The first editorial meeting of the CIRCOM Citizenship project granted by the European Parliament was held in Brussels on Tuesday 18 of June 2013.
It was pointed out that CIRCOM is again able to have a real, concrete television project in a large scale, involving CIRCOM members from various parts of Europe. Thanks to our General Secretary, Johan Linden, thanks also to Alexandre Pletser who is the perfect manager for this kind of collaboration and project. The Citizenship Project was officialy launched in May 2013. during 31st Annual Conference in Santiago de Compostela.
The editorial work allowed the participants to discuss the project: its aim and limits, the themes that will be developed, the organisation, and the exchange of the material.
The participants officially confirm that the editorial coordination will be achieved by Christian Dupont RTBF with the support of Hervé de Ghellinck RTBF. Christian Dupont presented the citizen approach of the themes, the expectation for the items to produce regarding the European citizenship.
The general aim is to produce reports on six themes; reports, not features or interviews.
What is a report? It's a story with real people living in real situations and facing real problems. It is not an interview with a specialist or with a politician. The general theme of this action is the “European citizenship”. To produce a report on European citizenship means to produce a report of the real rights and duties of European citizens in real situations.
Put together those reports on a same theme give the possibility of a cross view around Europe, that means also building a European public sphere. To achieve this, the best way is that every producing channel fit to the same calendar, so that every channel has the possibility to broadcast its own production as well as the reports produced by the others, in existing programs or in new programs. Of course, the reports have to respect the main rules of public journalism: impartiality and respect of the pluralism. No incitement to hate or racism and exclusion.
During this meeting, the participants made together a list of themes that could be developed during one year (from July 2013 to May 2014) and determined together a production calendar of the reports. Six main themes were defined, with sub-themes presented in order to give guidelines for the main themes. Some of the proposed themes are included in these sub-themes, and some sub-themes are present under several main themes. The officially defined themes are listed in the approved order of the schedule:
1-Disabled people: October 2013
- access and participation to this convergent world
- The come back to sport and performance
- the right to have sex
- Access to the public places
- Humanitarian actions
- Corruption : false certificates
2-Gender equality and family question: December 2013
- maternity leaves
- children’s rights in case of divorces
- protection of the minors
3-Privatization and public service: January 2014
- Freedom of speech and press
- Transport infrastructure
- Postal service
- Water
- Energy
4-Mobility, Immigration: February 2014
- Schengen
- Working abroad
- Erasmus
- Minorities
5-Environment and ecology: March 2014
- Recycling
- Energy
- Natural disasters and their impact over Europe
6-Democracy: April 2014
- European Citizen Initiative
- The right of the EU citizen to vote for European and others elections
- Social rights
- Minorities
- Protection of private life
- Freedom of speech and press
It is to note that a transversal sub-theme was defined, Unemployment, which could be a general approach for all the themes.
A monthly organized conference call will allow the editorial coordination. Participating members will present the way they to sort out their stories and see if the theme is developing in an interesting way. As another theme seems to be more interesting for the action, it could happen that the members might change their initial theme towards a new one. All this editorial discussions will be held together.
The meeting gathered Alexandre Pletser CIRCOM and RTBF Coproduction Coordinator ; Véronique Auger, Rédactrice en chef Europe from the Rédaction Nationale of France 3 and her colleague Hervé Dhinaut, from France Television; Simona Martorelli European Affairs delegate from RAI; Christian Dupont Coordinateur éditorial des projets européens info, Hervé de Ghellinck Editeur info, Christine Schwarz production des projets européens info from RTBF; Piotr Socha responsible for program in regional station TVP in Rzeszów; Dan Ratiu producer in the regional station TVR in Timisoara; Tanja Kranjec journalist in the regional station TVSlo in Maribor. Gordana Škaljac Narančić, HRT assignment editor and communication with the regional centers was excused.
CIRCOM reminds that all the members will have access to these reports for their own use, free of charge. The items will be available on a CIRCOM exchange platform which will be created especially for the occasion.
Furthermore, all the CIRCOM members have the possibility to propose items related to the themes, and subthemes, to be used free of charge by the other CIRCOM members. The members who are interested to join the action may contact Alexandre Pletser for more information.
Alexandre Pletser
Coproduction Coordinator
RTBF
Tel: +32 2 737 41 98
Mobile: +32 475 94 01 00
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.