SARAJEVO - South East Europe (SEE) is the most troubled region of Europe – with a long and hard history, that has put some distance between the region of the rest of Europe in terms of political and economic development.
I was in Sarajevo the end of last week,  invited to speak at a workshop entitled: “'Building a New South East Europe – Role and Potential of the Media” (see here) which was run under the auspices of the RCC and OSCE.
Indeed, no less than 40 journalists and editors from leading South East European media outlets got together, in a round-table discussion and debate format, where we discussed the role of the media in the region. But the discussion was not limited to this, as journalists and editors recognized other critical factors which the media have to deal with in finding their role.
Independence of the media from the government, the financial crisis impact on newsrooms and correspondents, difficulty in dealing with crooked administrations of the region, and journalists’ freedom of expression not always being disconnected from the media owners were some of the off-topic issues that were tackled.
Having transitioned from being based in a SEE country, Greece, to the Eurocapital, Brussels, the New Europe experience was really a unique one to  bring to the table in Sarajevo.  Particularly in the working session I was presenting: “Bringing EU ideas closer to the South East European Public”.
Secretary General Biscevic opened the conference in the morning quoting a recent Gallup research showing that the number of people feeling not well or not at all informed about the EU in the Western Balkans ranges from 44% in Croatia to 60% in Montenegro, while in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina between 30% and 40% of interviewees feel that the media content on EU affairs is insufficient.
While these figures may sound interesting, and quite large - what do they really tell us? We should not shy away from the fact that the EU Institutions are spending tens, if not hundreds of millions of Euros each year for the dissemination of information about new policies, their functions and the workings of the institutions through the media. 
So why do we have this gap between spending on getting the information into the media, and on the other hand the public not feeling well informed? This was a particularly interesting question.
First of all – This gap is not “real”.
And secondly – South East Europe is not strange, or doing something out of the ordinary.
The problem is pan-European, it is not just south east Europe. And while statistics about southeast Europe are great – we should also look at some leading EU members for a second – 72% of people in France feel information provided about the EU in the media is not enough, 68% in Germany, 67%  in Italy, and the list goes on and on… In fact the EU25 (Eurobarometer survey from 2006) average was 62%. So these figures of 30-40% for SEE are in fact lower than all but one of the EU 25 - and this 60% in Montenegro, is actually not terrible.
So let us not be disillusioned that media in SEE is doing a terrible job.
Going back to the gap between spending and penetration not being real.
Do the national media, both in south-east Europe, and as we now understand, the rest of Europe, cover the EU Institutions output enough?
And When they do cover the EU, do people read it with interest?
In both cases the answer is No, Probably not.
This is the reason why I write that this gap is not “real”. Though people feel inadequately informed, the issue does not start and end with the fact that the journalists don’t write enough about Europe, or Editors don’t ask them to; it is not that there is simply not enough TV programming about Europe:
People also don’t consume the programming or articles available.
So this under-information if you will, is over-represented
And let’s not forget that when we’re talking about a newspaper or a TV station or radio – it’s about providing people with content they want to read or see. It’s about getting a high market share: subscriptions to newspapers and clicks on the website. We’re in a financial recession – it is not only about what subject matter we, the media, should publish, but about what we can publish and be commercially viable at the same time too.
So why is there an under-consumption of EU affairs matters by the public? Well if we could answer that in this space, we wouldn’t need a Commissioner with a budget in the 100’s of millions.
As regards written press output,  to put it quite simply, either the content is not of high quality, or there is an underlying problem with understanding that the EU does affect people’s lives, and that they should be interested in knowing more, and this is of particular importance in South East Europe. In fact it’s a little bit of both.
We at New Europe cover the processes of policy making, the administration in the Commission, the high-politics of the Council, and the mechanics of the European Parliament, and without any hesitation, I can tell you that it is sometimes very difficult to package stories  in an interesting way. And the things that are easy to package in a beautiful, attention-grabbing way, are usually publicity stunts of little importance – or Eurovision, or the Champions league final.
Is the content boring?
For our newspaper, this is not as much an issue as it is for national press – our readers are the those people who in the survey said that there is not enough information available in the national press and found us as an alternative source, though unfortunately not in their mother-tongue.
I have here a quote from Michael Schudson, one of the most renowned academics in the field of journalism:
“Michaelangelo did not create the statue out of nothing. He made  it out of marble. And even though he carefully selected which marble to use, he was in some measure the servant of that marble and its distinctive features. The marble’s own properties placed limiting conditions on what the artist could do and so influenced in essential ways what the artist arrived at”
We have Michalengelo, the journalist, the article, which is the statue, and the marble, which is the EU. It is how the EU’s structures, accessibility, and resources are used that shapes the ultimate outcome. And surely, their complexity does not help. In today’s European societies with pluralistic media systems, free speech safeguarded by law and supervised by designated democratic institutions, and the hype surrounding new media, journalists seem to have more freedom than ever.
They are expected to serve as watchdogs and gate-openers of the European public sphere that is proclaimed to dissolve the old hierarchy and influence of news sources. However, when approached from a less idealist and more critical angle, journalism in the era of Eurocracy is constrained both by the familiar and the new forces that eventually compromise rather than democratize their news output.
As accounted for by the metaphorical quote from Michael Schudson, journalists have never
been free agents watching the governing to secure interests of the governed. Censorship apart, there is nothing inherently objective in the profession of the journalism itself. Like artists and scientists, journalists make rather than simply relay news.
Academically speaking, the Sociology of news – has long been engaged in examining how journalists shape the news through their choices of what to cover, how to cover it, whose voices to listen, which publics to engage. Similarly, despite the scale and the complexity of the EU’s communication policies, nothing about the European public sphere indicates that the news it generates escapes all these mechanisms.
But the EU does offer something that national politics sometimes makes it difficult to acquire: access.
Sure you may not always get the answers you want, but you will always have a statement and someone to ask. Members of the European Parliament are press-hungry, and the European Institutions wants to try and control the spin put on stories so that they’re as positive as possible.
I wrote above of low quality. By that I don’t only mean that EU content is difficult to package. Indeed many media in SEE  do not have full-time staff dedicated to covering EU affairs, many, do not have a correspondent in Brussels. What does this mean in practice? It means that:
1) Journalists cannot easily build in-depth expertise
2) Journalists cannot easily build high quality sources
3) Journalists report in a reactive manner – not while,   but after it has been formed.
4) Without a correspondent – media cannot make timely questions and put a national agenda on the table in the European Commission and Parliament press rooms.
But I honestly believe that EU Integration, and becoming more interested in the mechanics of the EU, the benefits of EU membership either has to offer or is offering, is a process that takes time for countries in SEE, much like it was for the EU 15, 25, and 27 which are still somewhere in this process.
It takes time to incorporate new elements into our cultures. It takes active efforts of governments as well. Governments are also at fault for misconceptions, and even disinterest in the EU.
One of the thing national governments in Europe are notorious for is playing the blame-game. Taking credit for “managing to negotiate” successfully for EU policies that are positive in the press, and denouncing EU policies negative policies as “policies we don’t have a choice over”.
Unfortunately, it is in part practices like these that in my opinion help us witness negative referenda on the Lisbon Treaty.
And the media gets caught up in this game.
The Commission is the most sophisticated administration machine in the world, however for communication success it needs to be translated from technical to political terms. In fact we are often Lost in Translation.
If there is anything that the media can and must do better, it is to develop expertise in EU affairs so that they can properly gauge and comment on the reality of statements both from the EU and national governments.
And if they can do that – this will bring the citizens closer to Europe, and make them more politically conscious, and make EU related stories more popular in the long-run.