There is a lack of designated rules and guidelines applicable to presenting opinions of journalists within the same newsroom. Overt diversity in viewpoints is most notable at the fringe, online-only news media.
Citizens cannot truly contribute to news reporting, and the option to comment on websites has been scaled back in favour of comments on social media.
Most news media have their own editorial statutes, deontological codes, and newsroom council or ombudsperson. In case of unethical journalistic behaviour, citizens can file a complaint with the journalism councils in both regions.
There is no code of ethics at the national, Belgian level, but rather at the Dutch- and French-speaking levels specifically. Journalists refer to these codes frequently, and they are taught in journalism studies.
The Flemish government-owned media watchdog only assesses the media market on economical parameters, but might soon be given the questionable task of assessing the impartiality of the public broadcaster.
The public broadcaster is funded directly through Flemish taxpayers’ money, whereas research has shown that Belgians pay considerably more for broadband access than their neighbours.
There are no news outlets directly addressing minority groups. Public broadcaster VRT does offer a portion of its online news in English, French, and German though.
Radio, television, and newspaper news maintain a strong dominance in Flanders. Regular online news is catching up rapidly but is nearly all owned by legacy players. Online-only news media only operate in the fringes.
The Flemish media market is highly concentrated. In recent years, a wave of mergers and acquisitions led to the total number of leading media companies dropping from nine to just five.
Belgium as a whole has a very diverse multilingual media landscape, with only very few overlaps in brands and company ownership between, notably, the Dutch- and French-language communities and media markets.
The Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) is a research project from The Euromedia Research Group. This is a network of researchers that collects and exchanges information that help to describe and analyse developments in media structure and policy in Europe.
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