How Can Readership Influence Digital Age Journalism

Ana Benačić from GONG welcomed Jeremy Druker from Transitions and Aliaume Leroy from Belling Cat who talked about journalism in the world of digital communication, and how to get quality and credible stories into digital world.

Photos by: Vanja Čerimagić

Jeremy Druker presented three projects that are supposed to bring back trust in media reporting. Media today is dominated by negative stories, so people turn to trivial feel-good stories with no real impact. Solution Journalism Initiative first started in the US and spread in EU. When Ebola was eradicated from Nigeria, the news stopped there, even though that is not the time to end the story. Solution journalism covers the response, provides the evidence of impact, and gives insight. Jeremy reminded that this is not advocacy journalism, because it does not advocate the solution as the right one, but gives an insight into what happened after some people implemented a solution so others can learn from it.

The second project is “Press Start”, a global crowdfunding platform for reporters and editors in countries where the press cannot work freely. Journalists fund their projects thanks to contributions from around the world, bypassing the autocrats and media moguls who often use financial leverage to control or shut down independent media.

The third project that Jeremy presented was “Civil”, Marketplace for Sustainable Journalism that uses blockchain technology to ensure journalism remains strong in its critical role as a fundamental pillar of free, democratic societies, and newsrooms around the world.

Aliaume talked about “Bellingcat” a website that publishes the findings of citizen journalist investigations into war and the criminal underground. Their process is to identify the story, collect data, verify and then publish.

Presentations from this POINT 7.0 session are available HERE