The Autonomy of News Journalists of Kosovo’s Public Service Broadcaster between Political Instrumentalization and Social Responsibility

The news journalists of Kosovo’s Radio Television are a category of employees who find themselves between the influence of political factors, and the social responsibility assigned to them by the functions of the public broadcaster. Although their professional autonomy is guaranteed by the status of the public broadcaster, its actualization depends on the media hierarchy, which in itself is a product of political decision making. Politics exerts its influence on the public media of Kosovo through the right of decision making on strategic issues pertaining to its development, and through the election of the managing bodies. The effects of political instrumentalization within the public radio television (RTK) are diffused from the managerial level to the professional level of newsrooms and practices of news reporting. The journalistic autonomy within the newsrooms of the public broadcaster of Kosovo is relative, whereas the journalists find themselves caught between opposed requests from the linear hierarchy and professional standards of journalists as a merit good, determined by the role of the public media in a democracy. Instances of organized expression of dissatisfaction and protests within the RTK against editorial policies that support politics and restrict professional autonomy have indicated that within Kosovo’s PSB there exists contradicts with regards to the perception of the concept of the journalistic autonomy and the role of the journalist in a public medium vis-à-vis the other actors of political and social communication.