By Hannah Storm, EJN Director
Last year was one like no other. It brought the biggest global story in living memory for most of the world’s population. The unprecedented pandemic reframed journalism, both in terms of the conditions for our industry and the way we tell our stories. But it also underscored the essential need for accurate, accountable journalism, rooted in humanity: the kind of journalism which lies at the heart of the work we do at the Ethical Journalism Network.
At the EJN, we were forced like everyone else to reframe our work, almost overnight. We are a global network and the pandemic put a brake on our travel and our ability to connect physically with our colleagues around the world. But in this disconnected landscape, our small core team responded nimbly, so we were able to continue our project work, delivering content and convening conversations in a connected, collaborative way.
The pandemic exacerbated another type of pressure on the press- that of misinformation, something that was the focus of the first EJN panel discussion of 2021 – and something which led the World Health Organisation to name an infodemic, and we were forced to sort fact from falsehood, knowing that people’s lives might depend on the information we shared.
As we look back to the work we achieved during 2020 and the projects we have planned for 2021, it’s my pleasure to share with you our latest EJN review which you can download here.