ANALYSIS KONRAD ADENAUER FOUNDATION September 2014 REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA 1 RESEARCHERS: Doc.PhD JASMINA MIRONSKI Analysis of the religious Doc.PhD MARJAN TANUSHEVSKI communities’ representation in www.kas.de/macedonia the daily press in the Republic of Macedonia Content INTRODUCTION Page 1 Introduction In order to attain better communication between the five religious communities in Page 2 the Republic of Macedonia and the public media, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation A report on the executed is carrying out the project “Improving the religious communities’ representatives’ research capacity and skills for public relations in the public media”. This project consists of Page 2 three stages that comprise: analysis of the national daily press in relation to the Methods and aims of the representation of the religious communities’ activities, workshops for the religious research communities’ representatives in order to provide expert training for improving Page 3 their communication skills, as well as a handbook for public relations for the re- Analysis of the results from quirements of the religious communities in their communication with the wider the research public. Page 6 Concluding notes The project’s goal is to strengthen the communication capacities of the representatives of Page 7 the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC), the Islamic Religious Community (IRC), the Recommendations Catholic Church (CC), the Evangelical-Methodist Church (EMC), and the Jewish Community Page 9 (JC), setting its foundations on the research for the representation of the religious commu- Supplement: Researched nities’ activities in the media, the transparent reporting on their work, and the mutual confi- material dence-building that leads towards improvement of the public relations. This project is carried out as a result of the positive experiences from the previous work- shops that were implemented within the project “Tolerance, dialogue, cooperation”, which was carried out in the period between January and December 2011, organized by the Kon- rad Adenauer Foundation and the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis”-Skopje, sup- ported by the European Union. This project gave its main contribution in raising awareness for the necessity to accept the differences of the religious belonging, the mutual under- standing and tolerance, and the need for correct media representation, as essential to the communication with the public. In this relation, the information and the assessments gained during the workshops related to the media functioning and their communication with the religious communities demon- strated the need for further activities in order to provide a continuous advancement of the communication skills among the religious communities’ representatives. The target groups are the five religious communities in Macedonia, i.e. the people appointed for direct inform- ing and public relations, as well as those responsible for preparing and carrying out the drafted media agendas and strategies. Konrad Adenauer Foundation 2 RESEARCHERS: With the execution of this project, the expected outcome is to improve and strengthen the Doc.PhD JASMINA MIRONSKI communication skills by gaining knowledge about the functioning of the media driven by the Doc.PhD MARJAN TANUSHEVSKI need of the public to be delivered timely, fast, transparent and valid information. September 2014 A REPORT ON THE EXECUTED RESEARCH www.kas.de/macedonia The first stage related to the analysis of the national daily press and the religious communi- ties’ representation of their activities is completed. The research was carried out between 30th April and 31st May 2014, in the period when there are no major religious holidays of any of the religious communities in the Republic of Macedonia, i.e. there are no dominant activities to be represented in the media. The com- memoration of the major religious holidays is almost always represented in all media in the country, therefore the period without any major religious holidays contributes towards cre- ating a more realistic image of the religious communities’ representation in the Macedonian media. This report shows the monitoring carried out for the representation of the religious commu- nities’ activities in the national daily press distributed to the public in Macedonian and Alba- nian languages, as well as information collected on ways of building public relations gained from direct contacts with the representatives of the religious communities in Macedonia. METHODS AND AIMS OF THE RESEARCH The aim of this research was to determine the way in which the representatives of the reli- gious communities in the Republic of Macedonia communicate with the public, i.e. which tools they use to communicate with the media for delivering correct, timely and valid infor- mation for publishing. At the same time, the research demonstrated to what extent the journalists, in this case, the printed media take interest in publishing news reports, stories and other types of journalistic genres related to the activities of the religious communities. We managed to confirm the so-called “media balance” in the approach towards this sensi- tive issue, having in mind the fact that the final aim of this process is to collect data and re- sults for the benefit of the public. The team of researchers, applied the method “documentation review”, in this case “direct review of the daily press”, and secured relevant information for the target religious groups. The research is based on intentionally selected samples, i.e. all the printed and electronic editions of the national daily newspapers in Macedonian language: “Vest”, “Vecher”, “Dnevnik”, “Nova Makedonija”, “Sloboden pecat” and “Utrinski Vesnik”, as well as the “Ko- ha” newspaper in Albanian language. The intentionally selected sample enabled targeted and directed selection of information. Konrad Adenauer Foundation 3 RESEARCHERS: ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS FROM THE RESEARCH Doc.PhD JASMINA MIRONSKI Doc.PhD MARJAN TANUSHEVSKI The research titled as: “Analysis of the religious communities’ representation in the daily press in the Republic of Macedonia” showed the following results: September 2014 In a period of 30 days, in the process of the daily analysis and monitoring of each www.kas.de/macedonia of the daily newspapers (26 printed issues per newspaper, including the double is- sues), reviewing 104 newspaper reports in different forms of journalistic expres- sion. According to the collected indices, which are integrated in the supplement to this report and the table below (Image 1), the topic of research is most represented in the national daily newspaper “Dnevnik” in 40 texts out of 26 issues, followed by: “Utrinski Vesnik” with 20, “Vest” with 14, “Nova Makedonija” with 13, while in the “Vecer” daily newspaper only 8, in “Sloboden pecat” 5, and in “Koha” only 4 news reports were registered. 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Image 1 The table from Image 1 clearly shows that the most dedicated of the printed media to the topics related with the religious communities in the Republic of Macedonia (the target group of the research) is the “Dnevnik” newspaper, i.e. the particular editorial office that practiced all forms of journalistic informing/reporting. Out of the total number of newspaper texts according to the quantitative analysis, 66 are dedicated to events and information related to the activities of the religious communities in the Republic of Macedonia, 13 events are activities of the church communities abroad, interviews, columns, comments, photo reviews, and short news. The newspaper reports, columns and interviews cover different topics, (which is a positive thing and it seems it is a new trend in reporting on religious issues), how- ever, the most dominant are reviews related to the problem between the MOC-OA and the Serbian Orthodox Church (on a national level), as well as reviews of the so-called, historic meeting between the Pope Francis and the Patriarch Bartholo- mew. Konrad Adenauer Foundation 4 RESEARCHERS: The newspaper articles dedicated to the religious communities, their activities, pub- Doc.PhD JASMINA MIRONSKI lic addresses, and statements in 14 cases are headlines on the front page of the Doc.PhD MARJAN TANUSHEVSKI national newspapers, which points at a specific editorial interest – this shows that the topic is of high interest for the general public. 11 articles of the headline news September 2014 are related to activities of the religious communities from Macedonia, while 3 are related to church events abroad. There are 4 columns, 1 commentary, and 12 oth- www.kas.de/macedonia er types of newspaper articles published. The team of researchers registered only 17 newspaper articles supported by and prepared in direct communication with a representative of a certain religious com- munity, i.e. that only in these cases the journalist asked or received a statement or an interview with a representative of the religious community. This research shows that the journalists often use the phrasing “we learned from sources in the church”, or “unofficial church source”, “neither confirmed nor denied by the church”, “not available for a statement” etc. At the same time, there is in- formation related to the religious community in which another source of informing is used, for instance the Ministry of Interior, a citizen, the local population, etc. Most of the published newspaper articles are dedicated to topics related to the ac- tivities of the MOC–OA, then 6 articles covering the activities of the Catholic Church (one interview), 5 articles for the Islamic Religious Community (1 in the issues in Macedonian languages), no articles for the Evangelic-Methodist Church and 1 newspaper article for the Jewish Community. In the “Koha” newspaper in Albanian language four texts were published, three for the construction of new mosques and one for the position of the chief of the IRC Reis Ul Ulema Sulejman efendi Rexhepi, i.e. no articles related to the other reli- gious communities in the issue in Albanian language. There is an increasing interest in other topics from the life/activities of the religious communities in the published newspaper articles, i.e.