A Manifesto for Sustainable Journalism in South East Europe and Turkey | New EJN Podcasts + Our round-up of global media ethics news.
27 July 2018
A Manifesto for Sustainable Journalism in South East Europe and Turkey
Trust in media and independent journalism are essential prerequisites for building democracy. However, trust in journalism is falling in the face of disinformation and political propaganda and a deep crisis for pluralism threatens Europe and the countries of South East Europe and Turkey.
But change is on the way. Media and journalists’ leaders are coming together to break the cycle of corruption and undue political influence on journalism.
They are partners in the Ethical Journalism Network programme – Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey – which is opening the door to fresh ideas on how to reverse the trend of falling public confidence and at the same time to build a viable and realistic future for sustainable ethical journalism.
Already some leading news outlets in Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia have signed up. More media in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Albania and Turkey will join the process and a regional conference is planned in the year up to July 2019.
This innovative project strengthens journalism and identifies media that are committed to ethics and transparency. These independent newsrooms lead the way in public interest journalism. They are bulwarks of independent, ethical journalism and must be given support to keep democracy alive in the region.
A new booklet, Words that Matter: A Glossary for Journalism in Cyprus,aims to encourage careful and sensitive reporting. It highlights some words and phrases that are regarded by some people as negative or biased and is part of a wider dialogue project involving unions, press regulation bodies and young journalists.
The glossary is the centerpiece of a Cyprus Dialogue Project which for the past two years has been promoting co-operation across the political divide that has separated Turkish-speaking Cypriots from fellow Greek-speaking islanders for decades. It is an invitation to media owners, editors and working journalists to discuss how they frame their stories and narratives and the language they use.
Cyprus: Journalism in the Crosshairs of Silly Season: In Cyprus, with the silly season in full swing, it’s journalism itself which is making headlines. EJN President, Aidan White, writes that a faux-controversy has been generated over an effort by journalists to promote a discussion within newsrooms on both sides of the island about the words and phrases they use in their reporting.
Refugee crisis: the immediate and lasting impacts of powerful images: Recent images and footage of migrant children housed in wire cages near the United States’ southern border have fuelled global outrage. Apart from driving policy in the short term, do confronting images create change in public perception and willingness to act in relation to refugee issues?
Scroll down for our summary of global media ethics news.
The Ethical Journalism Network board member, Zahera Harb will be speaking at the Public Media Alliance's 2018 conference in Jamaica, focussing on trust, democracy and solutions to the crises facing public media. Register here.
The Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2018 is open! The competition is dedicated to finding and inspiring young, ambitious journalists from across the globe. Three finalists will be flown to London to attend a gala awards night. Enter by 17 August. Apply here.
For journalists working on child care issues in the US: Thomson Reuters Foundation hosting a event on strategies to protect vulnerable children + reporting these issues to audiences. Apply here.
- "Good to shoot." The third edition, of Jean-Paul Marthoz's handbook on international Journalism goes to the printer. Published in mid-September. Read it here. - New international investigation tackles ‘fake science’ and its poisonous effects (ICIJ) - Sorry to burst the bubble, but showing readers community-rated trust metrics doesn’t seem to help them trust the media more (Nieman Lab)
ONLINE HARRASMENT & FREE SPEECH
- RSF publishes report on online harassment of journalists (RSF)
- The free speech panic: how the right concocted a crisis (Guardian)
MISINFORMATION
- How neglected archives lead to propaganda (CJR)
- Civil Wants to Make News More Ethical (Blockchain)
- A Short Guide to the History of ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation: A New ICFJ Learning Module (ICFJ)
MIGRATION
- Media and migrants: How journalists help fuel populist momentum (DW) - Nigerian Journalists Agree on First Code of Conduct for Ethical Journalism on Migration (IOM)
PLATFORMS & SOCIAL MEDIA
- Facebook just learned the true cost of fixing its problems (WIRED)
- What Stays on Facebook and What Goes? The Social Network Cannot Answer (NYT)
- Fact-checkers have debunked this fake news site 80 times. It's still publishing on Facebook. (Poynter)
- We need a new model for tech journalism (CJR)
MEDIA DIVERSITY
- 'I can't walk but I have my voice, so I can speak. And that's all that matters.' (Journalism)
- BBC World Service appoints first specialist gender and identity reporter (Press Gazette)
- Going forward: How ethnic and mainstream media can collaborate in changing communities (American Press Institute)
- Does factchecking have a women problem? (FullFact)
- Are there limits to self-identity language? (Radical Copyeditor)
GLOBAL ETHICS NEWS
AFRICA
NIGERIA: Guild of Editors condemns press council bill (The Nation)
AMERICAS
US: At East Bay Express, racism charges prompt resignations and a reckoning (CJR) US: Gwyneth Paltrow didn't want Condé Nast to fact-check Goop articles (Guardian) US: Getting the Trump-Putin story right (CJR)
ASIA
PHILIPPINES: Government rejects facebook's decision to use Rappler and Vera Files as factcheckers of fake new: ‘There should be a more partial arbiter of the truth’ (Inquirer)
EUROPE
RUSSIA: Russia, Accused of Faking News, Unfurls Its Own ‘Fake News’ Bill (Long Reads) UK:Channel 4 News anchor says media's diminishing access to senior politicians is 'worse than farcical' (Press Gazette)
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL: Jerusalem Post Fires Cartoonist Over Caricature Mocking Netanyahu, Likud Lawmakers (Haaretz)
EJN ANNUAL REPORT 2017/2018
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 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?
In May 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.
