Ironicaly, the same people who dare to question someone’s “moral right for following the profession of a journalist” haven’t even thought about making a phone call to EuroNews before jumping into the comparative analisys. As a result, they built their accusation speech on a false argument: the Russian service, they say, is “translating the original news of the channel”. Well, it doesn’t, and the differences between all the seven language versions are natural and omnipresent. The biased website is fighting windmills here, and its revelations are nothing more than paranoid and unethical speculations.

Is this what you call impartial ? Or are these statements about Euronews factually incorrect ?

—
Reputation of EuroNews Jeopardized
13:27, 11/04/2006
http://www.charter97.org/eng/news/2006/04/11/euronews

The reputation of the television news channel EuroNews is put at risk by the Russian service of the channel: they broadcast news stories deliberately distorting the political situation in Belarus.

On April 8 Euronews aired two news stories about swearing-in ceremony of Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Alexander Lukashenko), in Russian and in English. The picture in the both versions was the same, but comments differed drastically. In the Russian version the final part was omitted. In the end the text contained a statement that international observers had not recognized the elections in Belarus either free or fair, and that the officials of the EU had ardently supported the criticism by Milinkevich aimed against Lukashenka.
—

> * http://www.google.com/search?q=Russian+EuroNews ;)

>The 2nd result is also from TOL Blogs which is about the same problem (Belarus-related coverage on Russian EuroNews).

Heh, you are listed as 2nd and 3rd, followed by TOL on 4th here using the same query :) Gotta love Google’s localization.

It’s the same channel, the same editorial management and the same editorial charter establishing the same guidelines - how much more common can it be? Texts differ, but not the principles.

> it seems to me that EuroNews might be slowly moving somewhere

There are no reasons for EuroNews to step away from its editorial principles now or in the future. Impartiality is what holds the thing together and makes it valuable. The channel will exist as long as its editorial policy is protected from any pressure, and I can testify that the team - including the Russian part of it - is completely free and independent in its work here. Professionally it’s extremely rewarding.

Of course, every language team is especially careful when preparing stories concerning their home regions - not because of any bias, but just because their audience knows the subject much better than viewers of other languages and needs more than sometimes rough and simplified coverage other versions have. That’s, by the way, another reason why it’s impossible to have language versions translated from a single “original” - they’re all customized, but with the common approach.

* http://www.google.com/search?q=Russian+EuroNews ;)

The 2nd result is also from TOL Blogs which is about the same problem (Belarus-related coverage on Russian EuroNews).

> However I do want to give thanks to your network for providing coverage on Belarusian events as very few do.

True. I’m also quite happy that EuroNews started to pay more attention to Belarusan events during this presidential “election”.

I didn’t know that, thank you Denis.

This makes perfect sense, especially for a EU-sponsored channel, because if you single out English, it would appear as if you give special preference to Great Britain and/or USA.

Still, I have some concerns about this approach:

> They’re alike only so far since the video edits…

I see a dangerous line there from ethical journalistic point of view. Shouldn’t there be a common guideline, certain borders that you shouldn’t cross?

Let’s imagine a purely hypothetical example, a video of anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow.

And let’s imagine, just for the sake of this argument, that English EuroNews reports truthfully and objectively that there was a peaceful demonstration against Putin, with an estimated 20,000 participants, who were brutally dispersed by the police.

While, let’s say, the Russian version of EuroNews, for certain reasons, reports that several hundred aggressive people gathered in the center of Moscow and police protected the order by peacefully blocking and dispersing the aggressive ultras, or something…

Of course, it’s not so bad today. It is definietely not the case.

But with this Belarus-related coverage it seems to me that EuroNews might be slowly moving somewhere in that direction.

Since all the seven versions of a news story are created semi-independently at the same time, the texts can’t possibly correspond. They’re alike only so far since the video edits and most of the information sources used by the seven journalists are the same.

I really didn’t know about this policy regarding different languages on your TV channel.

Can you please point me to a link on the official website of EuroNews.net where it explains or explicitly warns about that?

Thanks.