“The labor rights and income of journalists and other media workers must become a key part of the discussion on media freedom,” the manifesto published in our Journalism Breakthroughs project states.

The manifesto, written by Marko Miletic (Masina, Serbia), and edited by our Project Officer Dumitrita Holdis and Jelena Prtoric (Arena for Journalism in  Europe), argues that organizing journalists as workers is key in the struggle for media freedom. “The work of journalists is part of a chain of production and exchange of information and knowledge, which makes the final product collective and not individual,” it states, adding that “it is necessary to work on organizing and on building real collective power, and there is no recipe, nor norm for this in the law.”

“The working and material position of journalists and the situation in our media can be improved. It was never going to be easy, but it is certainly possible if we organize ourselves and build collective power,” it concludes.