Ethical audits: a powerful tool for enhanced transparency and good governance

'When people lose trust in media, they remain without an important guide in seeking for reliable information. The efforts by the media in Serbia and Albania to reinforce that trust by performing ethical audits represent a valuable practice that should be replicated by other media, also across the region,' said Danica Ilic from the Ethical Journalism Network. 'If media are to have a central role as custodians of accurate and verified information and maintain their competitiveness amid the information chaos, they have to accept certain levels of commitment to transparency and accountability.'

As a demonstration of readiness to submit their functioning to scrutiny, eight media outlets across Serbia and Albania have self-assessed their commitment to good governance, transparency, and accountability, against the professional standards and principles of the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI). The exercise has been coordinated through UNESCO's partnership with the Ethical Journalism Network (EJN) and supported by the EU-funded project 'Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey - Phase 2.'

Self-assessments of the media's internal governance have been conducted through the answering of the 150-questions long questionnaire of the Journalism Trust Initiative led by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and officially launched today, 18 May, after a piloting phase.

Internal ethical auditing is a long and arduous process that, once completed, benefits the media by bringing them in line with ethical and professional standards of the industry. And for us, integrity and ethics are the best road to sustained competitiveness and trustworthiness of media

Danica Ilic, Ethical Journalism Network

Among the media that completed the auditing process are the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Serbia (CINS), Juzne Vesti, Istinomer, and Cenzolovka in Serbia, and Politiko, Exit News, Euronews Albania, and Droni in Albania. Along with these, other media that aim to finalise and submit their questionnaires are Krik, Vreme, and Fonet in Serbia. The media were coached by the EJN to perform ethical auditing, as well as mentored throughout the process.

'For Exit News, the process has been enlightening,' said Alice Taylor, Director of the Exit News. 'While we had many processes and policies in place before we started the process, they were not all in one place, and had not been updated in a while. The audit allowed us to 'get our house in order' and to ensure we are up to date with how we work and that everyone in Exit is on the same page. It has also resulted in us conducting various in-house training sessions and refresher courses for all our journalists, as well as for new team members. Being part of such a project with prestigious international partners has also significantly boosted the morale of the team.'

In addition to internal self-assessments, two media were selected in close cooperation with RSF, coordinator of the JTI project that is co-funded by the EU, to go through an external auditing process. The selected media are Exit News from Albania and Istinomer from Serbia. The fee waiver for Exit News was approved by RSF, and the media is currently being audited by Deloitte Australia. At the same time, RSF and the EJN agreed that Istinomer's external audit would be co-funded by the EJN and the media itself.

The process is well worth it for any media company. Whether they decide to proceed to the external audit or not, the self-declaration forms the basis of what every media should adhere to.

Alice Taylor, Director of the Exit News

The EJN also recorded podcasts with the representatives of the media that conducted the audits, Jovana Presic from Istinomer and Branko Cecen from CINS, and Alice Taylor from Exit News, as well as from the involved organizations, Adeline Hulin from UNESCO Brussels Office, Aidan White from the EJN, and Olaf Steenfadt from RSF.

UNESCO and the European Union, DG Near, launched the second phase of the project 'Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey' in November 2019. The project is in its second year of implementation seeks to support quality journalism in the fight against disinformation, strengthen self-regulation mechanisms to ensure professional standards in media, and pilot Media and Information Literacy (MIL) in formal and informal education to enhance critical thinking in the region, notably among youth.