Media for Peace #6 Transparenz als journalistisches Gut

00:00:00: Journalismus der Frieden ermöglicht.

00:00:05: Das ist Media for Peace, ein Podcast des Media Lab Bayern.

00:00:12: Hallo und herzlich willkommen.

00:00:14: So cool, dass du mehr über Journalismus und das vor allem in Krisengebieten erfahren möchtest.

00:00:20: Mein Name ist Sabrina Harper und ich habe das Vergnügen, diesen Podcast zu moderieren.

00:00:25: Bei Media for Peace geht es um einen Friedensfördernden Journalismus und parallel zu diesem Podcast

00:00:31: läuft das gleichnamige Projekt.

00:00:34: Elf Medienschaffende aus dem Libanon, Afghanistan, Deutschland und Südamerika versuchen während

00:00:39: des Projekts, ein Produkt zu entwickeln, das einen Friedensfördernden Journalismus vorantreibt.

00:00:45: Ja, aber was bedeutet denn das konkret?

00:00:48: Häufig kann man sich darunter nicht so richtig was vorstellen.

00:00:52: Andersrum aber schon.

00:00:53: Probieren wir es mal so.

00:00:54: Wir kennen das, glaube ich, alle.

00:00:56: Aufpeitschen der Artikel, Kontroverse Aussagen.

00:01:00: Eine Seite gegen die andere.

00:01:02: So funktioniert das doch meistens in den Medien.

00:01:04: Wie wäre es aber, wenn man statt "die gegen uns" eher sagen würde "es gibt viele Ansichten,

00:01:11: lasst uns die doch mal vereinen".

00:01:13: Klingt ganz anders, oder?

00:01:15: Und dieses "Lass uns die doch mal vereinen", das wäre Friedensfördernd.

00:01:19: Die Elf Leute aus dem Projekt, die nenne ich übrigens gern die Media for Peace Fellows

00:01:24: und die suchen genau nach so etwas.

00:01:27: Nach Dialog fördernden Formaten und Tools.

00:01:30: Damit das gelingt, haben die Fellows in den letzten Wochen Kriterien untersucht, die

00:01:35: in so ein Friedensförderndes Format einfließen.

00:01:38: Und zwei wichtige Aspekte dabei sind Transparenz und Datenlage.

00:01:43: Warum die zwei Dinge so wichtig sind, das haben mir die Fellows Radkar und Ellie erklärt.

00:01:48: Hi Radkar, hi Ellie.

00:01:53: Welcome to the show.

00:01:54: Today I want to talk with you about transparency and journalism, especially in conflict zones.

00:02:01: But before we start, can you each introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about your backgrounds

00:02:06: and experiences?

00:02:07: Sure.

00:02:08: Hi Sabrina, thanks for having us.

00:02:11: My name is Radkar, I come from Czech Republic.

00:02:15: But I have had the privilege of living and working in a couple of what you might call post-conflict

00:02:21: countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lebanon, one of our case country studies.

00:02:27: And my professional background is a bit complicated, which I think is a great fit for this program.

00:02:36: So I am a public policy professional with background in international development, youth capacity

00:02:42: building, innovation and data analysis.

00:02:45: Hello Sabrina, thanks for having me today.

00:02:49: So I am Ellie coming from Lebanon, my professional background.

00:02:54: For the last five years I was working with different businesses as software engineer and

00:02:59: system architect, empowering them with technologies, building their solutions and helping them transmitting

00:03:05: into the digital era.

00:03:07: I am happy to be in this program bringing my technological expertise to help journalists

00:03:13: around the world.

00:03:15: I am happy to have you with us too.

00:03:18: What you both got in common is that you are fellows of the Media for Peace Project.

00:03:22: Over the last couple of weeks you have been researching and evaluating various topics, one

00:03:28: of which is transparency and journalism.

00:03:31: So what have you discovered so far?

00:03:34: So I think transparency and journalism is definitely not a new topic, it sort of periodically

00:03:40: appears.

00:03:41: But we have been looking at the most is how it influences the trust in media, which of

00:03:48: course has also been an ever appearing topic.

00:03:52: And we have been looking at how different media outlets are dealing with these requests

00:03:58: from audiences, which for me personally I think is taking a bit different flavor, one could

00:04:07: say, compared to previous, because of the closeness that audiences got used to from social media

00:04:15: with the world of influencers.

00:04:17: You kind of build this personal relationship with those people and you feel like you are

00:04:22: part of their lives, whereas with media there always has been felt this distance between the

00:04:28: journalists and their audiences.

00:04:30: And I think transparency is really kind of situating itself in that context.

00:04:35: Yeah, and for me also dealing with transparency from a different perspective and working with

00:04:42: a topic which is related to censorship.

00:04:46: I was seeing that transparency is lacking today in the conflict zones with the journalist

00:04:52: operating in a conflict zone like Lebanon or Afghanistan due to many factors.

00:04:58: They are not being able to operate in a transparent way due to safety concerns, censorship, self

00:05:05: censorship and all the related issues that was preventing the trust and making the reports

00:05:11: not transparent as they should do.

00:05:14: Would you say this is the main cause for lack of transparency at least?

00:05:19: At least yes, in the conflict zones there is many issues that is preventing the lack of

00:05:25: transparency, the safety concerns for the journalists, their families, the surrounding, the data source

00:05:32: that they take, maybe they will not make a transparent report if they will be threatened.

00:05:38: The media censorship, their employers are censoring them especially for example in Lebanon because

00:05:43: if they will make a transparent report about a certain bank, the employer will stop it

00:05:48: and censor it because this bag is bringing money and giving them a lot of income.

00:05:55: Was also other related things like the limited resources that the journalists have in conflict

00:06:01: zones and the limited access due to the government rules and all the rest of that is causing this

00:06:07: lack of transparency?

00:06:09: I would also add that what we have seen is that quite often part of transparency is how

00:06:16: the media outlets are being financed and that can be obviously a very sensitive topic so

00:06:22: especially in conflict, post-conflict countries.

00:06:25: If you are saying that your funding is coming from lots of big philanthropic foundations in the USA,

00:06:32: you may already be labelled as an agent of those foundations and you are losing this.

00:06:39: I see funding is a big problem but also the lack of trust.

00:06:43: It is really hard to get them both together.

00:06:46: I think the problem of the lack of trust is so multi-faceted, we can't really tackle it in this podcast.

00:06:52: But transparency is playing into that and funding is one thing about it.

00:06:57: The other thing is journalistic methods.

00:06:59: Having people, your audience, understand how you are doing journalism, why you are picking the topics you are picking,

00:07:06: why you report on them the way you report on them.

00:07:10: If I look at it from my data perspective, it's like why do you decide to publish the data,

00:07:15: you pick up, why do you opt for that source, why do you present it that way?

00:07:20: So it's a lot more about explaining what you are doing and how you are doing it

00:07:27: and also having this, in essence, vulnerability about saying,

00:07:32: okay, our money is coming from whatever sources are available, which is of course very market-specific.

00:07:39: Eli is a back-end developer. What does transparency mean to you?

00:07:44: From a software engineering perspective, transparency means how we will treat the data, how we will work with it.

00:07:51: Because as Halka mentioned, we have a lot of concerns regarding how the data is gathered,

00:07:57: treated and why they are gathering all this data, especially the media outlets and organizations,

00:08:03: which make a lot of questions.

00:08:07: Und today to avoid kind of this concerns from the software engineering perspective,

00:08:12: we are moving to a new infrastructure called the Web 3, the third generation of the web and the blockchain,

00:08:18: which is open, no one can control your data.

00:08:22: Every, your data is owned by you, not by a single entity or by one man show,

00:08:28: who will own and manage your data, which will help building more transparent and data secure systems.

00:08:37: That will help in journalism and other domains.

00:08:40: Besides all of that, I think maybe it's also an attitude how to deliver stories.

00:08:46: The way these stories are written or the way journalists present topics could be in a destructive kind of way.

00:08:54: For example, if they just mentioning bad things, or they can put it into a positive, respectful way.

00:09:01: I mean, they can separate or they bring different kind of views altogether.

00:09:06: That is what I mean when I am talking about an attitude.

00:09:11: That might be an important factor besides data and sources too.

00:09:15: I don't think it's necessary just in conflict zones.

00:09:18: I think, you know, in this fellowship we have been looking at journalism through the prism,

00:09:24: a bit of peace journalism concept, which obviously has very specific reporting requirements,

00:09:31: if I may put it that way, but we see the tendencies worldwide.

00:09:36: There is a huge push towards solution journalism, constructive journalism.

00:09:41: So we are looking at how to report on the stories in a way that make the audiences engaged in a,

00:09:53: you could say, positive, constructive manner.

00:09:56: Yes, I think, I agree with you, it's a general topic not only related to the conflict zones,

00:10:03: because journalists play a very important role on how the story or the event is covered,

00:10:10: and they have significant impact on the audience, especially in the conflict zones,

00:10:14: because they wait for the journalist to send a report or to publish something,

00:10:20: to understand how things are going.

00:10:23: So, in a solution-oriented way, bringing positive aspects will help this audience,

00:10:31: maybe consuming the reports or looking at the next steps in a positive way,

00:10:37: and not always in a conflict-oriented way.

00:10:40: I'm really looking forward to what comes out at the end of the Media for Peace Project.

00:10:46: Thanks Radka, thanks Eli for your time and for being on the podcast.

00:10:50: Thank you Sabrina.

00:10:51: Thank you Sabrina.

00:10:53: Transparenz schafft also Vertrauen, Daten und Quellenangaben stärken die Objektivität

00:10:59: und ein wertschätzender Ton macht den Journalismus einfach gehaltvoller.

00:11:03: Doch wie sieht das jetzt in der Praxis aus?

00:11:05: Media for Peace fokussiert sich ja unter anderem zunächst auf die Post-Konflikzone Libanon.

00:11:11: Dort habe ich vor einiger Zeit jemanden aus einem kleinen Medienunternehmen kennengelernt,

00:11:16: das genau diese Grundprinzipien verfolgt.

00:11:19: Es heißt "Nacht Politics" und dort arbeitet Antoni Barakat.

00:11:24: Und ich wäre ja nicht die Sabrina, wenn ich nicht nachgefragt hätte.

00:11:27: Hallo Antoni, so nice to have you on this podcast.

00:11:35: Where are you right now?

00:11:36: Hello Sabrina, thank you for having me.

00:11:39: I am talking to you right now from Beirut, from the Liberty's Capital.

00:11:42: So you are working for "Nacht Politics" in Beirut.

00:11:47: That's a so-called alternative media outlet.

00:11:50: Could you please explain what's the difference between an alternative media outlet

00:11:55: and a so-called traditional media outlet?

00:11:58: Yes, I am the co-founder of "Nacht-Code" media outlet.

00:12:02: It's based in Beirut and we cover use from all over the Middle East and the Arab region.

00:12:08: Actually alternative media offices are typically smaller and more independent media outlets

00:12:13: and they are a bit not as well funded as the traditional media outlet.

00:12:17: So they often offer a different perspective on news and events

00:12:20: with their focus on the shows and stories that are often overlooked

00:12:24: or maybe ignored by mainstream media.

00:12:26: So this is what we do.

00:12:27: And alternative media, they also have more grassroots approach.

00:12:32: So they focus more on the people, on the causes

00:12:35: and they work with the grassroots approach to journalism

00:12:38: with a strong focus on citizen journalism, community involvement

00:12:42: and activism.

00:12:43: So basically alternative media outlets are media outlets that are independent.

00:12:48: This is the most important thing to focus on.

00:12:51: Traditionary media outlets on the other hand are usually larger

00:12:55: and more established with the greater resources mainly from, sorry,

00:13:00: this is the truth, political money.

00:13:02: So this is something we don't have and we don't want to, luckily.

00:13:05: And that's it, maybe this is the basic difference between both type of region.

00:13:12: So just to get this clear, because in Germany it works a kind of different way.

00:13:18: So a traditional media outlet is funded by political party or by some influencers.

00:13:26: And that is why they are not as independent as an alternative media outlet. Right?

00:13:33: Yes, so this is not the official case of the thing, but this is what's happening like in real

00:13:39: world in the last year in the Middle East. So that's a kind of question of transparency.

00:13:46: So is this transparent to the people that consume media, that there are some influences behind all

00:13:54: of that? Or is it just they do consume media and they don't know who's just behind those media outlets?

00:14:02: What is it like? So in Lebanon, most of the people know that this media outlet, this is a

00:14:08: traditional media outlet is owned by the by political parties. And we know this because it's

00:14:13: this whole country and everyone knows everyone. So it's very obvious for us that this is happening.

00:14:20: But I mean, the supporters of these parties are very happy to watch news on a biased media

00:14:26: platform. I mean, they like to hear what they want to hear. So this is convenient for them,

00:14:32: even if they know that this is not the 100% truth. And even if, for example, for us as a media

00:14:38: platform, I mean, we are objective, but we are not neutral. Why are independent? We are the owners

00:14:44: of our own views and point of views. This is what makes us independent. But the other media platforms

00:14:50: and the big names in the industry, they are here actually for political agenda. So I mean,

00:14:57: people know that some people like it and some people they just don't like it. But this is why

00:15:02: they refer to us and other alternative media platforms nowadays. Okay, so how do you deal

00:15:08: with the transparency when it comes to channelistic stories from your and NACT politics media outlet?

00:15:15: I said, thank you for asking. This is something very important in our opinion,

00:15:20: as an alternative media platform, because we try to do the things that the traditional media

00:15:26: they just don't do it. So we always indicate where our information comes from. When possible,

00:15:33: and we include links to the original sources, we also fact check our studies before publishing

00:15:38: and provide evidence to support the claims. We also make mistakes. I mean, everyone does mistakes.

00:15:45: There are an error in our reporting, we corrected and we with transparency and we say this

00:15:50: on our social media platforms, we disclose any potential conflict of interest that could impact

00:15:57: our reporting. For example, if you are reporting on a company, which one of our staff members has

00:16:02: a financial interest or whatsoever, we will disclose that information. This has never happened,

00:16:07: but I mean, we have this in our policies. And the most important thing is we engage with the audience.

00:16:13: So we will give feedback and criticism from the readers from our audience and we make our

00:16:17: sense available to answer questions and adjust concerns. So I mean, it's better for it's not

00:16:24: the one side journalism. It's two sides from our side and the readers and the people who will be

00:16:31: interacting with us. So you can call it like a dialogue or a pony look with all the people that

00:16:39: are concerned. Yes, exactly. It's like we say it takes two to tackle. So this is the same thing

00:16:45: here. It takes two to have a decent news outlet. When I first met you that was in Beirut on a

00:16:51: conference, you told me that the name alternative media outlet is actually incorrect. Why is it?

00:17:02: Yes, exactly. So you remember that. I remember that, yes. Actually, yes. For us, I think alternative

00:17:11: media is like something that is not media. So we can, we consider ourselves as new media platforms,

00:17:19: but not alternative. Because alternative means we are here to replace. We are not here to replace.

00:17:25: We are here to do things differently. So this is totally different than replacing what's existing

00:17:31: already. So this is why I prefer not to call it alternative media platform, but a new way of

00:17:36: producing media and working in the media field as an independent media platform, not as alternative,

00:17:43: but as new independent media platform. So this is for us, I guess it's the best name is like the

00:17:50: best tag you need to present ourselves. And I think this is something that most of media platforms,

00:17:57: the new media platforms share together. We consider ourselves as new, but not as alternative,

00:18:03: because we are something different. We are not here like to replace or to change things.

00:18:07: Okay, there are several new independent media outlets. They all have their challenges.

00:18:15: For example, the question how they get funded or something. So from your point of view, what are

00:18:21: the biggest challenges of facing working in a small news media outlet as you are?

00:18:29: Yes, of course. So they are big challenges and bigger than any other sector that we might be working

00:18:38: again. Funding is the most important thing. I mean, if you want to continue, you need to have

00:18:44: the capacity, the financial capacity to do so. This is very important. And this is a big challenge

00:18:50: for us and for other media platforms and new emerging media platforms, because independence

00:18:55: come with a price. You need to find creative ways to generate income. And this is what we are doing

00:19:01: actually. We created a small advertising agency called MADAT. It's a sister company for Nautil.

00:19:07: It's an advertising agency because we have the resources on board to create content on social

00:19:12: media for our platform. And we said, why not use our talents and people on board to create content

00:19:18: for other platforms as well as international organizations, local NGOs and other stuff. So

00:19:25: we hand their social media for them. We create their content and we ensure that their messages are

00:19:31: very well seen and by other people and the right message is received by the right target.

00:19:39: This is what we do. We send our services to be able to generate some of our income to continue

00:19:45: with doing what we do at NautilDAD at MADAT. So this is one way to ensure independence.

00:19:51: The other way is like of course applying to grants and having grants from international

00:19:56: dollars and international foundations to work on collaborations and projects. For example, we work

00:20:02: on web shows with the German, some German foundations, other foundations from all over the

00:20:08: world and from Lebanon. It's like a co-production between both entities. So they provide the fund,

00:20:14: we provide the production. So this is how we do things. But I mean for the long run, we need to

00:20:21: dig deeper and find more sustainable solutions. But for the time being, this is what we are doing.

00:20:26: What do you think do small media outlets need to continue their work, accept the funding?

00:20:33: Are there some structural things that you need or is it really dangerous to work as a journalist

00:20:41: and you need to be protected or what's important for you on the ground to continue your work?

00:20:49: What's more important here is the access to information. So we have lack to access to important

00:20:56: information, although we have a law that was voted like three years ago that every media outlet has

00:21:04: the right to access to any information and government information that they want. But the law is very

00:21:11: tricky. So you need to apply before and then pay for what you want and the amount that you

00:21:18: need to pay are very huge. So they did this just to ensure that their media outlets are the only

00:21:23: ones capable of paying. So this is very tricky. We try to find other ways. We try to ask our friends

00:21:29: and people in the government and other stuff like our connections and we want to know what's

00:21:34: happening and they try to avoid this. This is one challenge, access to information.

00:21:40: Security is another challenge, of course. It's not as important as the first one yet,

00:21:45: but I mean security concerns are rising day after day. I mean we used to be

00:21:52: kind of a free country in the standards of what's free is in this region. I mean the situation

00:21:59: sadly is getting worse because of the economic crisis and other stuff. So people are trying to

00:22:05: close these doors in front of people and in front of media outlets. So these are, I mean competition

00:22:12: is a bit, is an important challenge as well, but this is normal and this is like the good challenge.

00:22:18: Competition helps you, I mean create better stuff and be more creative. Okay, you said that it's really

00:22:26: difficult to get to some information and then you have to call your personal contacts.

00:22:34: So I guess it's also very hard to verify information if there's no official institution that gives you

00:22:42: the information. Yes, this is very true. What we try to do is we try to have as much evidence as

00:22:49: possible. I mean like signed papers or confidential agreements or whatsoever. It depends actually

00:22:56: on the story. If the story is very important, even if we don't have all the information necessary,

00:23:01: it needs to be up and running. So maybe it's true. So and most of the time it's true. I mean

00:23:08: if you spend like a lot of time and working in this field, you know, like if the story will

00:23:14: have something in it as fishy or it's true. So and people need to hear this even if they don't let

00:23:20: us have all the files and all the proof that we want. But I mean sometimes we try and we succeed

00:23:29: and other times we don't. But we post the stuff and maybe after other media platforms posted as well

00:23:35: and then the public opinion will start talking about it and then we start receiving proof about

00:23:40: this. So this is what we are doing. Okay, so how many people are working at Mac politics?

00:23:46: We are actually five people, full divers in the office, but we have more than 20 volunteers from

00:23:52: journalists, journalists students and political science students and no economic science graduates

00:23:58: from different universities and from different areas in Lebanon because we want to

00:24:01: all the areas and all the differences in Lebanon to be represented in our team. So we have people

00:24:08: not just only from the capital but from the rural areas as well because they have different problems

00:24:13: that we face here. So yeah, this is mainly our team and I would like to say a big thank you to

00:24:19: each and every one of them because they are doing exceptional jobs and a small family, actually a

00:24:24: big family. Okay, I want to say thank you too and I hope next time that we talk there will be like

00:24:32: 10 or 15 people that work for Mac politics. I hope so. It all depends on the funding actually.

00:24:39: So I wish you all the best and thanks for your time for giving us an insight in a real, I call it

00:24:49: now a so-called alternative news outlet. Yes, thank you so much, Sabir, for having me and having our

00:24:57: platform as your guest. I hope to see your soul in Beirut or anywhere in the world. So let's hope we

00:25:03: meet again. It happens a lot in Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon. A change in the media is

00:25:10: taking off. It is still the beginning, but I can see it coming. By the way, more on the

00:25:15: topic of traditional and so-called alternative media outlets I would like to know, I recommend

00:25:21: the episode two of this podcast on the subject of constructive journalism. There we went into the

00:25:27: episodes of these media outlets. That was it from me for the moment. The next episode will appear,

00:25:34: as usual, in 14 days. You can find more information on media for peace on media-lab.de/de/mediaforpeace.

00:25:43: It's a bit complicated, so I packed it in the show notes again. I wish you something and I hope we

00:25:49: will hear each other again soon. Media for Peace, the podcast for peaceful-oriented journalism.

00:25:56: A production of media lab in Bavaria. Media for Peace is a cooperation with the DTECHBW,

00:26:03: a center for digitalization and technology research of the Federal Government and the University of

00:26:08: Bundeswehr München.

00:26:14: [BLANK_AUDIO]