Lexojeni në shqip: Dy fjalë për të njëjtën protestë
On 14 October, at the same hours and outside the same ministries, a Syri reader learns that "students" are demanding the government's resignation, while a Report TV reader learns that "protesters" are attacking with stones. Both headlines describe things that happened. But someone who follows only one of these outlets gets a different story from someone who follows the other.
This article measures how wide this divide is across 7,285 Albanian headlines from 13 to 21 October, how it changes from day to day and what might explain it.
In brief
- Outlets split into two groups with almost the same number of headlines (about 3,500 each). In group A, the word "students" appears 1,034 times and "protesters" 734 times. In group B, "students" appears 419 times and "protesters" 1,148 times.
- The divide never closes: every day, group A uses the word "students" more often than group B, by 21 to 40 percentage points.
- Even so, both groups move in the same direction: "students" falls from 13 to 18 October and rises again when lecturers join the protest on 20 October.
- Outlets also differ on which harm they report: Top Channel and Report TV have more than 90 headlines each on property damage; Syri and Balkanweb have more headlines on police violence than on damage. RTSH has 39 headlines on damage and 1 on police violence.
What the data show
1. Two vocabularies for the same people
The table shows, for each outlet, how many headlines contain the word "students", how many "protesters" and how many report property damage or police violence. The column "Students per protester" is the ratio between the two words: above 1 means the outlet says "students" more often; below 1, "protesters" more often. Outlets are sorted from the highest ratio to the lowest. The Albanian words counted are "student" and "protestues".
| Outlet | Headlines | "Students" | "Protesters" | Students per protester | Property damage | Police violence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syri | 1,046 | 340 | 206 | 1.65 | 26 | 73 |
| TV Klan | 198 | 31 | 21 | 1.48 | 15 | 1 |
| MCN | 348 | 82 | 57 | 1.44 | 24 | 7 |
| Balkanweb | 1,058 | 357 | 272 | 1.31 | 39 | 65 |
| Ora News | 433 | 105 | 80 | 1.31 | 22 | 3 |
| Lapsi | 487 | 119 | 98 | 1.21 | 19 | 20 |
| A2 CNN | 430 | 74 | 76 | 0.97 | 31 | 7 |
| ABC News | 388 | 50 | 60 | 0.83 | 37 | 3 |
| RTSH | 272 | 36 | 51 | 0.71 | 39 | 1 |
| Euronews Albania | 553 | 103 | 179 | 0.58 | 37 | 4 |
| Vizion Plus | 512 | 53 | 157 | 0.34 | 45 | 9 |
| Top Channel | 716 | 82 | 299 | 0.27 | 92 | 18 |
| Report TV | 646 | 21 | 326 | 0.06 | 93 | 4 |
The gap between the two ends is large. Syri writes "students" 1.65 times for every "protesters". Report TV writes about 1 "students" for every 15 "protesters": in 646 headlines, the word "students" appears only 21 times.
To see the divide more clearly, we split the outlets into two groups by this ratio, not by any political label:
- Group A (ratio above 1.2): Syri, TV Klan, MCN, Balkanweb, Ora News, Lapsi. 3,570 headlines in total.
- Group B (ratio below 1): A2 CNN, ABC News, RTSH, Euronews Albania, Vizion Plus, Top Channel, Report TV. 3,517 headlines in total.
The two groups have almost the same number of headlines, but opposite vocabularies: group A writes "students" 2.5 times as often as group B, while group B writes "protesters" 1.6 times as often as group A.
2. The same day, two stories
The examples below are real headlines, published on the same day, about the same events. They are our translations; some are shortened.
| Date | Outlet | Headline |
|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | Syri | Tension at the Ministry of Education, railings torn down! Students: Down with dictatorship, resignation, resignation |
| 14 Oct | Balkanweb | Fire inside the Ministry of Education/ The revolt of the young continues, students do not leave… |
| 14 Oct | Report TV | Protesters attack the Ministry of Finance, clash with police using stones! Tear gas fired |
| 14 Oct | Top Channel | Protesters wrecked the Ministry of Justice, Toni Gogu reacts |
| 14 Oct | RTSH | Protest/ Ministry of Health: 6 injured at the Trauma Hospital, one undergoing surgery |
| 20 Oct | Balkanweb | Police violence against young people! Lecturers' protest begins outside the Polytechnic University |
| 20 Oct | Top Channel | In support of the students, lecturers begin a peaceful rally |
| 20 Oct | Vizion Plus | Lecturers' march begins on day 8 of the protest, demanding the release of arrested students |
| 20 Oct | Report TV | A lecturers' protest or a PD protest? Balla publishes a photo of Berisha's relatives |
| 20 Oct | RTSH | Rama answers the lecturers' demand for resignation: So far these are the ideas of intellectuals |
Each headline describes a real part of that day. The difference lies in which part is chosen, in three ways:
- Who is at the centre? "Students" and "young people" at Syri and Balkanweb; "protesters" at Report TV and Top Channel.
- Which action is stressed? Demands and calls ("resignation", "do not leave") against attacks and destruction ("attack", "wrecked", "clash with stones").
- Who speaks? The protesters themselves or institutions: ministries, the police, the Prime Minister. RTSH, for example, gives its headlines to the Ministry of Health and to the Prime Minister.
On 20 October something new happens: when lecturers march peacefully, Top Channel writes "in support of the students" and "peaceful rally", and Vizion Plus writes about "the release of arrested students". Report TV headlines a political statement that frames the march as a party matter; on the same day it also publishes a headline in which another politician praises the lecturers.
3. How it changes from day to day?
The chart shows two things at once.
First: the divide is stable. On no day does group B come close to group A. The gap is 40 points on the first day and 21 points on the last, but it never disappears.
Second: both groups react to the same events. From 13 to 18 October, as headlines fill with clashes, damage and arrests, the word "students" falls in both groups: from 78% to 42% in group A, and from 38% to 11% in group B. On 20 October, when lecturers join with a peaceful march, "students" rises again in both groups.
This means the outlets' vocabulary does not depend only on editorial choice. It also depends on what happens in the street: when the protest looks peaceful and led by the university, group B outlets also speak of "students"; when it looks violent, group A outlets also speak more of "protesters". But each group starts from a different point, and that difference is not explained by events alone.
Note: 21 October covers headlines only until 14:00, so that day's numbers are small and should be read with care.
4. Damage or police violence?
The second divide concerns which harm is reported. Both happened. According to official figures reported in the media, 320 people were injured: 192 police officers, 92 protesters and 36 passers-by. The Ombudsman found signs of violence on 26 of 214 detained people. At the same time, ministries, banks, businesses and the Puppet Theatre were damaged.
Yet outlets stress one side more than the other:
- Top Channel has 92 headlines on damage and 18 on police violence.
- Report TV has 93 headlines on damage. Of the 4 headlines that pass the police violence filter, only about 2 actually describe violence by the police.
- RTSH, the public broadcaster, has 39 headlines on damage and only 1 on police violence, which quotes the EU Delegation.
- Syri has 73 headlines on police violence and 26 on damage. Balkanweb has 65 on police violence and 39 on damage.
The two divides do not always go together. TV Klan calls the protest by the word "students", but reports far more on damage (15) than on police violence (1).
5. Strong words on both sides
Some headlines do not only describe; they judge. This happens in both groups:
- Report TV, 15 October: "Protest/ 12 hours of chaos and destruction in Tirana! Institutions attacked, banks and businesses looted and burned!"
- Syri, 14 October: "Plain-clothes masked officer grabs the protester by the throat and punches him in the face! More footage of the beastly violence"
- Syri, 15 October: "Rama comes out of his lair"
- Report TV, 20 October: "A lecturers' protest or a PD protest?"
Some of these words come from politicians being quoted, not from the newsroom itself. But the choice of which quote becomes a headline belongs to the newsroom.
Why it matters
The word shapes how we see the protest. The word "students" brings to mind young people with demands about education. The word "protesters", when it appears next to "attack", "destruction" and "stones", brings to mind disorder and danger. We did not measure how readers react, but it is reasonable to expect the first reader to see the protest as a demand that should be heard, and the second as a danger that should be stopped.
The word is part of the political debate. The Prime Minister says that "the masked people are not students" (RTSH, 18 October). Protesters and the opposition say that police have used violence against students. So the debate about who the people in the street are is itself the political debate. When an outlet chooses a word, it chooses, even without meaning to, a side of that debate.
Readers lose shared facts. A reader who follows only one outlet does not know there is another story of the same day. When two groups of citizens read two different stories, they do not agree even on the basic facts: who protested, who caused damage, who was hurt. This applies to both groups: a reader who sees mostly damage does not see the police violence that was reported, and a reader who sees mostly police violence does not see the 192 injured officers and the damaged businesses. Without shared facts, it is hard to talk about solutions.
The public broadcaster has a different responsibility. RTSH is paid for by all citizens and should be the source where everyone can recognise themselves. The damage RTSH reports did happen. But when its headlines speak 39 times about damage and once about police violence, it risks part of the public not finding itself there.
Other possible explanations
It is not enough to say "the media are biased". Other explanations need to be taken seriously:
- The protest itself changed. From 15 October, high school pupils, minors and groups that clashed with police joined the protest. Not everyone was a student. On those days, the word "protesters" may be more accurate. This explains why "students" falls in both groups, but not why the gap between the groups remains.
- The sources used. Some outlets take the news mainly from institutions: the Police, the Ministry of Health, ministers. These institutions speak of "protesters" and "injured officers". When an outlet repeats the source, it also repeats its vocabulary.
- Presence on the ground. Syri and Balkanweb have more headlines marked "LIVE" or "drejtpërdrejt" (live) than any other outlet (28 and 27; Report TV has 5). They broadcast from inside the protest and often quote the students themselves ("Student: …"). Those who are among the people tend to call them what they call themselves.
- Ownership and political closeness. These may play a role, but this analysis does not measure them. Linking them would need a separate study.
What the data do not show
- We measure only headlines, not the full text of articles or videos. A headline with "protesters" may sit above a balanced article.
- The word "protesters" is not negative in itself: it is the accurate word for anyone who protested. It takes a negative meaning only when it goes together with words like "attack" and "destruction".
- We do not measure how many people read each outlet. An outlet with few headlines may have many readers.
- We cannot say why newsrooms make these choices. We can only describe what they choose.
What to watch
- Does the divide narrow? If the protest stays peaceful after the lecturers joined and the divide narrows, the vocabulary follows events. If the divide remains, it is more likely linked to newsroom choices.
- RTSH. Does the 39 to 1 ratio change now that lecturers and universities are in the protest?
- Movements between groups. Does any outlet move from one group to the other? That would signal a change in editorial line.
- Link to ownership. A separate study could compare these two groups with the ownership and political ties of the outlets.
How it was measured
We counted headlines containing the word "student" (and its forms) or the word "protestues" (protesters, and its forms). For each day and each group, we calculated the share of headlines with "students" among all headlines containing either word. The groups were formed from the data itself, by the ratio between the two words, not by any political label.
For property damage we counted words such as banks, cash machines, businesses, vandalism; for police violence, words describing violence by the police. Headlines on police violence were read one by one. The result does not change when the phrase "student protest" is left out. The headlines in the examples table are our translations of the published headlines, some shortened. Source: Artivista media monitoring.
