Webinar: Crisis of Democracy? Governance and the Survival of Public Interest Media

Dr Julie Posetti

Well, hello, and welcome to this Chatham House and Luminate special event. Our conversation today is called Crisis of Democracy? Governance and the Survival of Public Interest Media. I’m Julie Posetti and I’m Global Director of Research at the International Center for Journalists. We have a stellar cast of experts who’ll join us for this discussion, and I’ll introduce them in a second. But first, I want to make sure that you’re all aware that on top of this being an event, to which many people are registered, it’s also being livestreamed on the open web, via the Chatham House website. Our hashtag today is #CHEvents and you can put your questions, if you are registered, in the ‘Q&A’ function, there’s little box on your screen, if you’ve registered via Zoom. Of course, this is on the record and following the event, we’ll also be publishing outputs from this discussion. So, bear that in mind when you’re making comments or asking questions, because they may well be read out.

So, I’m joined, as I said, by a really amazing panel of experts on these critical questions. Firstly, we have the courageous and determined Indian Investigative Journalist, Rana Ayyub. She has won more awards than I can list, particularly in recent times, for her courageous reporting, and she’s a Columnist with The Washington Post, among other publications. Alan Rusbridger, who’s The Guardian’s ex-Editor in Chief, a post he held for two decades, which is quite extraordinary, before becoming Principal of Oxford University’s Lady Margaret Hall. We have Professor Emily Bell, who’s the Founding Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, at Columbia Journalism School. And His Excellency, the Former two term President of Ghana and Chair of the African Union, as well, John Kufuor. Then, also, Nishant Lalwani, who is Managing Director of Luminate and who leads Luminate’s global strategy for funding for independent media, and we’ll hear more about that as the conversation continues.

So, we’re going to begin our chat soon, but I just want to set the scene for our discussion before we start, some thoughts that I’ve pulled together over the past 24 hours, or so. So, we know that free, independent, critical journalism remains a pillar of transparent and accountable governance, and we know this not just because of the long history of public interest media investigations, exposing injustice and corruption and incompetence and, often, also, crusading for social justice. We know this, also, because those political forces seeking to erode democracy and centralise power attack and demonise credible journalism and Journalists, in an effort to chill their critical reporting and undermine the public’s trusts in facts. We can see this daily and we can see this internationally.

Viral disinformation is used as a weapon to further weaken public interest media and other democratic institutions and it’s often ceded by political actors, particularly in teetering democracies. We can see that from India to the Philippines and even the US. And it’s fuelled by social media platforms and that’s why we see so many debates surging around the regulation, or lack of regulation, regarding the social media platforms. Intertwined with all this is the fact that public interest media is in financial peril, as a result of collapsing business models that are linked to digitalisation and the rise of the platforms, over the past decades or more.

So, this much was already clear, when we gathered in London last year, many of us, for the Inaugural Global Media Freedom Conference, but 2020 brought these convergent crises to a chaotic new level. COVID-19 has hastened the financial collapse of many independent news outlets around the world and it’s resulted in what we could call a disinfodemic. It’s being used by many political leaders to intensify press freedom attacks, as well, and it’s placed many Journalists at great risk, as they’ve struggled to surface truths, for the sake of public health and hold governments to account for their management, or lack thereof, of the crisis.

There are just two projects I want to draw your attention to before we start this discussion, because they’ve informed the way I see the questions we’re considering today. One is the Journalism and the Pandemic Project, which I’m leading with Emily Bell and which is supported by Luminate, which we’ll begin reporting on very soon. It’s shedding, really, a harsh light on many of the problems that we’re discussing today. And the other is a new UN published book called Balancing Act, which is based on a major study of global responses to the disinformation crisis, examining the threats to freedom of expression, including press freedom. I’m one of the Authors and it’s free to download, so, I’ll put a link in the ‘Chat’ during our conversation.

So, here’s the question we’ll begin with today, because I want to start thinking about possible solutions to these really difficult challenges, from the outset. If public interest journalism is in chronic decline, as is proposed, with the significant implications for democracy that I just outlined, what’s the most urgent problem or need for us to address in 2020? And I’m going to come first to Rana Ayyub. I mean, Rana, you really are one of the emblematic cases of a Journalist under fire in 2020. Your name, Maria Ressa’s name, are often interchangeable, in that regard. And you’ve continued your independent investigative work, even in the face of really severe restrictions by the state and viral disinformation I just talked about, horrible gendered online attacks, which are also laced with bigotry. And I speak from first-hand experience, having been assaulted by your troll network today, even just in sharing the fact that we’re having this discussion. So, what can your experiences in a giant, and some might say, teetering democracy, of India, what can they teach us as we now, in a global sense, try to address some of the challenges you’ve been confronting for much longer?

Rana Ayyub

Thanks for the kind introduction, Julie, and hello to everyone joining this panel and to everyone watching it right now. Do you know, I think India is a test case. I mean, as the world’s largest democracy, the most vibrant democracy, I don’t even know if I can call it a democracy anymore, given the majoritarian adverts that are slipping in. I mean, just about an hour ago we had this big breaking news on all Indian news channels that the cops in India have registered a case against some of – two of India’s leading news channels, who also happen to be the mouthpiece of the government, for bribing households to increase their television gradings, and to fix, in a way, the television gradings and to, basically, forward the agenda of the ruling government.

At this point of time, never before in the history of, you know – I mean, in the country, has media played a more important role, because especially in the time of the pandemic, we actually have no independent media. We have a craven media, mostly television new channels are mouthpieces of the regime, like most dictatorial regimes. At this – at the beginning of the year, when the pandemic, kind of, made its way in India, it wasn’t about COVID-19, it was more about Islamophobia. One of India’s leading news channel had a graphic of a Muslim skullcap with the virus, basically, in a way, kind of, you know, extending the idea that Muslims were behind spreading the pandemic. And every news channel was reeling fake news, which has become, you know, either a fake Twitter, fake tweets about how Muslims in India are, kind of, spreading COVID-19 and coronavirus in India. Our news channels, of course, are – I mean, it’s very difficult to differentiate trolls, which you might’ve experienced, and every time I retweet something, the trolls come out of nowhere, it’s very difficult to differentiate with it being the trolls in India and the News Anchors in India, who are so craven that they’re speaking the same language.

At this point of time, India journalism is at its most critical juncture, because we don’t have independent Journalist. Those who were critical, have been, you know – are either independent Journalist or Contributing Editors, they’ve all lost their jobs since 2014. I was jobless for about five years, ‘til Washington Post hired me. I mean, and ever since the Modi regime has come to power, I’ve hardly written in any Indian publication. I’m only writing for foreign publications and that speaks volumes of how much this government, you know, allows our news media to take critical views. There are hardly any critical views in the Indian media and I think it’s – I mean, the fact that every day the attack on Muslims minority, the lower caste in India, is not primetime, but something about, you know, Muslims, kind of, trying to become – trying to overthrow the Hindu – you know, Hindus, the Hindu regime in India and terror plots and fictitious terror plots that are becoming our headlines on our news channels.

So, we are in an adversary and there are, of course, Journalists. There are Journalist, unsung Journalist, who are doing their jobs, but at least in the last one week, India has arrested and sent behind bars three Journalists who were critical and who were questioning the dominant narrative by the regime. Last week, a brutal gang rape of a lower caste girl took place in India and when the Journalist questioned the regime about obfuscation of the truth, they were sent behind bars on cases of sedition and war against nations. That’s where we are and unfortunately, this narrative is not being questioned.

This narrative is only being emboldened, with Prime Minister Modi not getting – taking a single press conference in the last six years, not taking a single critical question from anybody in the mainstream media. Somebody like me, well, I’m on the receiving end on social media, as you would know, I’m called Jihadi Jane and a fascist and an ISIS sex slave and all sorts of names. And just this year I have filed about three Police complaints over death threats and rape threats that have come my way. My colleague, Gauri Lankesh, who translated my book, “Gujarat Files” in the regional language, was shot dead two years ago and I am at the receiving end of those threats. So, yes, it is a tough time to be a Journalist in India and, for that matter, in authoritarian regimes all over the world, Julie.

Dr Julie Posetti

Thanks, Rana, and I think that it’s a sobering reminder that while we look for solutions, and it’s important to do so, we can’t possibly take our eyes off documenting the challenges, the ongoing threats that we’re facing on a daily basis all around the world. And I suppose the only positive thing to draw from this is that, in my experience of, you know, 30 years as a Journalist and many years working on press freedom issues, we typically talked about what was happening elsewhere in the West, right? We typically reported on threats to people in India, for example. Now, this is absolutely a global challenge, where we’re seeing Journalists attacked in Western Europe and in the US and elsewhere. I know that’s not much comfort, but it shows that there’s a, kind of, collaborate response, at least, now, to this series of problems.

Alan Rusbridger, I’ll come to you now. You really are regarded as one of the most innovative and visionary Editors of your generation, during that period at The Guardian. And you pioneered what was called ‘open journalism’, you know, embracing all of the opportunities that the platforms presented, in terms of engaging with audiences, in a very powerful way, to try and reposition journalism as much more of a collaborative and shared process. But now, as we’ve heard, these platforms are part of the problem. You know, one platform or another, in whatever part of the world, is generally attributed with being some kind of vehicle, or vector for disinformation, and the platforms which are used to attack Journalists and journalism. So, I just want you to put yourself back in those Editor’s shoes for a minute and perhaps talk to us, based on all of your experience, about how you might be telling this story and what suggestions you might be putting forward through, say, editorials, as a way of dealing with this crisis as we see it. And I think I mentioned at the outset that you’re also, of course, one of the inaugural members of the Facebook Oversight Board, which is certainly contentious, that is the role of Facebook in all of this. So, there’s the context, can you tell us how you’re thinking through these issues, the challenges facing public interest journalism? And just unmute yourself, Alan, the old Zoom mute game. No, there you are.

Alan Rusbridger

And so, I mean, let’s begin on a hopeful note, that I think one good thing that has come out of COVID is we realise how terrifying it is to live in a society that doesn’t have agreed facts. That it’s very difficult for policymakers to get the consent they need for the actions that are needed if you have got information chaos. And I suspect people are waking up to that and Politicians are, and if it’s like that with COVID, it’s going to be like that, doubly so, with climate change. So, I think there is a clamouring for safety.

I’m happy to talk about social media and, of course, that is responsible for much of the chaos that is around, although it’s also got much that is incredibly reliable and necessary in the world. And although we haven’t yet opened our doors with the Facebook Oversight Board, the work that I’ve been doing so far is a reminder of how complicated these issues of free speech and the balancing issues in them are. And I realise why we all wanted to solve this by next Tuesday, but we’re not going to solve it by next Tuesday. This a 300-year-old tussle and if we’re going to get it right, then we have to tread with care.

But I’m really interested in the question why – you would think this was the classic moment where traditional journalism would be a safe haven, a harbour where people would flood back and say, “Yeah, actually, we need that,” because they are the people who give us the unvarnished facts. And in many countries, this, of course, varies from country-to-country and that’s not just to do with journalism, it’s the degree – to do with the degrees of social trust in countries. So, Scandinavia and Nordic countries look very different from some other countries and just within Europe.

But there – we have got this crisis of the economic model, but we’ve got a crisis of trust in journalism. And I think that’s – it’s something that journalism needs to address by addressing this question of what is the public interest? What is the public service that they are providing? And it may be that a lot of the past won’t be a guide to the future. So, in thinking about techniques of trust, it’s too common for Journalists to say, “Well, look, I’m a Journalist, I went to journalism school, I’m a professional, you’ve got to trust me,” rather than thinking about some other techniques of trust that I see going on in the best forms of social media.

So, I think Journalists have to realise that the journalism, say, that is practised on The Sun, or the Daily Mail, is very different from the journalism, in many respects, that is practised on The New York Times or the BBC. They’re different ideas of what journalism is. We saw that in the Brexit campaign, when most British newspapers decided that their job was to get the result they wanted, rather than inform people about both sides of the argument. They have different ideas of what journalism is. So, there’s that battle for trust, there’s obviously the battle for the economic model and always bearing in mind that there might not be one for a lot of journalism, and if there wasn’t – isn’t one, but society needs the information, you know, at the beginning of the conversation, then, that’s what a public service looks like. That’s what a lighthouse is, or an ambulance service is, this is something that society needs, but there isn’t necessarily a market model for that, so how are we going to solve that? And there are interesting experiments around philanthropy, charity and government support, which will be interesting in the future.

But I wanted to end with saying that you would think that in the middle of this crisis a really thinking government would say, well, what is most important is a well-resourced, trusted network of news, local, national, international, that people will go to, which doesn’t feed the problem of polarised models and polarised debate that is – that attempts at – to be broadly impartial and serious. And you would try and create something like that. Well, the irony is that in Britain we have such a model, it’s called the BBC. It’s the most trusted news source in the country and, yet, the government is choosing this moment, instead of shoring it up and saying that is the most precious thing we have, it is currently doing its best to undermine it and to suggest that the sort of people who do the sort of journalism that we saw throughout Brexit, ought to be parachuted in to change it and to make it more like Fox News.

And so, we’re living at a moment where – of sheer madness in political thinking, where they can seriously be thinking about vandalising the one business model and journalistic model that we should be treasuring. And I think if anybody watching this would rather live in a society informed by Fox News style journalism, rather than BBC news style journalism, and thinks that that is better for society, and then for democracy, then, I think such people have a, kind of, death wish for our society.

Dr Julie Posetti

I suppose we could add to that people who want to leave in – live in a world with unmediated content via social media platforms, too. So, it’s both about the quality of professional journalism and the genuine public interest, which is a difficult thing to define, but public interest journalism, in combination with an approach that ensures that such journalism can be appropriately surfaced in the places where most people are getting their news. And let’s come back to that conversation, Alan, ‘cause it’s the – it’s an important point and I’ll just add some texture from Australia, where you can tell from my accent, I’m from. And I spent 15 years as a Journalist and Investigative Reporter and Editor with the ABC in Australia. And, unfortunately, the ABC is probably five to tens years ahead of the BBC, in terms of experiencing massive and ongoing budget cuts from a punitive government, or a series of punitive governments. So, we can see in that country where, really, that trusted public broadcaster is in peril and we have the, you know, increased dominance of the Murdoch media in Australia, which is the prolific, you know, publisher of news content there. So, all around the world there are different examples of the way this is playing out, but it’s a really important theme. And in the US, for example, the notion of government funded broadcasting as a public service, as distinct from some, you know, pernicious state broadcaster, is a challenging concept to address, as well.

Emily, I’d like to come to you next, Emily Bell. You’re a Journalism Professor in the US, at Columbia University. You, of course, used to work with Alan at The Guardian, there’s lots of intersections here, and you were a, you know, a pioneering Editor of engagement and audience collaboration, in that respect. But you’re now teaching journalism and studying journalism in a country approaching an election, a very important election, where Journalists, who are critical of the Trump administration, have been labelled “the enemy of the people”, where Fox News is celebrated by the administration, and where the US-based platforms are fuelling a lot of the difficulties that we’ve discussed already. So, if we are to try and arrest the decline of public interest media and democracy as they intersect, where do you think we should start?

Emily Bell

Thanks, Julie. So, I think that both Rana and Alan have said some very important things about current context, where we are and, really, what the problems are. But I think there’s a big thing that’s happened, which is really the control of the media has totally changed in a really very short period of time. The large platforms and particularly Google and Facebook now, to all intents and purposes, control 100% of the advertising market. So, it’s the – we’re going into an area where the first – for the first time in 200 years we will not have free media, where the principal funding mechanism for it is advertising. And I don’t think we’ve quite metabolised exactly what those changes mean. But they’re definitely feeding into the problems that have been described, certainly in America, because America, as we found out in COVID, has lots of media and it even has public media, but it doesn’t really have a public system of media. It doesn’t have any regulatory frameworks or safety nets when the market fails, in exactly the same way that it has a lot of healthcare, but it doesn’t really have a public health system. And we’ve seen a collision of those two systemically flawed services, if you like, and that, to some extent, is why America is in a really dire situation with COVID.

So, what do we do about it? I mean, I think that there’s a Media Sociologist called Paul Starr, who wrote a very influential book, Making the American Media, where he says that, “We have constitutive choices at important moments where there’s lots of change.” And I think, you know, it’s instructive that the BBC was set up in 1922, basically in reaction to changing and big changes in society that had been brought about partly as a result of the First World War. I think we’re at another such moment now and in America, which sets, if you like, the tone for the leadership of the Free World, one of the reasons that I think Rana and her colleagues are experiencing such a tough time, is that America has no leadership in this area whatsoever at the moment. So, I think it has completely ceded under Donald Trump any kind of moral authority or any interest in protecting the free press. So, if we do get a change of administration, one of the really important things is that we start to think about this is a systemic problem.

And there are two journalisms. As Alan was saying, there are two journalisms in the UK, there are two journalisms in India. There are, very much, two journalisms in the US, as well: Fox News, which has been mentioned, which is a highly successful commercial outfit. So, that’s the other thing to say, which is the – you know, part of this is the product of a business model, which works in a particular way, but the other part is at ground level, which in general, you know, in – America is a huge country, you have the almost complete collapse of local journalism. We, at the Tow Center, have been tracking what’s been happening in local communities and the speed with which papers are being shuttered, disappearing, Journalists are being furloughed, everything’s being centralised, is really extremely sobering and very distressing.

I think that you have to start with the idea, though, that everything has changed to such an extent that you need to rebuild pretty much from the ground up. Hopefully, if we do get leadership in the US that cares about this, that the big issues that are – need to be addressed are the market is not going to fix this. So, how are you going to produce a robust independent, but well-funded network of local news provision at community level? And we haven’t answered that yet.

The second thing is how do you regulate the platforms? I’m delighted that people with Alan’s insight are sitting on the Facebook Oversight Board, but Facebook Oversight Board’s limitation is making Facebook better. It should not be tasked with anything else. And I’m really, sort of, troubled by the fact that the platforms have caused a great deal of the current turbulence, it’s not necessarily their fault, it’s just a biproduct of what they’re doing. I don’t think they’ve done enough to stop it. But they’re now in a position where they are trying, I think, to stave off regulation, partly by reshaping markets in the way that they think they should be reshaped. So, they are generous to journalism on the one hand, but they’re not – they’re actually standing in the way, I think, of more systemic reform and a better system of public media emerging.

And just to go back to what Alan said about the BBC, I think he’s absolutely right about this, the problem with the BBC is it’s a lightning rod, I think, in the UK, for all of these issues and it’s also demonstrating that the government has, not only no imagination, but no desire, no political will, to take the constitutive moment and make the right choices about what public media should look like in the first place. So, it’s our job, as academics and Journalists, to make sure that when goodwill governments who want to fix this are in power, that they have in their hands the means and roadmaps through which we can achieve this. And it isn’t, as Alan said, a short-term problem, and it is not going to be a short-term solution, either, but I think what worries me at the moment is that we don’t even have a singular vision that says we need to rebuild these systems. So, producing that political will, I think, is absolutely critical and until we do that, everything else, I think, will continue to be difficult, and I don’t think the market is going to fix this.

Dr Julie Posetti

Hmmm, I’m reminded of what you said here about the BBC of – and the government’s defunding of it and disregard for it as – of something that Former Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, said over 20 years ago now, before the assaults on the ABC began, and that was – he referred to the Journalists, particularly the Political Journalists and the Critical Analysts at the ABC, as “our enemies talking to our friends.” And I think that quote still resonates, you know, in this context about defunding and delegitimising critical independent public service media.

And I will come back to the question of the platforms, we need to, it is a critical component of this discussion. And one thought I’d like to cede now is something that many critics have suggested, which is a, sort of – the need for a decoupling, if you like, of journalism and the platforms. As Emily’s pointed out, there’s a lot of synergy and the fun – there’s a lack of transparency, for example, around funding of journalism and journalism research. So, let’s think about what that means and how we address that as the conversation continues.

And Your Excellency, Former President John Kufuor, I see you are there. Now, we have had some connectivity problems, so bear with us if the President disappears from your screens. But you’re an African champion of public interest media and you very much promote the idea of this form of journalism helping to secure accountable and transparent governance. So, I’m very keen to hear from you, based on your experience both within Ghana, but also more broadly, in a Pan-African sense what you’ve learned about trying to embed those principles and the links between what we might call accountability journalism and open, transparent governance in Africa, and what you can teach us elsewhere in the world, as we struggle with these issues. And I’ll just get you to unmute yourself. Can we unmute the President? Still struggling to here you there. I’m hoping my colleagues at Chatham House might be able to unmute His Excellency. No.

I think we’ll move onto Nishant Lalwani. If we can sort out the issues, I’m so sorry. Oh, you’re there. I think…

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yes.

Dr Julie Posetti

…you’re unmuted, fantastic.

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yes.

Dr Julie Posetti

So, I’ll take you back to that question, so, we can just hear you from now.

His Excellency John Kufuor

It’s a great discussion we are having, but I will start off by saying that there is a lot of suspicion among stakeholders, in terms of the motives of, if you like, journalism, as practised from various parts of the world and even within nations from various parts of the politic. And where such suspicions continue and naturally, it gets very difficult for agreement on how to protect Journalists who’d be perceived as standing for public interests and protection, but that’s one point.

The other point is, when we are talking globally, we – I believe the globe is yet to agree on the value systems that should promote about citizenship, in whose interests when we advocate public interest’s advocacy? Perhaps, across the board, we may get some sort of agreement and then, therefore, protection for the Journalists who stick their necks out to investigate and, also, to hold authority to account and to be transparent. I think when we situate our discussions on these bases, then we may be getting somewhere.

The United Nations, with its Charter for Human Rights, freedom of thought, freedom of association, and so forth and so on, I believe should be the Citadel from which we should all expect the sponsorship and support for the individual Journalists who would try to help promote the spread of democracy. Because, to me, democracy is about the sub…

Dr Julie Posetti

Unfortunately, we’ve lost you there, Your Excellency. We’ll try and come back to you in a moment. I think we’ve got a frozen screen and some audio issues. Perhaps Chatham House colleagues can suggest that he goes to audio only and we come back to him.

So, I’m going to move now to Nishant Lalwani and, hopefully, we can come back to President Kufuor shortly. Nishant, you lead one of the key philanthropic organisations trying to respond to these convergent crises that we’re talking about, through investment in public interest media. And I’ll get you to tell us a little bit about the projects you have going in that regard. But there are so many organisations in crisis and so many Journalists under fire, I mean, where do you and Luminate begin in your attempt to invest in a way that’s meaningful and potentially sustainable to support public interest media?

Nishant Lalwani

Yeah, thank you, Julie and thanks to the other panellists, too. It’s a pleasure to be in this discussion with you. It’s the right question, Julie, of, kind of, where do we begin? Because Luminate, yes, we fund investigative journalism and press freedom and we find the new business models for media and, you know, fighting mis and disinformation, but it’s simply too big of a problem, too big of a market failure, for any one philanthropy, or even the group of philanthropies that we work with, you know, the Open Society Foundations, NIDA and Ford, it’s way too big a market failure for philanthropy to address directly.

So, reflecting, you know, on what has been said today, we’ve acknowledged that public interest journalism is critical to democracy and when independent media is eroded or undermined, democracy itself is undermined. We’ve addressed the fact that public interest journalism is in trouble, that there is a market failure, that the advertising model of the internet has eroded the revenue model for journalism, and also, that, you know, COVID is adding to those troubles. If you look at the US alone, since 2004, 1,800 news titles have closed, that’s about 100 a year, a little more. Estimates are that COVID have doubled that rate. And that’s in the United States, where advertising revenues are actually higher per view than in Brazil, or in India, or in the many other countries, which are suffering more from the undermining of their economics.

So, there is a huge market failure and what do you do when you have a market failure for a public good? Well, you bridge that gap. You support it, you fund it, and then you try and find a solution to that market failure, and that’s what we need to do now. Otherwise, we risk irrevocable damage to our democracies. I’d say we already have experienced some irrevocable damage to our democracies during the last ten or so years. So, to do that we need a lot more capital flowing in to support independent journalism around the world. And there’s already, you know, philanthropy in aid that does this, but it’s, sort of, wildly insufficient, especially outside the US and Europe, you know. Just 0.3% of overseas development aid goes towards the media, right? Reuters has estimated that we’ll lose $20 billion of revenue to news media just due to COVID and yet, only $500 million goes every year via ODA.

And so, what Luminate and many others have been working on and suggesting is a new vehicle and a new mechanism, to increase the amount of aid going to support public interest media. We have suggested a new international fund for public interest media that could channel overseas development aid, as well as other philanthropic capital, to low and middle-income countries, in particular. And what we’re hoping for is to triple the amount going in, to about $1 billion a year. That’s still a small part of what the sector’s losing every year, but at least that could support public interest journalism in countries where it can hold power to account. It could also provide a vehicle for donors who perhaps haven’t contributed to the media before, to do so.

You know, it’s risky, it’s difficult to fund the media, it can be political, so, you need an independent, kind of, arm’s length institution, you know. It shouldn’t really be billionaires making those decisions, it shouldn’t really be governments involved in supporting individual media outlets. It should be an independent, independently governed institution doing that. And that institution, we hope, can also experiment with new business models for media, so that we can actually think with – think about an experiment with new models that can solve this market failure, but that’s not going to happen overnight, as Alan was saying, that’s going to take time. And once we find those models, we’re going to need to fund them, we’re going to need to scale them up, to replicate them, figure out where they work, under what circumstances. And we hope that the International Fund for Public Interest Media can contribute to all of these things.

Dr Julie Posetti

Hmmm, thanks, Nishant, and, you know, I would argue that there is a role for government in supporting public interest media. We see that through public service broadcasting, for example, in stable democracies, where it’s supported. The Canadian Government has made some recent investments that are interesting. But I think you nailed it, in terms of the concerns of independent experts and this aligns with what we recommended, in terms of responding to disinformation in that UN book, The Balancing Act, which was that there needs to be a genuine investment by private companies, including the platforms, by a whole range of other donors, but it needs to be utterly independently governed. You know, and that involves, hopefully, having members of Oversight Boards who are not, you know, recipients or beneficiaries of direct funding from those platforms. That’s something else that comes up, as well.

And we’ll come back to putting some meet on some of those initiatives a bit later, but President Kufuor is back with us, audio only, I’m told, and I’ve also been asked to make sure, President Kufuor, that your aide knows that she has to unmute you, so that we can hear you. If you are there, raise your voice and we’ll come back to you.

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yeah.

Dr Julie Posetti

There you are. Yes, please pick up.

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yes, I started off by saying there’s a lot of suspicion around the world of motives, sort of, backing reportage through the media. There’s no doubt at all that we need public interest media to help us access objective information, which should be there to empower the citizen to hold governments and governance generally, to account, and also, to meet the transparency, so that we get good governance for the people. And so, because of that, early in the century, the African Union, for instance, set up a body called Peer Review Mechanism, including – and the principles of which included free media, in the various countries, so governments would truly be accountable and transparent to the government.

Ghana was the first, that’s beyond my tenure, to have submitted itself and the government to the review by the peers within the African Union, and I believed that contributed a lot to give good governance to the people, at least beyond my tenure of eight years. Other countries followed Ghana and as I speak, there must be about 30, and perhaps even more, countries around Africa, which is a very big country, it’s – the Union has a membership of about 55 nations, which are lined up to submit their governance to review for good governance.

So, we are perhaps plodding along, as I said, but when we move into the global context, then I would say that the formidable enemies to public interest journalism includes the geopolitical giants of the world, which still think in terms of their spheres of influence and which would skew truth to promote their ends. And there are also the religious and theocratic elements that wouldn’t allow people who do not subscribe to their concept of governance of the world, to come out to tell the truth as the individual Journalists would investigate and expose. They are corporate interests, whose interests are commercial, and wouldn’t think of allowing the individual human to have this way. They are behind, I believe, largely, what has been termed as ‘infodemics’, leading to fake news these days.

And even to every cloud, it has been said, there would be a silver lining, so, the pandemics, plus the great wars, and like the climate change, and these factors are pushing people to realise that we are all common humanity and that we should share in common values. And if we share in common values, then it would be easy for the Journalists that risk to expose, investigate and expose the mystiques of people in authority, so that there will be corrected measures taken up by the people generally, to straighten governance, to benefit all of us. And it’s because of this that I, personally, I support the public interests fundraising to help the Journalists that would risk, but seeing this does not mean I support pushing people into martyrdom, because the individual Journalist that would follow objectivity in their profession, to investigate and to expose, they risk so much. What I would rather say that the institutions, the nations, the individuals who all subscribe to objectivity in reporting, to hold authority to account and to transparency, should rally together to find ways and means to back the risktakers, the individual Journalists’ risk taking, to do the work, because their work should be down to the good of mankind, to humanity.

And in this regard, I believe that one media institution that should be encouraged to lead and not lead just by sentimental statements, but sub – by substance, should be the United Nations, which, after all, is the home of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Nations should be there at the Citadel to promote a good reportage, objective reportage, for humankind. And then, the nations that also declare they subscribe to human rights should assume responsibility, in tandem with United Nations, too, take a position, because it’s not all nations that subscribe to freedom of thought, of expression, of objectivity, the sovereignty of the human individual, it’s not everybody. The world is still somehow divided, and we know it, and geopolitics is still the order of the day.

So, if we are working to find solutions to strengthen the investigative journalistic – journalism and reportage, I believe we should find ways and means to rally the people who subscribe to the objectives of democracy, as defined, as governance and its governments of the people, for the people and by the people. They should be there. It’s a context, a context, I mean, there will be a context, there are forces that are getting this sort of governance and not until there’s the immediate counterforce to open up. ‘Cause if we are a common humanity, then when people get to like and to hear that there are forces backing them, then they do, in due course, I believe, with more learning, with the sort of technological advancements going on, people will rise up and demand their entitlements, the – so, the…

Dr Julie Posetti

President…

His Excellency John Kufuor

…investment should be there, and it shouldn’t be left to philanthropy or just willing individuals. The opposition really is constituted into formidable, if you like, governments and institutions and they are not willing to allow Journalists that will be perceived as nosey parkers or intruders to report and get away with it. They will take counter positions and those of us who were born to benefit by the services of such Investigative Journalists would be just pushing them into martyrdom, which shouldn’t be the purpose of what we’re trying to do.

Dr Julie Posetti

Hmmm.

His Excellency John Kufuor

So…

Dr Julie Posetti

Thank you.

His Excellency John Kufuor

…this is my – so, when I got invited, I thought I should come and make this statement. Africa; let me comment with Africa. Africa is a huge continent. I want to believe it’s about the second biggest, and with the prospects of rapidly increasing population. It’s estimated by – that by 2050, perhaps Africa will be the most populous continent and we will be topping over two billion people. But what we see, even as we speak, there’s still some so-called strong men, who wouldn’t allow open journalism to inform objectively the citizenry of our continent, so, we could hold government to account and to be transparent for the progress of our peoples. When you challenge people on the continent what they mean by Africa, I tell you, and they may be forced to just say, “The continent of Black people,” but there should be more than just the pigment of our skins. There should be the value system, the quality of humanity, our entitlement to think and to be expressive, and to expect to move this very naturally rich continent forward, and to – we are talking of global village in which we are all forced to go, especially by the pandemics, but where is the mouthpiece for us? It’s not the regular educational system. We are moving forward, but the sort of advocacy we need, I believe, would best come through the media, as well as the independent public interest media for Africa.

So, I will begin like this, I mean, anyway, conference with some group that is also seeking to move Africa public interests and media initiative, to see if we could have a centre, formidable centre, that would again rally forces that are for enabling Africa to identify itself, advocate it in the context of globalisation that is fast engulfing all of us. So, this is my contribution…

Dr Julie Posetti

Thank you so much.

His Excellency John Kufuor

…to this.

Dr Julie Posetti

Thank you so much, and I’m really glad that your connection held out, so it could hear those valuable insights. And one of the most important takeaways, I think, from what you’ve just said, President Kufuor, is no matter how much money we might raise to invest in public interest media, we cannot have sustainable accountability journalism that supports open and transparent governance unless we change the culture in which that media can operate. So, we can’t have…

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yeah.

Dr Julie Posetti

…sustainable public interest media without sustainable press freedom, you know, without sustainable media development, and those are the three challenges, I guess, we have before us. So, we’re going to come to some questions from the audience now. And quite a few of the questions I see coming through are around what might be considered to be a more Western construct of what journalism is, in terms of objectivity, so-called, which I think most of us who study journalism was a – would agree is an important notion to consider, but is often impossible to achieve, for a variety of reasons. And that leads to questions like this one from Trisha de Borchgrave, who’s a Writer and Artist, who asks, “How can independent Journalists in countries with no public interest media in existence practice impartial journalism?” air quotes. And “Does blurring the line between activism and crusadism delegitimise journalism and, therefore, aid those who are seeking to undermine freedom of expression?”

Rana, I’m going to come to you, because you are somebody who could be portrayed as an Activist Journalist and I would actually wear that as a badge of honour, because some of the best Editors of our time, I don’t know if you identify like this, Alan, but some of our best Editors have had a desire to help effect social change. So, how do you respond to a comment like that and what do you think of the – is the role of critical independent journalism and speaking truth to power in…

His Excellency John Kufuor

Yeah

Dr Julie Posetti

…this kind of traditional perspective, Rana?

His Excellency John Kufuor

That’s a good question.

Rana Ayyub

I’m glad you asked that question, Julie. In fact, in a recent profile that was done of me, I was asked why was I an activist and not a Journalist? To, which my response was that “I’m an active Journalist, actually. I’m somebody who actually goes in the field.” But honestly, we need to reframe our definition of, you know, active, you know, activism in journalism and objectivity in journalism, especially at a time like this, at a crucial time like this, for Journalists like us and majority in which teams – where there’s a post – it is in a post-truth world, in which your television channels and your news media is obfuscating the truth every day. So – and when there’s injustice happening every day, so, you need to callout, if – for instance, if I can talk about India, if India is slipping into a majoritarian abyss every day, if the world’s largest democracy is slipping down under, if you call that out, that’s not activism, that’s standing for the right thing.

And Journalists need to stand for – Journalists need to take a stand, I believe. I think that’s – or when they steer it wrong, or just happening, especially – for instance, if I can talk about the atrocities against the lower caste Muslims in India, and I’m often accused of being a Muslim activist, because – also, by virtue of being a Muslim. So, if I go and interview people who have been the receiving end of state – of, you know, of state atrocities unleashed by a majoritarian leader, I will tell this – I will speak about their point of view and I also stand by what they believe is the truth, or what they think is the truth. Because when you see the truth being attacked from all sides, when you see injustices at such a rampant level, Journalists need to pick a – they need to take a stand in what they believe is right or wrong.

In India, the lines are blurred. In India, we don’t really have journalism as such, we have WhatsApp for words which have become the new journalism. We have Facebook posts and Twitter posts, which have become the new journalism and when Journalists, like us, call out our fascist leaders, like Narendra Modi, when we call them out, we are being labelled as being too radical in our view of – so, how do – I don’t know what is too radical. If you call a fascist leader a fascist leader, is that being radical? I think, as a Journalist, it’s my responsibility to point out to my reader that this is who he is. When most of the media has prostrated before those in power, I think some of us have a greater responsibility in calling out fascism and majoritarianism and telling the world the story of what’s happening in democracies, whether it’s India, or it’s America and Britain. Because these are like mirror images of each other, where independent Journalists are being, you know, are being delegitimised on social media platforms, are being delegitimised every day. So, I think this – I don’t – I think the lines are really blurred in what we call – in what is really activism and what’s journalism, but we – I still maintain that Journalists really need to hold – need to, you know, hold those in power accountable, and if that’s activism, so be it.

Dr Julie Posetti

Hmmm, so, Journalists need to use concrete language and through investigations, often we can reach conclusions, I guess is the other way to think about that, too, Rana, thank you so much. We have Catherine Godin from Global Affairs Canada in the audience and I did mention Canada’s intervention earlier. Catherine, if you are unmic’d and able to contribute, would you like to share with us anything about Canada’s approach to addressing these convergent crises?

Catherine Godin

Thank you very much. Do you hear me? Hopefully, I’ve unmuted myself…

Dr Julie Posetti

I can hear you.

Catherine Godin

…properly.

Dr Julie Posetti

You’ve succeeded.

Catherine Godin

I can see that. Thank you very much, Julie, and I appreciate very much this opportunity to chime in. I’ll make this quick, ‘cause I realise there’s a lot of interest and other questions. I guess what I wanted to offer, in terms of our perspective is that, obviously, Canada was really happy to join the UK last year in organising the conference that you referred to earlier on, the Global Conference on Media Freedom, last year. And before we were involved in those efforts, we had been working multilaterally on freedom of expression for some time, access to information. What is very striking and what I see in the conversation today is that what used to be niche issues: media sustainability, a healthy media ecosystem, these issues are no longer niche issues. They’re truly global, they’ve truly come to the fore, and there’s a number of conversations going on, in my view all of them very much required, to engage the stakeholders, the media practitioners, but also, states and a multilateral system. And so, bringing those players together is truly what’s happening right now, and we’ve tried to play our part in this.

Obviously, there’s a lot to do. Earlier on it was mentioned that their needs are great and the appetite for a solution is huge, so, for – from our perspective, I think we recognise that the COVID situation has not necessarily changed the landscape, but it’s really accelerated the challenges faced by the media. It’s really brought to the fore the importance of reporting, the importance of free media and the importance of those voices to protect democracy, but also, to offer and ensure that the empowerment of citizens is truly available for them to, if only be aware of the solutions to address the pandemic. But, obviously, it’s much bigger than the pandemic. The pandemic offers an opportunity to reinforce the visibility and the importance of those issues.

So, from a Canadian perspective, what we’ve tried to do is get involved in the context of multilateral setting, because we think that norms, hard or soft norms, need to be really addressed and the multilateral setting remains an important context to be involved in the Human Rights Council. Despite all its challenges, we certainly value this as an outlet, but perhaps in two other ways. One, it’s to create the Media Freedom Coalition, to really generate a conversation among states, solicit their energy and their engagement on this from the ground level, to protect Journalists that requires protection, but also, just connect with an Advisory Network of Journalists to bring that conversation in a more live way. To take the opportunity for a First Ministerial meeting to when the next Global Conference on Media Freedom takes place and that we – is currently scheduled for November 16.

As you can imagine, the type of event that took place in London in 2019 will not be possible, so, all of this will happen from the comfort, our respective homes in a digital fashion, but certainly, we’ll want to look at some of the issues that are addressed today. Looking at the impact on COVID on a healthy ecosystem, the challenges posed by disinformation, there’s a plethora of issues, but certainly, our engagement, which predates the pandemic, has only been reinforced by what I – we hear today. And the preoccupation that, as a state, we try to really enhance the visibility and the potency of our preoccupation right now, just making sure that it’s heard by states and that we increase the engagement on this path. Like, I don’t know if it provides an additional perspective, but we’re certainly – we certainly don’t want to be, you know, alone in addressing this. We really wish for having a really huge companionship of other state engagement that we…

Dr Julie Posetti

Okay, that’s really great to hear. In fact, one of the questions we had from the audience, which is one that, hopefully, we can take onboard and keep asking, in the lead up to your conference, comes from Caroline Vien, who’s asking “What we should expect from this Global Media Freedom Conference in Canada on November 16, and concrete actions?” And when I addressed that conference last year, that was one of the questions I asked was, “What can we concretely get from this?” And I think same is true for UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day, which will this year be celebrated in December. You know, there’s a lot of initiatives, what can we actually try and achieve?

We’re going to go over time a bit, as you can no doubt tell if you’re still with us, because we had such interest and some important interventions from speakers, as well. And I have a question, which is probably best put to you, Alan Rusbridger, from Stellan – Stella Hal. And I say best put to you because it regards – it’s regarding Julian Assange, the Founder of WikiLeaks, who’s facing, you know, multiple decades imprisonment, potentially, in the US. The question is, “What is your opinion of that case and so, is the WikiLeaks trial, if you like, the Assange trial, bound up in these questions?” And I’m putting this to you, Alan, for those who don’t know, because you, of course, worked closely with WikiLeaks and Assange, in some of the early reporting that flowed from his revelations. Your microphone’s muted [pause]. There you go.

Alan Rusbridger

Well, Julian Assange is a harbinger of creatures and I think we’ll see more and more of people who are quasi Journalists, quasi impresarios, quasi whistle-blowers, they’re difficult to pin down. He’s partly a Publisher, he’s partly an activist, comes back to activism versus journalism and the law doesn’t know quite how to treat them. Journalists don’t know quite whether they should be supporting him or not. Some of the things he’s been accused of are things that Journalists do; some aren’t. But I think it’s – personally, I would regret it if he was extradited for this, because I think it sets a very worrying precedent for things that Journalists do.

He is an Australian who is being charged in England by an American Government with breaching American security laws. So, you have to ask what happens the next time a New York Times Correspondent or a Times of London Correspondent starts probing into, I don’t know, the Indian Nuclear Programme, or the Pakistani Nuclear Programme, or the Israeli Nuclear Programme, things that are closely guarded secrets in their own countries? And what happens if those countries then come saying, “We want to extradite him to lock him up in our country?”

So, I mean, there are – I’ve always had some differences with Julian, they’ve never been hidden. There are some things he’s done that I wish he hadn’t done. But broadly, the prospect of someone like him being carted off to America to spend, potentially, most of the rest of his life in a maximum-security jail, I find appalling.

Dr Julie Posetti

Thanks very much for that, Alan, and just one final question, which I will read out, and then I want to come to Emily for a final comment, as well. Muhammad Tahir asks, “As distrust of governments grow, would this not impact on how people view and react to media outlets that are funded and influenced by the state? Would it not push people further away from trusting journalism and exacerbating the disinformation problems we see?” And I suppose the same could be applied to journalism funded by the platforms. Emily, we’ve got to wind up, but can you give us a very brief response to that?

Emily Bell

Yeah, sure, I mean, I – you know, we’ve already seen this in Hungary that you can go from functional democracies with strong media, to captured media really very quickly. And so, my, sort of, comments about public media were very specific about the United States, ‘cause I – that’s what I was asked about, but I’d make this, sort of, point, and President Kufuor made it as well, which is, you know, there are goodwill government – you know, there are good actors in governments as well, who I think want to solve this. For countries where state media operates as an arm of the state and an arm of oppression, then, obviously, you know, that is not going to be the answer. I think that, sort of, establishing the principle that you need an independent public interest media, which is well-funded, that functions well in well-functioning democracies, is something that we’ve, sort of, taken for granted for a long time, even though perhaps it hasn’t functioned as well as we would’ve liked it. And I think we do need to, sort of, re-estab – we need to re-establish that, but with new norms and new institutions.

So, I don’t think that it is – it’s obviously not the solution if you have an Orban or a Modi, or as people have been pointing out, America, where you have Voice of America at the moment, which has been – which is state media. And we can see the difference between Voice of America under a government which wants to run it as a say more independent, speaking to the world, BBC World Service type operation, versus a captured political vehicle, which is what it’s become under the Trump Presidency. So, all of this would get – all of this relies on an understanding that we want an outcome, which privileges independent media and serious, robust, investigative public interest journalism. And that’s not going to happen in every country, but I think that the countries where we value the democratic debate that it provokes, have an extra responsibility now to really make that the priority in their policymaking.

Dr Julie Posetti

Thanks very much, Emily, and we’re going to have to leave it there. There were still many other questions. Perhaps we can continue the conversation on Twitter, which is one of those platform that we continue to use, of course, to discuss journalism and democracy and where Politicians and Journalists are particularly active, using that hashtag #CHEvents, perhaps in the coming hour.

I’d like to thank everybody, Emily Bell, who I said I’m working on with a project funded, in part, by Luminate, called, The Journalism and the Pandemic Project, and we look forward to bringing you some of our insights in the coming weeks, which very much respond to some of these issues that have been discussed today. Alan Rusbridger, who’s here in Oxford, where I am also based, thanks for joining us. Nishant Lalwani from Luminate, Rana Ayyub, who is a Washington Post Columnist and a Journalist of note, as well, in India. And, of course, President John Kufuor, who I’m glad we were able to hear from at length, for all of the reasons that he outlines, despite those connectivity issues. And thank you to you, everybody who participated, for Chatham House bringing us all together. These are utterly critical issues and I think, as President Kufuor indicated, we have to ensure that there is some kind of agreed global strategy and activism that supports the defence of democracy and independent journalism. Thanks very much, and stay safe in this mad, mad world. Bye, bye, everybody.