The Ethical Journalism Network Annual Report for 2017 and the first months of 2018 covers a period in which the buzzwords “fake news” and “post-truth” provided a misleading but appropriate focus for the news industry.
In recent months the challenges of a flawed information landscape have been dramatically exposed with Google, Facebook and other internet giants being called to account for their failure to promptly deal with the pollution of the information landscape.
The global debate about the integrity of information in the public sphere provides a golden opportunity to strengthen journalism and to promote ethical communications and the focus of the EJN has been about getting back to basics and building trust in reliable, accurate and stylish story-telling.
The year began with intense debate about the rise of malicious news-making by unscrupulous centres of power – the so-called “fake news” crisis – and it ended with a sense that although this crisis will pass, much more must be done to strengthen the craft of journalism to meet the demands of a rapidly-changing world of communications.
The major EJN achievements during the past year include:
1. The development of a comprehensive programme for building networks for change in Africathrough training in data journalism, good governance, respect for authors’ rights, and by creating networks for ethical journalism to combat corruption, and violent extremism;
2. The creation of a united front among media, journalists’ groups and media support groups in Turkeyand the preparation of a detailed action plan to strengthen journalism, even in the midst of hostile conditions;
4. The carrying out of a mission to Chinawhich opens the door to new co-operation with Chinese media and with journalism schools;
5. The launch of The Ethical Journalist’s Toolkit, a free online training programme for journalists and people supporting ethical communications developed in partnership with the Thomson Foundation in London;
6. The publication of two issues of Ethics in the News, reports on the ethical challenges in covering the major stories of 2017 and 2018 which outlines ways in which journalists can respond to the threat of disinformation and confront the global trust crisis which is overwhelming the public information sphere;
7. The preparation and distribution of detailed guidelines for journalists and media around the world reporting on migration and human trafficking;
10. We also consolidated work in three major EJN actions areas:
The world’s first searchable database of media codes, press councils and standards Accountable Journalism (accountablejournalism.org) has been reinforced with Middle East and Asian support programmes;
The EJN’s Ethical Media Audits, a tool to improve transparency and governance in the ownership and administration of media, has been adopted by one of the world’s leading media development groups, International Media Support, for use in its 25 country programmes in some of the world’s most troubled and challenging regions.
As part of the Ethical Journalism Network's Ethics in the News series of events at the Frontline Club the EJN will be hosting a screening of The Workers Cup, a film that takes us inside the labour camps of Qatar, on Tuesday 26 June 2018.
The screening, which is timed to coincide with the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, will be followed by a debate - moderated by our Chairperson, Dorothy Byrne - on how media report on human rights issues connected to major sporting events.
The call for journalists covering migration in the Mediterranean has been extended. The Migration Media Award 2018 rewards journalistic excellence with EU-funded contracts of up to EUR 7000. You can apply here until May 25: http://www.migration-media-award.eu/en/
- News stories in Europe are predominantly by and about men. Even photograph sizes are unequal. (Nieman Labs) - 4 questions to ask yourself to make your stories more gender-sensitive (IJNET)
MEDIA LITERACY & PLATFORMS
- Reporting in a Machine Reality: Deepfakes, misinformation, and what journalists can do about them (CJR)
- This program made people better at identifying disinformation. (They still weren’t great at knowing what to trust.) (Nieman Labs)
- A New Facebook Feature Shows Which Pro-Trump Facebook Pages Are Run From Overseas (BuzzFeed)
- Google's AI demo at this year’s I/O has sparked a huge row about ethics (Business Insider)
PRIVACY
- From 25 May 2018, General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, will be enforced by regulators across Europe. Journalism.co.uk has produced a need-to-know GDPR guide explains what this will mean for UK newsrooms, b2b media, and freelance journalists (Journalism.co.uk)
- As the GDPR implementation deadline approaches, IMPRESS asked Will Richmond-Coggan, Head of Data Privacy at Pitmans Law, about the impact of the GDPR on four key tools regularly used in the newsroom: email mailing lists, email systems, comments by readers, and storing information on the cloud. (IMPRESS)
- European news sites are among the worst offenders when it comes to third-party cookies and content (Nieman Labs)
The EJN's Trust in Ethical Journalism reports looks at how the communications revolution is continuing to pose more questions than answers over a public crisis of confidence, both in democracy and in sources of public information.
Can 2018 be the year when ethical journalism, a human instinct beyond encoding and algorithmic definition, finally gets the recognition it deserves?
Last month the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) published guidelines on Media and Trafficking in Human Beingsauthored by the Ethical Journalism Network's Aidan White.
After a screening of 'Another News Story' the Chair of the Ethical Journalism Network, Dorothy Byrne, who is the Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4, moderated a discussion with director / producer Orban Wallace, producer Verity Wislocki, and forced migration researcher Ahmad al-Rashid. You can also listen to the event as a podcast.
Watch the EJN's Tom Law talk about how a fake news story triggered a major geo-political crisis in May last year and the effects are still being felt across the Gulf nations on Al Jazeera's Inside Story.
Watch EJN Adviser Bill Orme address an informalhearing at the United Nationsas part of the preparatory process for an international conference for migration to adopt a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.
