Brussels Unconference | White Paper
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Brussels Unconference | White Paper with 1 Brussels, BelgiumThe | European6 November Media Literacy 2018Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper How can newsrooms and journalists take ownership of promoting trust and transparency in their work? How can we reinforce the responsibility of journalists towards Contact confronting falsehoods and engaging the public in Bertrand Pecquerie identifying, and fighting disinformation? What role should GEN CEO platforms have in facing these challenges? What digital [email protected] tools are the most effective for achieving these goals? The majority of media literacy toolkits that are available today were produced outside Europe, by US universities or major IT companies, thus creating a gap for European mindset and European legal frame. Recognising the situation, the Global Editors Network (GEN), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the Publishers’ Association of Portugal (APImpressa) and the Forum for journalism and media (fjum) have launched a project in July 2018 for developing the European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms. The Global Editors Network (GEN) with partner organisations will invite media literacy experts, This project receives the financial trainers, journalists, designers, product developers, support of the European and startup founders from around Europe to a series of Commission. All responsibilities unconferences and a region-wide hackathon with the aim regarding the contents and the of collaboratively producing a digital European Media actions belong to the authors Literacy Toolkit offered to all European newsrooms in only and should not be order to combat misinformation and amplify quality considered as reflecting the content to the wider public. views of the European Union. Objectives • Producing the first European Media Literacy Toolkit specially designed for initiating a dialogue between users and journalists and rebuild trust in the media • Promoting the toolkit to have it used by at least 4 newsrooms per country (national, regional and digital-only) • Connecting journalists with the users of news websites in a better way in all European countries 2 The European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper First unconference - 6 November 2018 The Global Editors Network is a cross- platform community empowering The European Federation of Journalists newsrooms through programmes (EFJ) is the largest organisation of designed to inspire, connect and share. journalists in Europe, representing The Global Editors Network (GEN) is over 320,000 journalists in 70 committed to sustainable and quality journalists’ organisations across 44 journalism, The organisation is a countries. The EFJ fights for social community of Editors-in-Chief and and professional rights of journalists media professionals from all platforms. working in all sectors of the media It is a non-profit, non governmental across Europe through strong trade association. unions and associations. The EFJ promotes and defends the rights to freedom of expression and information as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European convention on human rights. It is a non-profit, non governmental association. Second unconference - 23 January 2019 As a non-profit organisation, fjum fosters quality journalism through innovative advanced training, orientation and networking on an international level in a time of digital and structural change. Over 3,000 journalists, disseminators, Third unconference - Date to be confirmed and interested parties from Austria and Europe have taken part in their Founded in 1960, Associação Portuguesa seminars, events, and panel de Imprensa (APImprensa) is a discussions to date. FJUM are constantly Portuguese press association. With expanding its network and focus on more than 200 associated companies, international cooperations. fjum_wien it represents about 450 national, was founded in 2011 on the initiative regional, specialised, technical- of the City of Vienna. professional and digital titles. 3 The European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper The challenge for the participants of this first unconference was to identify the needs of newsrooms and find concrete calls to actions which will serve as a basis for the next unconferences. Brussels Unconference participants 1. Efi Andreadou, Aristotle University, PhD Candidate (Greece) 2. Luca Arfini, Student (Italy) 3. Nathalie Bargues, Euractiv, Communications Executive (Belgium) 4. Elvira Berisha, AGK and Koha Ditore (Kosovo) 5. Liliana Borges, Público (Portugal) 6. Mar Corral, FAPE (Spain) 7. Alexander Fanta, netzpolitik.org (Germany) 8. Michael Foley, Professor Emeritus Dublin Institute of Technology, Vice chair Ethics Council of the National Union of Journalists (UK and Ireland) 9. Roger Franco, FSC-CCOO (Spain) 10. Tom Gibson, Committee to Protect Journalists (EU) 11. Dejan Gligorijevic, SINOS / Television & Radio of Serbia (Serbia) 12. Adeline Hulin, UNESCO (UN) 13. Saskia Kaltenbrunner, fjum (Austria) 14. Jenni Karlsson, Global Editors Network, Director of Communications (France) 15. Mehmet Koksal, European Federation of Journalists (Belgium) 16. Maria Kozakou, MLI / ERT sa Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (Greece) 17. Tom Law, Ethical Journalism Network (UK) 18. Mina Liavik Karlsen, Faktisk (Norway) 19. Michael Mayrhofer, Quo Vadis Veritas (Austria) 20. Lara Orlandi, European Commission (EU) 21. Nikolaos Panagiotou, Aristotle University (Greece) 22. Bertrand Pecquerie, Global Editors Network (France) 23. João Pina, Bright Pixel, Data journalist (Portugal) 24. Marie Pouzadoux, Sciences Po Aix, Student (France) 25. Rainer Reichert, DJV (Germany) 26. Renate Schroeder, European Federation of Journalists (Belgium) 27. Blanca Tapia, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Programme Me- dia Manager (EU) 28. Mirjana Tomic, fjum (Austria) 29. Sarah Toporoff, Global Editors Network (France) 30. Florents Tselai, Socital, Data Scientist (Greece) 31. Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck, Lie Detectors (Belgium) 4 The European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper Date 06 November 2018 Venue Press Club Brussels Europe rue Froissart 95, 1040 Brussels - Belgium 8:30 - 9:30 Welcome and registration 9:30 - 10:00 Human spectrogram session 10:00 - 10:30 Masterclass with Tom Law (EJN) 10:30-11:00 Schedule building exercise 11:00 - 12:15 First sessions of the day as decided by the participants during the previous exercise - 4 breakout groups 12:15 - 12:30 Recap of morning working groups 13:30-15:00 Afternoon sessions, as decided by participants (more practical/solutions/ tools-based) 15:00-16:00 Final wrap 5 The European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper Tom Law from the Ethical Journalism Network set the scene for the unconference with a masterclass on media literacy. The main takeaway was that newsrooms will benefit from having a more media literate audience, for the public good, to rebuild trust and to improve the business models. He also cited the top five basics of journalism, which are also core values of ethical journalism. He emphasised that these values should not be taken individually, one should look at them as a whole. • Accuracy and fact-based information • Independence, no propaganda • Impartiality: tell all sides • Humanity: do not harm • Accountability and transparency “When one person says it’s raining and the other says it’s not raining, the journalist role is not to report both point of views but to verify the information and report : look out of the window” Tom Law, EJN 6 The European Media Literacy Toolkit for Newsrooms | Brussels Unconference White Paper Following the masterclass, the participants started a discussion about the perception of ethics in different cultural contexts as well as about the importance of transparency when it comes to political opinions and independence. They stressed the need to reflect on challenges and practical solutions, such as training journalists on concrete cases. The group highlighted that when ethics is part of the brand of the media, there is a direct benefit in terms of reputation. After the participants briefly shared their different projects and experiences. The starting question was: Is this a toolkit to help journalists to be media literate or for newsrooms to help their audiences become more media literate? Or both? The participants agreed to say both. From there, the participants identified the following themes: • Reach and target, defining the audience • Cooperation between journalists and teachers • How to engage in an attractive way • Encourage trainings • Rethink the business models and paywalls within fact-checking • Platforms and algorithms • Make media literacy appealing • Resources, fundraising: how to compensate • the decline of ads? • Inside or outside the newsrooms? • Interrogating journalism practices • Make fact-checking viral Six themes and therefore six working groups emerged from the brainstorming: 1. Reach, Viral, Impact: Looking for tools and ways (quizzes, games, social media influencers, video) to get media literacy to enhance its reach, go viral with sense of humour and have more impact on young people 2. Who pays? Should fact checks live behind paywalls? Who is paying for quality content (investigations, in-depth reports, data journalism)? How to make journalism sustainable and trust monetisable? 3. News process: “Trust me I’m a journalist” doesn’t work anymore, more transparency and