21st January 2016
By Stefanie Chernow

Ethical Journalism Network Newsletter – 27 January 2016

Report

News

OBC and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom launch European Online Media Freedom Resource Center

Recent developments in Poland and Turkey epitomise how seriously the EU is faced with a growing number of media freedom violations both in its member states and among candidate countries, whit journalists and media professionals targeted on a daily basis with threats, censorship and intimidations limiting the circulation of independent information.

While concerns over the issue are increasing at European level, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso (OBC) and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) have launched www.rcmediafreedom.eu an online platform that enables journalists, policy-makers, scholars, and citizens to access up-to-date materials on media freedom and pluralism in Europe.

Read more about the platform here.

News organizations standing up for the safety of media professionals

UNESCO is organizing an international conference for the decision makers of news organizations, especially the owners, publishers, and editor-in-chiefs. This follows UNESCO Executive Board 196/Decision 31 which requests “the Director-General to convene a conference with high level representatives of news organizations from all regions, including community media and small media outlets, open to stakeholders, to be fully funded by extra-budgetary contributions, in order for them to share good practices on the safety of journalists and more proactively highlight the issue of journalist safety”.

Read more about the event here. (UNESCO)

The 16th Annual Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism

The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) is pleased to announce that it is now accepting nominations for the 16th Annual Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism for work published in 2015.

Read more about the award here. (University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication)

Journalism is not a crime. So why are reporters being referred to police?

The referral to the federal police of journalists covering asylum seeker policy raises serious questions about the freedom of the press in Australia.

Read the full article here. (Guardian)

Crowdfunded Journalism: 10 Takeaways from the Pew Study

Last week, the Pew Research Center released Crowdfunded Journalism: A Small but Growing Addition to Publicly Driven Journalism. The report highlights that, while contributions to crowdfunding journalism are modest compared with other categories, it is indeed a growing trend. The report found that crowdfunding represents a new, niche segment of nontraditional journalism, gives voice and visibility to efforts that otherwise would likely slip under the radar, provides new sources of sustainability, and contributes to public engagement.

Read the full article here. (Global Investigative Journalism Network) 

The Dutch tech whiz who could save journalism

Alexander Klöpping is taking his vision for a journalistic iTunes to the US.

Read the full article here. (Politico)

Glenn Greenwald Talks Freelancing and the Future of Investigative Journalism

“It’s fair to say that the Edward Snowden leaks, which revealed top-secret and wide-ranging surveillance programs run by government agencies such as the NSA and the GCHQ, has been the biggest journalistic scoop of the decade. What people may not know is that the now-famous journalist who scooped the story, Glenn Greenwald, was a freelancer.”

Read the full article here. (The Freelancer)

Materials

Bigotry on the Air: Why Broadcasters Need to Challenge Hate-Mongers

In 2015 hate-speech became a mainstream concern for news media. Violent propaganda from media-savvy terrorists, loose language from populist politicians and bigoted journalism from the likes of Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins over the migration and refugee crisis have all put journalists and editors on their guard. In today’s digital environment everyone can have their say but very often the discourse is poisoned by hate and intolerance.

Read the full article here. (EJN)

Coverage of Isis videos should be about news, not propaganda

Every time Islamic State releases a video, editors are acutely aware that they are being invited to a Danse Macabre. The finely calibrated degree of violence within the video is matched with high production values to create maximum impact. A recent video released by Isis was 11 minutes long and featured a man, in military-style fatigues speaking with an apparent English accent, who delivered a “message” to David Cameron before five men, described by Isis as spies, were executed.

Read the full article here. (EJN)

Moving Stories – International Review of How Media Cover Migration

You can read the individual chapters of the report here:

The View from Brussels: Missed opportunities to call the European Union to account

Bulgaria – A study in media Sensationalism

Italy – A charter for tolerant journalism: Media take centre stage in the Mediterranean drama

Turkey – Media under the government’s thumb and migrants in a legislative limbo

United Kingdom – How journalism plays follow-my-leader in the rhetoric of negativity

Australia – In a nation of migrants the media faces its own identity crisis

Brazil – Where politics takes precedence over the people who make it

China – An inside story: China’s invisible and ignored migrant workforce

West Africa: The Gambia – Desperate young take the backway to an uncertain future

India – How missing facts and context is toxic for media coverage

Lebanon – Lebanon’s media put humanity in the mix as the refugee crisis takes hold

Mexico – Shallow journalism in a land where political bias rules the newsroom

Nepal – Information gaps fail to keep track of a country on the move

South Africa – Compelling tales of afrophobia and media selective blindness

United States – The Trump Card: How US news media dealt with a migrant hate manifesto

The EJN Year in Focus: Terrorism, Hate-speech, the Refugee Crisis, and Looking Forward to 2016

It has been a testing year for journalism. It began with 10 journalists and cartoonists among those killed by terrorists in the unconscionable massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Within hours the EJN published an article advising journalists to defend free speech but also to lower the temperature, to eliminate hate speech and to avoid encouraging acts of revenge or abuse of Muslims. We called for “slow journalism” and for newsrooms to think carefully about how to handle the story.

Read the full article here. (EJN)