Speakers: Peter Pisk, Amanda Magnani, Meaghan Parker, Lilit Zaghlami, David Růžička, Tomáš Boučka, Ilona Biernacka-Ligieza, Filip Noubel, Olha Kotielnikova, Jaroslav Valuch, Lenka Kurejkova
December 1st, 2020, 18:50-19:50 CET
Written by Adéla Snopová
Key words: Media, Coronavirus, Crisis, Freedom, Fact-Checking
Speakers of this session shared their plans and projects with others concerning the field of independent journalism and the constraints to freedom of the press noticed in several countries. Each speaker had their own presentation full of new ideas on how to increase information security and freedom of the press.
Some of the projects addressed current major world issues such as immigration or existing authoritarian regimes. Others focused mainly on the media related issues. For example, one of the presented projects tries to help journalists who due to the non-freedom of the press in their countries, cannot investigate and publish their stories. We heard a lot of new ideas on how to support the media and people working in this industry. Speakers even offered a possibility to train people without any media background. Suggestions on how to help journalists during a pandemic were also presented.
Projects are focusing on helping journalists by offering them training courses. Journalists have the opportunity to work with professionals who show them how to avoid fake news and how to work with the fact-checking method. One of the projects also works with seniors and teaches them the practices used in journalism.
The project presented by Olha Kotielnikova aims to summarize data from the Belarus protest and its origins while defining the role of different social groups within the protests. She intends to prove or disprove how violence from the government affected the quantity and quality of the protests and the crucial role played by women, seniors, working class and media in developing these protests. She will be working with public data which unfortunately is limitedly available in Belarus. The other presenter, Lenka Kurejkova, is focusing on countries where journalists are not able to write what they want because of the freedom constraints on the press. Her aim is to protect independent journalists by helping them access funds from the communities that their work impacts.
Takeaways
1. There are projects trying to help independent journalists investigate and write their stories especially in countries where there is no freedom of press.
2. Specialists are offering training courses for starting journalists and also for people with no media background, if they are interested.
3. Presenters are working on increasing information security awareness in the Czech Republic. They help journalists, activists and the general public in making use of technology that will help them to communicate securely and privately online.