Sonila Meco is a journalist, television presenter, academic and lecturer of economics. She is one of Albania’s most prominent journalists and has had her fair share of attacks, violations of her rights and intimidations. In honour of World Press Freedom Day, she talks to Exit about the current climate for women and girls in journalism and how we can move forward as a society.
How would you describe the current media climate in Albania?
This interview coincides with the publication of the 2019 annual report from the Council of Europe Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists. The monitoring of 14 media freedom international organizations that are part of the Platform has revealed that attacks, blackmail, threats and imprisonments have increased significantly in many Balkan, Eastern European, and Western European countries.
With 11 reported cases, as never before, Albania finds itself positioned aside Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Ukraine, countries where attacks against the media are the norm. In Albania, it is not the first time that media and programs critical of the government are shut down by order of politicians and strongmen, as proven by international courts.
However, this time the report has gone to the heart of this phenomenon, explicitly mentioning the names of journalists, media, and media owners that have been flagrantly pressured by public officials. And it is precisely for that reason that Albania has an entire chapter dedicated to it, as never before, that includes the law on online media proposed by the country’s Prime Minister, physical attacks against journalists during protests, attempts to control information after the November 26 earthquake, etc.
We are not speaking about personal opinions anymore, but about facts and documented incidents, that leaves no space for neither propaganda nor chronic sceptics to come up with alibis. Then, the pandemic created an even more fertile environment for countries with limited media freedom, as well as others, to expand attacks, threats, and the risks journalists face.
Wages being cut in half, suspensions from work, contracts being dissolved due to decrease in ad revenue (as a result of commercial activities being closed) gave public officials in power even more possibilities to interfere when they feel the threat of being exposed. Open calls to consider the media “an enemy” in the “war” with coronavirus, blessed by those in power themselves, through both audio and visual means, made clearer the fronts of a battle launched early from a power that becomes increasingly authoritarian.
I was personally, openly and aggressively, attacked and threatened online for my attempts to demand transparency during a twilight of information in the interest of the public. Attacks directed by the country’s deputy Prime Minister, from his online platform where he inspired flagrant threats against me, as a journalist, and my colleagues. This fact was reported by the Platform made up of 14 international organizations, and was added to the online map of serious threats against the press. No reaction, no reflection. On the contrary, the language officials communicate through becomes harsher every day, and the media weakens financially, morally and in human resources due to the state of emergency brought about by the pandemic.
Do you think gender has anything to do with the hate levied against you?
At its core, no. The severity of the high officials’ reactions does not tremble before gender, but the consequences, of course, produce a background of gender-based, denigrating threats. It is enough to read and listen to the terms used by the mercenary armies that hide behind fake internet accounts, to understand how the mother, the woman, the wife, the daughter that is within the journalist must feel under a storm of comments inspired by epithets and definitions determined by the government, or media entirely subservient to power.
Current key programs are led by women and girls, strongly competing in quality and viewership with those led by male journalists. I have said it before, and I will always defend the idea that being a woman in the media can be neither a privilege nor a weakness. Not for us who make the media, first of all.
Being objective, inquisitive, restless until we reach the truth, accurate and guardians of public interest are criteria that are worth the same for both men and women in this profession. If the government and high officials, threatened by critiques, accusations, digging at the source of their corruptive affairs, find it easier to deal with certain journalists more than others, that has nothing to do with whether a journalist is a man or a woman. The difference is made by the professionals, the brave, the just.
Have women and girls been and remain targets of discrimination in achieving important leadership positions in the media? Yes!
Have they been and remain discriminated against in how they are treated financially? Yes!
Are they an easier target of attack by those in power, officials, and the authorities? Yes!
But this is one side of the coin. Because the mentality of politicians, media owners, and a part of the society wallows in the stagnant waters of discrimination, but the attempts of women and girls to achieve have evolved significantly, with double the sacrifices, work, and dedication.
Today, there are plenty of women who are media leaders, prime time television show hosts, brave ground reporters, and investigative journalists. Their existence is witness to their power to make it, but it does not undo the vile attempts of certain people with political, economic, and media power to attack them, visibly and not, for their gender, as the only avenue they think their authority and threats will work.
A lack of cohesion and collaboration within journalist organizations, the lack of professional unions, the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the strengthening of authoritarian behaviour under extraordinary conditions that produce extraordinary measures to be used in Machiavellian ways (with the ends justifying the means), make the conditions of media and journalists in Albania increasingly more difficult.
The danger of the situation escalating to the detriment of media freedom is now the “COVID” of public interest. And when this clash is seeing more and more divided fronts even in the temple of the fathers of democracy, one can easily imagine what it can entail in a country with no Constitutional or High Courts, with no institutional opposition, with an unconstitutional parliament, within the perimeters of one-party rule, with a weak civil society, with no checks and balances mechanisms.
What advice would you give to an aspiring journalist in the context of the current challenges?
Journalists cannot make it alone. This is a system, heavy machinery, a hierarchical set-up that has formed well over time, that cannot be faced alone by a single professional or social category. Here, organizing of the whole society is needed, in an attempt to re-found the political and economic system, to bring pluralism back, to reactivate resources, to legitimize elections, to bring representation back, to create a civil society, to reawaken citizen consciousness of the rights that belong to them, to holding accountable, to dignity.
As I am responding to these interview questions I am still looking at images of armed people in the steps of Michigan’s state Capitol protesting the decisions of the governor and arguing that any activities undertaken by them in defending their rights stem from a Constitution drafted centuries ago. Whether we like it or not, this is today’s America.
Meanwhile, in Albania, officials are attempting to manufacture, themselves, revolutions against the rich, while they wilfully created the oligarchical system, simultaneously killing the Constitution, institutions, justice, prosperity, and the elections. You can imagine what a disfiguration of democracy is taking place here.
To get through with this response, journalists in times of peace and war have to make it without the support of the government, entering an endless fight for the freedom of speech and expression, leaving behind payroll offices, profits and press briefs from propaganda departments. If we cannot live like this, there are plenty of other professions one can make a living from, but we will not be able to call ourselves journalists anymore.
