In a crucial call for action during a Council of Europe plenary in Strasbourg, news industry leaders underscored the vital role of newsgathering in the face of mounting challenges. From barriers to access and misinformation to declining public engagement with professionally produced news, the speakers highlighted the urgent need to support and protect Primary Source Journalism (PSJ). Their interventions at the CDMSI plenary are reported below. A summary of the panel session can be found here.
Deborah Bonetti – Director of the Foreign Press Association and correspondent of Italian daily newspaper Il Giorno
Policy focussing on the protection of journalists and what we do sometimes feels a little bit disconnected from what we actually do every day. It’s a daily grind. It’s a job that means you go out and gather news, watch, see, meet, and speak to people. And it is very important that the trust between journalists and the public is always emphasised, possibly restored, because that is how people engage with us.
She emphasised that it is really important to know that when we say journalism matters and protect journalists, we’re not all always being thrown in jail, and we need your help to come out of jail, it’s actually much more subtle than that.
Social media should not be called Media, Bonetti said. They should be social platforms. They should be social playgrounds. They should be social whatever. But not Media. There’s only one media, I’m afraid, and that is professional media. We’re not legacy. We’re not dying. We’re not an extinct breed.
Foreigners are not treated in the same way as the British media, and that doesn’t happen in many other capitals in Europe, where we are treated in exactly the same way. So we have problems with access. In addition, there are problems with daily news gathering, because if you’re a female journalist, and I can certainly talk to that, it does impact on your life, she continued.
Colleagues who are not print, who are TV or video journalists; They are there, they’re on the street, they’re trying to do a live (broadcast) in the street. What happens is they’re not necessarily harassed or physically abused, but their live streams are disrupted. That means that they cannot offer the same kind of service that possibly a male journalist can do.
She concluded by showing how the Council does have a way of helping and making sure that real, proper journalists- the ones who are trained as John was saying, the ones who are there to tell what they see, to hold power to account- are supported.
Alexandru Giboi – General Secretary of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA), former Head at the Romanian national news agency Agerpres
Expanding on the intervention of Deborah, Alexandru underlined that this is a very important topic also from the point of view of news agencies, as a part of the news-gathering environment which is not so well known.
“The challenges are there also for us, in the sense that we have financial constraints, we have legal constraints, which go beyond protecting journalists from wars and other conflict situations, which is, of course, vital.”, said the EANA Secretary General.
He continued by looking at how approaches should be more holistic, and more focused on the reasons why the media environment is in the current state and how to move forward from here.
“The lack of trust in the media shouldn’t be seen in my view, coming only from the public side, it’s not only the public to blame. I think it’s important to acknowledge that the media has a huge role in regaining the trust of the public”, Alexandru Giboi added.
He also looked at the increasing pressure of job loss and pressure from politicians: “Of course, there are public preferences, which are, let’s say, built in time through a lack of media literacy, a lack of understanding, as Deborah said, of the role of the media in society. So this is a fantastically important aspect. Everyone, journalists and the public, and by the public I mean both regular readers and politicians, governments, etc, should understand that the role of the media is vital in the development of a democracy.”
Finally, Alexandru Giboi argued that the public doesn’t have the tools necessary to discern between what’s trustworthy and what’s not trustworthy, or between what’s real and what’s not real online. “So unless we get to a point in which we teach media literacy in schools, in kindergarten, even because you have kids playing with phones at three years old and they don’t really understand what they see, and they will obviously not understand what they see when they’re 14, when they’re 20, when they’re 35 when they’re 60, and that will lead to poor decision making throughout their whole lives. The effect of professional news gathering is that it helps people make better decisions for themselves based on accurate information.”, Alexandru Giboi concluded.
John Battle KC – King’s Counsel (Hons), Head of Legal/Compliance at Independent Television News (ITN) and former chair of the Media Lawyers Association
At ITN we take news seriously and we employ hundreds of journalists, John stated at the beginning of his intervention. There is a challenge to primary source journalism, and we need to help. We need help from public authorities and the public and agencies to ensure that our editorial processes are supported. And I think that’s one of the great challenges of our age, to recognise that there is a difference between an organisation like ITN, the BBC and Sky News and such like, and social media swirl, social media conspiracy theorists, people that are putting out misinformation and disinformation. In an organisation like ITN, we have and we take accuracy really, really seriously, and we have journalists who are highly trained, we have a very rigorous editorial process, which would include someone like me looking at the reports before they go out
But today, he continued, what I want to tell you about is kind of good news focusing on court reporting and crime reporting. Media has changed, and I think there is a big competition for public attention, and within that space, you have various different subjects, whether it be royals, politics, news, events, sports, and I think was recognised amongst the senior individuals within the legal system within the UK, the senior judiciary and the senior prosecutors, that there was less reporting on crime and less reporting on the courts. And that’s partly due to the fact that we weren’t getting any information, we weren’t getting many images from the court, and also the decline of local reporting as well, there are fewer reporters going to the courts. there was a protocol set up between the media the judiciary and the prosecution services which facilitated the disclosure of information from the courts and from the prosecution services to the media so we could report on the courts
In terms of the actuality there is something called the Crown Prosecution Service Media Protocol, which is a protocol agreed upon between the police, the prosecutors and the media, which means that if material is shown in court, if images are shown in court, they are then disclosed to the media. So we now show court reports which include images such as CCTV footage, information which shows the arrest, information that shows the police interviews, and that is regularly used in our new services. In terms of the judiciary, we have the judiciary supported, greater use of cameras in court.
In addition, there is the Reporters Charter, which sets out essentially the rights of journalists within the court, basic rights, but it’s really important that these are just crystallised, such as, ‘the media are entitled to attend and observe court proceedings’, ‘reporters may be able to observe court proceedings remotely, via video or audio’, ‘the reporters can use mobile phones or other text-based devices in the court, as long as they don’t disturb court users’.
The actuality, though, is that the sky has not fallen, they have been a success, and it’s based on trust. Trust in the media, in the mainstream media, that we will do things responsibly and professionally, and that’s my plea to you, to engage with the media and trust the media a bit.
Following the disappearance of someone called Nicola Bully who disappeared in the north of England, Lancashire, the police are going to stretch their endeavour to change their media strategy, and recognise that there is a difference between proper and professional journalists on the ground, who will be reporting factually and subject to a rigorous regulatory system, and those who want to get involved, but actually are not journalists, and essentially are in many ways, just disseminating misinformation and disinformation. So this notion of actually recognising that the mainstream media is different to social media is at the heart of that initiative.
Robert Heslop – Representative, European Publishers Council
The European Publishers Council, the EPC, as we like to call it, is a high-level group of Chairmen and CEOs of leading European media companies, representing news media and publishing companies. We are part of the NMC, and we’re very glad to be so. The issues discussed here at the CDSMI and brought by the NMC are at the centre of the EPC’s current reflections. In fact, last week, the CEOs of the EPC met to discuss plans for the coming years.
Many of the questions the CEOs grapple with are what is really also at the forefront of your minds here at the Council. For example, how can trusted news media companies remain competitive and trusted in days of disinformation? How can news media companies continue to invest in witness-based reporting when advertising revenues are monopolised by gatekeeping companies? How can EPC members continue to report on current affairs and gain access to the decision-makers and to people in the news? To give you a bit of a glimpse on the front line of what we are seeing across Europe, unfortunately, we see an acceleration in politicians of all political shades, increasingly preferring to communicate directly with citizens via their own social media channels. Why is this? It is because it enables them to avoid scrutiny and accountability, leading to challenges in editorial media, but also for citizens. Here again, we’re really going into the importance of journalists’ news gathers holding power to account, being in the room to ask the difficult questions to politicians.
This trend we are seeing even in advanced democracies in Europe is particularly concerning when you combine the super decline of local news. This exacerbates the gap between citizens, transparency and accountable reporting, Robert said.
He continued by presenting the need to promote news gathering, and journalism with this young demographic in the face of the power of social media, with all of the ensuing consequences for misinformation, disinformation and challenges to the truth. But it’s not always challenging, it’s not always doom and gloom, Robert warned. EPC and NMC have, we feel, secured some success, both of the European Union level and at the UK level of reports which we feel will support us and our member companies
Concretely, last week, the European Union Sports Ministers adopted Council conclusions regarding the legacy of major sporting events, and thanks to NNC efforts, these conclusions have wording referring to the importance of engaging with the news media and the planning and preparation of these sporting events, recognising the news media is an important partner for the event organised and sporting events. News media in sports can reveal the stories, show corruption in cases, and, of course, ensure that people are well informed about what’s happening on and off the field, and we hope that these Council conclusions act as a vehicle to foster stronger cooperation between the news media and organisers of major sporting events, which of course, take place in all of your countries.
In the UK, NMC and other stakeholders worked on what’s called the gold framework, which encourages the organisers of major culture and sporting events to engage early with the news media in the preparation and delivery of these events, ensuring that the news media are informed about accreditation, access, where you can be, what you can do, what you are not able to do, and enables us to challenge where we see threats to news media freedom.
Andrew Moger – Chief Executive of the News Media Coalition and former publishing managing editor
Reporters, news photographers, and video journalists who ask difficult questions, capture decisive moments and create video and televisual accounts of life’s happenings. It requires special skills and care, I would argue, in regard to safeguarding journalism.
A mixed bag of deepening concern about disappearing news opportunities with some isolated examples of specific positive change. In practical terms, depressingly for journalism, particularly news gatherers, organisations and people in the news would rather put the messages out on social platforms because the news media is difficult to manage or control. Yeah, that’s right, that’s what we do. Professional Journalists are being squeezed out of press and media conferences because space has been made available for social platform influencers who don’t have the same ethical limitations
Moger introduced a potential new initiative regarding news gathering: the NMC’s thoughts around a newsgathering survey. We’re not across the empirical data of the size of the problem. How big is the problem? Is the experience the same in different countries? What are the cultural influences that impact press freedom and public attitudes to the press? We want to try and find that out. And we want to know what are the priority areas, is it the judiciary and courts? Is it a celebrity? Is it a sport? Is it a political environment? We want to try and find that out via a questionnaire to senior news organisers, so news editors, and news executives, who themselves would have at some point been on the street, so to speak, doing news.
In conclusion, we want to secure recognition that the most powerful step in tackling disinformation is and will continue to be fact-hungry, news gatherers and literate news consumers. To hear political, institutional and public figures be louder in promoting the value of news gathering and back those words with action. We’ll do our bit for the news industry to continue to explain why it needs to be able to invest in news gathering and news gatherers. Concretely, we invite the Council of Europe and member states to extend their successful efforts to support journalism with a dedicated work stream on newsgathering. We believe this should have resource, and expert input and have tangible and positive outcomes for the future of news gathering.
*Greek Representative Katerina Polyzou referenced new law in the country which has provision for the safety of journalists at sports events. It states: Under Law 5085/2024 (OGG A’ 17) Article 15, anyone who issues public statements, announcements and publications, incites, urges, encourages or facilitates acts that may lead to violent offenses or threats of violence against journalists, who in the context of their capacity cover or comment on professional events sports, as well as related issues, shall be punished by imprisonment at least one (1) year and a fine.
