Recommendations
Covering and Clarifying Complicated Questions of Human Rights
Commission for Media Policy / 29 November 2017
Sofia, Bulgaria
1. Journalists and media organizations should consider that human rights violations can exist in everyday life, so the media fulfill their responsibility in all levels of society.
2. Journalists are professionally responsible to explain the substance and context of human rights violations by both state and non-state actors.
3. Journalists should promote greater ethnic, racial, gender and other types of diversity in newsrooms in order to bring broader perspectives to reporting on human rights.
4. Journalists should fully explain the context when one human right appears to conflict with another, and how the rights can be reconciled.
5. Human rights should be part of the training of journalists, and is a primary responsibility of journalism schools.
6. Journalists should cover ownership of the media, whether by private or state actors, especially when freedom of expression is threatened.*
7. Journalists should develop rigorous ethical guidelines for accepting and reporting on leaked material.
8. Journalists should be trained to use freedom of information laws in their reporting whenever possible.
9. A dialog on human rights among journalists, media organizations, civil society organizations, politicians, academic experts and all relevant stakeholders should be continued.
• With two dissents, arguing that such coverage was inappropriate, and also extremely difficult to do in the region.