What is the role of journalism in a world in which the freedom of the press is also in the West under pressure, and Social Media platforms are becoming more powerful? The Global Media Forum, DW is looking for answers.
“Freedom of expression is a great Good.” It was no coincidence that Armin Laschet, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, on Tuesday in front of an international audience in Bonn, World Conference Center, the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Germany, stressed. On the eve of the CDU had a Boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, according to the regulation of freedom of expression on the Internet prior to the elections, thought about, and thus, a Shitstorm triggered. Background Videos, in which well-known YouTuber had not called prior to the European elections to the CDU and the SPD were.
Also political Statements on the Internet were part of the freedom of expression, said Laschet in front of the participants of the Global Media Forum, the international media conference of the German wave. In a digital world high-quality journalism but it is of great importance – the conciliatory words of a top German politician to the media.
A global attack on the freedom of the press
How much more fragile the always complicated relationship between politics and the media in many other countries, showed to the subsequent event in the former plenary chamber of the German Bundestag.
“I come from the world’s largest prison for journalists,” said Can Dündar, the German exiled former editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet (in the article image with DW-TV presenter Amrita Cheema). In the World Conference Center, he discussed with the Belarusian media-maker Galina Malishevskaya, the German investigative journalist Georg Mascolo, and the British journalist and politician Michael Dobbs on developments in the relationship between journalists and politicians. The imprisoned Russian opposition politician Leonid Volkov, who was also invited, sent a video message. Its own history makes it clear, “what is the relationship of media and politics in some other countries work.”
Video 10 view:38 Share
Clear ‘ Yes ‘ to freedom of expression
Facebook Twitter google+ send Tumblr VZ Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3JL34
Armin Laschet: “expression knows no regulation”
In Turkey, more than 150 journalists were behind bars, said the Bodyguard travelled Dündar: “We have lost our freedom within a few years.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now the “most important media Mogul” of the Turkey. In the meantime, a kind of “global attack on the freedom of press and speech”, a separation between the East and the West is no longer seen in this regard.
Among other things, the United States are, in the opinion of Georg Mascolo responsible. The biggest damage was caused in the term of office of US President, Donald Trump, meet “journalists in many other countries, have always looked to the USA as a democratic state of law, whose Foundation is freedom of the press”. The United States in this area were no longer a model, that would take some of the European States as a reason to not take the freedom of the press seriously.
A return to old virtues
For the Tory politician Michael Dobbs-to-date power related to shifts in the relationship between politics and the media, especially with the rise of social networks. Instead of “get us all together and to give us a complete freedom of information”, would have done social media “exactly the opposite,” says Dobbs, who has written the political Thriller “House of Cards” that served as the Inspiration for the eponymous Netflix series.
Social networks have changed the dialogue between politics and the media, according to Michael Dobbs
To listen “instead of news, hear very many people, only the Echo of your own prejudices,” says Dobbs. Politicians would have to weigh no more time but immediately responded to any gossip. Necessary a return to “older values of journalism, the objectivity plays an important role and the whole story is important. “What counts in the Social Media age, the number of clicks, “and this is not justice.”
Also Galina Malishevskaya urged to return to core duties of the media. Their role in an ever faster changing world “is something of a Keeper of values, critical Thinking and media literacy. We should make the society and the Powerful questions. This is our Job.”
“We are activists”
So important to traditional journalistic principles were: In some countries, research is Investigative, it is hardly possible, told Can Dündar, whose family still lives in Turkey. For this reason, the Social media in Turkey, “survival is important”. Restrictions on the freedom of the press meant that a Reporter would lose sometimes, of necessity, the distance to the politicians. “We have become activists, not just journalists. Our country is burning and I have to tell about the fire. My family and my friends are there. I need to get out of there. I can’t report on it.” A politician acting like a bully, can’t you interview so easy.
What is the future of journalism? Also an Artificial intelligence on the Global Media Forum in a topic
The question of whether journalists can also be activists, not one could answer for the whole world, said Mascolo. “In Germany, in the Western world, defended the journalism of the System itself – and that is democracy.” This could be a Form of activism, the mixing of the two identities was not desirable in Western countries but.
In whatever direction the role of the media and their relationship to the policy may develop: One, Mascolo, was clear. In an ever faster changing world, good journalism is needed – “probably as much as never before”.
The Global Media Forum will be held this year for the twelfth Time. At the conference, under the Motto “Shifting Powers” will take part about 2000 people from about 140 countries.