Open Letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu Dear President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Davutoğlu, We are concerned that your government uses methods incompatible with a democratic society to exert pressure on media organizations to conform with government policies. Economic pressures are deployed to manipulate news coverage and limit public debate, with wayward journalists fired and independent news outlets denied revenues.

Copyright protection of Internet content, economic sustainability of the online media, respecting ethical standards  on Internet, difference between the web portals that operate according to the journalistic code and those who violate professional principles, were some of the topics discussed at the regional public debates organized by MIM in Strumica, Tetovo and Bitola, at the beginning of December.

Ethical reporting and perspectives of media self-regulation, (non) balance in journalistic reporting, online media ethics, media coverage of the elections and the role of the media in the electoral process were the main topics of the conference "Journalism Ethics and media values in a challenging environment and in times of elections“, organized by the Macedonian Institute for Media and the Council of Media Ethics, in cooperation with UNESCO and the Delegation of the European Union.

Representatives of fourteen member organisations of SEENPM met on 30 October in Tirana for an annual meeting of the General Assembly.  As the highest decision-making body in the network’s governing structure, the GA reviewed SEENPM’s activities in the previous year, including the implementation of the network’s 2014-6 strategic plan and finances.