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Articles in this category:  08.10.2009 // Magazines empower citizens – still magazine publishers across Europe face enormous regulatory challenges
click to close On October 7th, Magazines highlighted their role in empowering citizens in the presence of the Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, and Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda, CEO of the German media group Hubert Burda Media. Hosted by the Bavarian State Minister for Federal and European Affairs, Mrs. Emilia Müller, the European Federation of Magazine Publishers, FAEP, presented at the FAEP Gala Reception on October 7th the impact magazines have through their editorial content on European citizens. “Empowering citizens” was the title of a glamorous event in Brussels, attended by more than 300 European politicians, publishers and stakeholders.
European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, warned on the temptation of over regulating and affirmed the necessity of a political framework respecting the freedom of the press: “In public policy terms, there has to be a free space around written media; that's essential to the freedom of the press.” Her mandate coming to an end, she draw publishers attention on some issues of their concerns. She warned publishers on the strong political will to put labelling in advertising: “The risk is that the media carry the cost at a time when advertising revenues are falling; and that labelling in itself isn't very effective. [...] I foresee that those labelling measures that I have kicked out will come back in the next years”. Concerning the running study on Media Pluralism in Europe she assured that the aim was to monitor and not to regulate and declared that she was “rather sceptical about any harmonised "one size fits all" approach to media governance in the EU.” She also evoked copyright and digital preservation as priorities of the next Commission.
Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda, CEO and publisher of the German media group Hubert Burda Media, focused on the copyright and advertising issue linked to Google: “We cannot have what amounts to a cartel of silence ruling in Germany because everyone’s afraid that Google will give them a bad rating and optimise them poorly.“ He explained the high value of editorial content and the need to invest money to keep up editorial quality – the business role of publishers. He complained about Google’s reluctance to meet the minimum requirements such as:
Fair share – referring to sharing advertising revenues on editorial content from publishers
Fair search – referring to the manipulation of search results
Transparency – referring to the „cooperation“ of Google and publishers.
He asked the European Commission to be aware of the destructive role of Google in the long run as it undermines the business models in place for a vibrant and diverse press across Europe.
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