Marius Dragomir on Funding Models for Local Print Media in Council of Europe Debate on Ukraine

CMDS Director Marius Dragomir reported on possible funding models for local print media in a debate on Ukraine organized by the Council of Europe under the Joint Project “EU and Council of Europe working together to support freedom of media in Ukraine.”

Starting his report, Dragomir explained that media funding models have undergone significant changes in the past decade, but the sources of the funding remained largely the same. The main challenge is how to use state support for media without interfering with the editorial independence of media outlets.

He discussed four funding models for local print media that exist in Europe.

Direct state support can help build financial resilience by giving access to large amounts of funding for local print media, but it is very prone to abuse and used by governments to gain editorial control. It can also lead to a distortion of the market.

Tax advantages are easy for governments to implement and offer predictability for media outlets. Yet in themselves they are not enough to achieve sufficient impact on the financial sustainability of media outlets, and they can also be used to discriminate between media outlets.

The third model is support through state advertising, a major source of funding for media in many countries in Europe, particularly for broadcasters. This funding is problematic because without oversight, state advertising can easily be turned into an instrument of control.

The fourth model is project-based funding. The advantage of this model is that it leaves little space for government control, but it has the major weakness that grants do not offer predictability for media outlets.

Taking the situation into consideration, Dragomir said for Ukraine, project-based funding, direct financing, or a combination of the two would be the most suitable. In any case, transparency was key, he said.