Journalism is facing unprecedented challenges, The business model which sustained media for decades is collapsing in many parts of the world. Rapid technological change has both opened up exciting new opportunities for journalism but can also pose widespread threats to jobs, working conditions and quality journalism. Jobs, which were once well paid and secure, are increasingly being replaced with insecure, precarious work with wages so low many are forced to leave the profession.

Major news platforms like Facebook and Google rake in billions in profits but pay few taxes and produce no original news content.

Public service broadcasting, especially television – once the antidote to the excesses of profit-driven media –is increasingly starved of resources or faces severe political pressures to toe the government line.

Media concentration threatens pluralism and democracy by hampering the role of the watchdog which the media ought to play. The PEMRA believes media is a public good – that media should serve the public interest not political agendas or corporate greed. We stand – whatever the platform – for quality journalism and for journalists to have access to the resources they need, including training, to properly fulfill their functions.

We do not believe journalists can resist the future but they must have a voice in shaping it.

The PEMRA is working to :

Carry out research into alternative models of financing journalism
Lobby to defend public service broadcasting
Campaign for quality journalism in the public interest
Help unions and associations to secure a just transition from legacy media to digital
Stand up for fair pay and decent conditions in digital media
Demand social media platforms pay their fair share and help fund content creation
Advocate for media policies which put the public interest at the heart of journalism
Fight against media concentration