The Regulatory Media Entity (ERC) must guarantee that the news media respect everyone’s rights, act with independence, fairness and accuracy, allow the exercise of the right to reply, respect pluralism and promote diversity, etc. In this context, it acts as a clear control mechanism of media performance, either on its own initiative or in the sequence of complaints received from the public. It started working in 2006 (although there was, in its place, another institution with some similar purposes). Apart from the political controversies about its statute (its members are appointed by the Parliament, according to nominations supported by the biggest political parties), and about the need for media regulation (contested by some media owners and editors according to an increasingly disseminated ‘neo-liberal’ ideology), the fact is that some more attention is being paid to media performance and to the media’s complex roles in contemporary societies.
Besides this, the general landscape concerning news monitoring and debating within the journalistic community is not very stimulating. The Journalists’ Club publishes a monthly magazine (“Jornalismo e Jornalistas”) and regularly updates an online site devoted to media and journalism issues, where some stimulating debates arise from time to time. Some interesting blogs by journalists (individual or collective) should also be mentioned: a dozen of them are, today, the most consistent, attentive and stimulating instruments for media analysis and media criticism.
The role played by universities that offer journalism courses (and journalism / media research centres) is relevant as well. Some of them have been responsible, during recent years, for the publication of dozens of books dealing with media issues. This means that the discussion of these questions is now more open to the general public than it used to be, when these books circulated only within the academy.
