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Lessons in Innovation: How International News Organisations Combat Disinformation through Mission-Driven Journalism (Reuters Institute, 2019)

This report examines how digital-born news media in the Global South have developed innovative reporting and storytelling practices in response to growing disinformation problems. Based on field observation and interviews at Rappler in the Philippines, Daily Maverick in South Africa, and The Quint in India, the authors show that all three organisations combine a clear sense of mission and a commitment to core journalistic values with an active effort to find new ways of identifying and countering disinformation, based on a combination of investigative journalism fact-checking, data and social network analysis, and sometimes strategic collaboration with both audiences and platform companies. In the process, each of these organisations are developing new capacities and skills, sharing them across the newsroom, differentiating themselves from their competitors, and potentially increasing their long-term sustainability, in ways the authors believe other news media worldwide could learn from.

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Confronting the Crisis in Independent Media: A Role for International Assistance (CIMA, 2019)

With independent media around the world in crisis, what is the role of international donors and private foundations? And how can these international actors provide effective support when the driving forces behind independent media’s decline—simultaneously technological, financial, social, political, and institutional—are so complex and difficult to disentangle?

This report argues that complexity is no excuse for inaction. Solutions to this crisis will require that political agency rise to the daunting level of the challenge, and that the structures of international cooperation—forged as the global response to World War II—are now put into motion to safeguard the foundations of independent media. Based on input from media actors, freedom of expression activists, implementers, and donors, the report puts forward three interrelated objectives that, if achieved, would help to international cooperation in the media sector.

1.  Build the high-level political will and donor capacity needed to increase support to the media sector

2.  Strengthen approaches to international cooperation focused on the development of media sector institutions

3.  Enhance the effectiveness of media sector support by making it more demand-driven and coordinated

Click here for full report.

South Africa elections 2019: Journalist safety kit (CPJ, 2019)

South Africa will hold national and provincial elections on May 8. As the country celebrates 25 years of democracy, the press in South Africa faces old and new challenges, including physical harassment and cyber bullying. The press freedom environment, including the safety of journalists, will be one of the key indicators for the health of the country’s democracy and the freeness and fairness of its polls.

CPJ’s Emergencies Response Team (ERT) has compiled a Safety Kit for journalists covering South Africa’s election. The kit contains information for editors, reporters, and photojournalists on how to prepare for the election and how to mitigate digital, physical and psychological risk.

Click here for full details.

An Unfavorable Business: Running Local Media in Myanmar’s Ethnic States and Regions (MDIF, 2018)

This 66- page report assesses the business challenges faced by the country’s local media outlets. The report is based on research conducted from April-August 2018, as well as data gathered during the three years that MDIF has been running its business capacity building initiative, the Myanmar Media Program (MMP).

MDIF’s research identified 55 local media outlets operating in Myanmar’s seven ethnic states and seven regions that serve the information needs of particular geographic areas or ethnic nationalities. It found that local media establishment has surged since the political opening in 2011, with 38 of the 55 media launched over the past 7 years. The research confirmed that the largest number of local media outlets are located in Chin State, Shan State and Sagaing Region, and there is at least one media outlet in each of the country’s seven ethnic states. An interactive map produced by MDIF shows the locations and basic information about each of the 55 outlets.

The existence of dozens of local media in Myanmar may suggest a healthy environment for these outlets, but the report identifies multiple internal and external obstacles that severely hamper their prospects for sustainability and continued existence. Most notable among them are uneven advertising market development, continuing government domination of the media sector, and an uneven digital media transition.

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Underneath the Autocrats (IFJ South East Asia Media Report, 2018)

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the South East Asia Journalist Unions (SEAJU) launched the first ever IFJ Media Freedom Report for South East Asia. Underneath the Autocrats: A Report into Impunity, Journalist Safety and Working Conditions is the first major collaboration by IFJ and SEAJU in the region.

The report, supported by UNESCO, is intended to be an annual advocacy tool that holds governments and media to account on efforts to protect journalists.

The IFJ’s major research into South East Asia’s media canvassed the views of nearly 1000 journalists and media workers across the region in 2018 and included extensive research into legislative controls hampering independent journalism, as well as asking questions of governments, media owners and other key players on journalist safety and working conditions.

Click here to find out more and download the report.

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