino said.

For Babaramo, the Prime Minister’s offences against the media are a result of his weak position.

“The Prime Minister says that there is a generation of journalists who have to leave, what he calls the mediatic mishmash. He is in a position of inferiority towards us. According to him, the problem are publishers and businessmen, a connection that is born after the 2000s, according to Rama, when became Mayor”, Babaramo says.

“There is a wave of builders who took over the media market, people who had never read a book in their lives. The Association of Publishers turned into the Association of Builders”, Rama said, according to Babaramo, who added that since the conditions are these, Rama doesn’t have to blame journalists for the situation.

For Sokol Balla, the problem with Albanian media is not their owners: “Working with the media in this political situation that we have in Albania, it is crazy. Those who see us think that the media are the problem. I don’t think so. The problem is the government, politics”, Balla said.

For Eni Vasili, the real problem is lawmaking, and not fake-news, although there is plenty of fake news on the media.

“It is unclear why this concerns politics more than journalists. The Prime Minister says that there are rich journalists. Who made them rich? If the Prime Minister thinks that there are corrupted journalists, then politics is the one that corrupted them. The Prime Minister should come out and make transparency about tenders, and this is the problem between politics and the media”, Vasili said.

While Peka said that media are today captured by the government, Bollino replied by saying that Berisha used to destroy media outlets and burn them down.

Bollino; “Berisha used to burn media outlets down. He bought News24, which was the first one to show footage from January 21^st. The TV was sold before the local elections. It had a critical position against the government. As soon as the owner was changed, the TV joined Berisha.

Babaramo: “If the first Berisha burned down the building of a newspaper, the second Berisha is more important, because he has fined TV stations with millions of Euros, in a very flagrant way. And News24 was bought with money coming from the affairs with oil.

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