ABSTRACT
Belgium is a country with a highly complex political structure related to three different language communities. This results in segmented authority along communities’ dividing lines for several aspects of the political and regulatory framework. The media are part of the political level related to the cultural sphere, and thus media regulation and media accountability are at sub-national political levels. As a result, there is essentially no ‘Belgian’ media regulation, but rather two distinct, and sometimes significantly different, regulation systems. The media depend on different professional accountability instruments as ethical codes for journalism, and councils for journalistic issues, although their power can be different north and south of the language border. The efforts of the individual media to safeguard accountability can be seen in both parts of the country but they are largely related to the individual decisions of the media brands. Some media have letters to the editor as strong features, some media have an ombudsperson and some editors-in-chief establish a personal dialogue with their public on specific case-related issues or on a more regular basis.
