Association des Journalistes Professionnels

Description

AJP, the Association des journalistes professionnels, is a recognized professional union representing professional journalists in the French-speaking part of Belgium. It is based in Brussels. Its Flemish counterpart, the Vlaamse vereniging van journalisten (VVJ/AVBB), is a separate professional union.

AJP offers members legal counsel on questions affecting the profession. Its staff includes a dedicated lawyer for legal questions. It manages the Fonds pour le journalisme, which supports investigative reporting and journalistic inquiries and coordinates print publications. It also runs AJPro, a continuing-education structure that trains working and aspiring journalists.

Through its Journalistes en classe program, AJP carries out media-literacy education in schools. It also runs a dedicated unit working on equality and diversity in the profession.

AJP regularly issues public statements defending journalists against threats to their independence and safety, such as police stopping and questioning journalists covering events in public, or public figures discrediting the press.

In one past case, AJP had its lawyers examine a court judgment that treated a journalist’s published right of reply as an aggravating circumstance. It pursued an appeal on the journalist’s behalf to defend the principle of the right of reply and protect journalists from personal financial ruin over reporting errors made in good faith.