Working Meeting of the Local Active Pelagonia Editorial Team in Prilep

The Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia (CMEM) participated in a meeting of the community media outlet Local Active Pelagonia in Prilep, organized by the RESIS Institute. The meeting, held on February 17, brought together journalists and activists from the Pelagonia region who have collaborated in producing content published on the Local Active Pelagonia platform.

The meeting aimed to present new opportunities for the development of community media as key elements that support the sustainable growth of an enabling environment for civil society at the local level.

Project coordinator at RESIS, Igor Micevski, informed attendees that within the project “Community Media for a Stronger Civil Society,” implemented jointly by the Research Institute on Social Development – RESIS and the The Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia (CMEM), with the support of the Swiss government through the Civica Mobilitas program, and which will be carried out in the coming months, there will be new opportunities for the production of new content, which will be published on the three existing Local Active platforms.

These investigative stories are planned to be produced collaboratively by one experienced and one younger journalist, on topics in the areas of ecology and the fight against corruption.

“The collaboration between journalists and activists is an excellent example of bringing civil society issues to the forefront. It also offers an opportunity for civil society and civic organizations to develop a stronger sense of monitoring journalistic reporting. In this context, it is particularly important that their joint outputs adhere to the rules of professional and ethical reporting, in order to inform the public as accurately as possible and to avoid potential criticism”, the Executive Director of the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia (CMEM) Biljana Georgievska said, while presenting data on the number and types of complaints submitted to the Complaints Commission during 2025, that is, on the functioning of media self-regulation.

On average, around 100 complaints are submitted to the CMEM each year, but last year that number rose to 244. The Complaints Commission found that 96 of them had grounds to be reviewed, while the rest were deemed unfounded for consideration, for various reasons: the deadline had passed, the complainant was unknown, or the complaints referred to foreign media outlets for which CMEM is not the competent body.

The meeting included a discussion on the impact of the content published so far in the community media outlet Local Active Pelagonia, as well as the need to strengthen upcoming advocacy activities toward relevant institutions in order to address the issues identified in investigative stories published by the community media.

“Working Meeting of the Local Active Pelagonia Editorial Team in Prilep”

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