The United Nations Millennium Goals (MDGs), aimed at reducing poverty and hunger worldwide, are due for revision in 2015. In the process of examining the practical implications and feasibility of the goals, journalists remain of crucial importance. Through development journalism, they can perform their role as the Fourth Estate and hold governments accountable for delivering on their promises to meet the goals and lay bare the reality of development aid.

In times of shrinking newsrooms and slashed budgets for in-depth reporting, however, development journalism seems to be at risk. News outlets increasingly resort to ‘parachute journalism’: foreign correspondents are parachuted into an area with little background information about its political and cultural landscape. Thrusting journalists into an unfamiliar area can potentially be dangerous, because contextual issues are often ignored and journalists lack proper contacts.

Some say that journalism of this sort can provide a new angle to a story and pinpoint exactly what the target audience is interested in. But the reality is that background research and independent investigation are necessary for understanding complex, interconnected and on-going problems outside the Western world. In times of financial stress across media organisations, development journalism has been put in second place. 

What happens if you put development journalism back on the map?

By financially supporting innovative journalistic approaches to development, the European Journalism Centre, in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has encouraged reporters and newsrooms to break away from stereotypes and simplistic narratives, and focus on engaging in storytelling of underreported stories instead.

The grant programme has so far funded 28 ambitious projects undertaken in various countries, all covering at least one aspect of the Millennium Goals. As reports of the first round are currently being published across countries and media platforms, we have asked several of our grantees to share with the public why, in their opinion, development journalism is important and why the world needs to hear about these stories.

Stories that matter

Development journalism undoubtedly matters. As photographer Jürgen Schrader puts it, “People in more or less wealthy and industrialised countries must become aware of the ‘other’ world.” Yet, Lawrence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, found that media narratives on development still centre on three prevailing ideas: too much money is spent on aid, aid does not make a lifelong change to people’s lives, and aid does nothing for the sending country.

Despite these narratives, the special 2012 Eurobarometer “Solidarity that spans the globe: Europeans and development aid”, shows that 85% of Europeans think it is important to help people in developing countries. The problem taxpayers have with development aid is that they are unsure of how their money is being spent. Half (50%) of respondents say they do not know where their country’s development aid goes; 44% even reply they do not know anything about their government’s aid expenditure.

Development journalism can help in giving the public a better understanding of the purposes of development. “The role of the journalist is to create awareness and show people where the money is going, without ignoring the human aspect of these issues,” says Reinier van Oorsouw, who investigated the effectiveness of Dutch aid in eight countries. Grantee Ruth Evans believes that “development journalism provides a human face behind big policy issues and trends. It shows how people on the ground are affected. This kind of reporting does not happen when you are parachuted into an area.”

Grantees Jeronimo Giorgi and Angelo Attanasio, who looked at how the (re)use of computers is improving the quality of life in Uruguay, Egypt and India, believe there is also a need for positive stories about developing countries and their strategies to solve problems. According to Gabriela Jacomella, it is important to realise that development is something you should focus on both in peaceful times and in times of crisis. “With our project in South Sudan we show people that, behind all these huge problems, you have individuals contributing to challenge the existing problems.”

New storytelling instead of old stereotypes

Yet, challenges for development journalism remain. “Getting publicity for what is going on in the developing world is difficult,” says Jeremy Laurance, former Health Editor of The Independent. “Interest in health in developing countries, for example, has definitely subsided in the West. When people think of Africa, they think of famine-stricken countries where poverty is rampant.” Grantee Nicolas Kayser-Bril notices a similar pattern and points out that many reporters and analysts still regard Africa as a single country. “Not being able to distinguish between Dakar and Harare leads to collective coverage that impedes the ability of a single country or region to go on its own path,” Kayser-Bril adds.

How to break away from these negative stereotypes and simplistic narratives? New types of storytelling such as data journalism, can bring new solutions to old problems. Jacopo Ottaviani explains: “We are currently experiencing a huge storm of data. These data can improve the quality of the debate on development, because it moves the axis of the discussion from opinion to fact. Data journalism gives you the weapons to respond to bad journalism: you can fact check and debunk myths. This is the future of development journalism and journalism as a whole.”

Daniele Grasso also acknowledges the importance of data journalism. “We were a bit afraid of stereotypes. We did not want to go to Kenya and come back with photos of poor children. Even though this is also a painful reality, we wanted to look at the causes of problems in Kenya. Using data, we could show how big the problem was.” Nicolas Kayser-Bril aims to achieve the same: “Our investigation allows for transparent journalism, which we hope prevents mistakes some journalists make, such as falling for sensationalism or reporting on outstanding examples and presenting them as exemplifying reality.”

However, in Ottaviani’s words, “It is not only about statistics, but also about stories. You have to give data an identity.” Splinter Knight, one of Project Syndicate’s team members who worked on the project ‘Visualizing Development Data’, highlights the importance of combining data with storytelling. “We combined trenchant commentaries from the world’s foremost academics, policy-makers, and thought leaders with visualisations that further explore the data that underlie the arguments made in the commentaries.”

Can we do with a little more transparency?

As EJC Director Wilfried Rütten stated in a press release, a well-informed public in the developed world can impact policies in the developing world in a positive way. Laurence Soustras, examining the causes of the growing instability of food prices in her project, points out that “critical writing could lead to a bigger push for transparency.” Emanuele Bompan, who mapped out how Italian development aid is spent, says: “My team and I opened up the debate about public funding. Especially in times of crisis, people ask themselves: ‘Why should we use public money for development projects?’ Development journalism can answer questions like these.”

Bompan continues: “There are a lot of professionals in war zones such as Lebanon, Syria and Sudan, but in other countries we lack muckrakers. Stories on economic developments and aid are absent in the news, while these issues need more reporting.” Mar Cabra, who looked with her team at aid spending of the Spanish government, hopes to see more detailed reports of such spending in the future. In Spain, the only big country in Europe that did not have a Freedom of Information Law until recently, her project was already seen as a major step forward. “Working with data is important to take out all possible bias from reports of the government,” Cabra says.

Laurence Soustras also believes that her project can make policy-makers aware of the responsibilities they have. But development journalism does not only encourage transparency of governments, but also of businesses. According to Soustras, big trading groups are already undergoing a transformation. As the public is demanding more information, businesses want to be more transparent. “They realise they are very important players in today’s economy and that they should provide more information about their practices.”

The future of development journalism

What does the future of development journalism look like? The grantees are optimistic, although they are aware development reporters can only operate under certain circumstances. Gabriela Jacomella mentions the dangerous situations for reporters in poor countries. “In times of crises, like in South Sudan at the moment, development journalism ends up being suspended in a vacuum. This does not mean that development issues are suddenly non-existent. It is simply extremely hard to continue with in-depth reporting on the ground during times like these. When crises happen, journalists tend to focus on the conflict only.”

But even more threatening to the future of development journalism seems to be the precarious financial situation of European media outlets. Whereas the Internet has provided great opportunities for grassroots information, investigative reporting has become more expensive, according to Emanuele Bompan. Jeremy Laurance agrees and points out the importance of outside funding, which has become fundamental now that newspapers are reducing costs.

One thing is clear: data will become an important feature of development journalism. “The problem of development stories is that they are so often couched in jargon by those involved in development work, that the ordinary reader does not understand what is going on. You have to go beyond human stories alone and get the data to back up your story,” says Ruth Evans. Jacopo Ottaviani also supports development reporting that includes both data and first-hand accounts, as going to the streets helps to discover what is hidden in the data sets.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from development journalism, is that development issues not only concern poor countries. “A lot of readers ask: ‘Why should we invest in development aid?’,” says Mar Cabra. “My team and I want people to show them that what happens in Morocco, for example, also affects Spain. This realisation is not obvious, and has little do with common sense, but it is my role as a journalist to explain this. Development journalism should be concerned with these issues, because, ultimately, development affects us all.”

Here are some common mistakes and good practices that should be taken into account when writing about migration.

Misuse of words

There is no need to say that, as a general rule, when it comes to writing articles journalists must be very careful in what they say, but also in choosing their words. In the case of migration issues, misuse of words can lead to negative perceptions of migrants. For example, the term "illegal" is very often used to describe undocumented migrants. This negatively connoted word criminalises and marginalises migrants. The Associated Press recently banned the expression "illegal immigrant" and edited its Stylebook in accordance to this decision. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström commented shortly after on Twitter that the EU should do the same and eradicated the term from all documents.

Negative portrayals

Most stories involving migrants in the media are cases of crimes or tragedies. Very rarely are examples of successful insertion in society portrayed. It goes without saying that migrants do not benefit from such a negative advertisement and that it creates a sense of marginalisation.

Criminalisation

In societies where migration is currently a reality and has been increasing in recent times, such as in Italy, there is a general tendency to think that migrants are responsible for almost all crimes. This perception partly derives from the fact that journalists often underline the nationality of criminals when it comes to migrants, even in the early stages of the investigations, before anybody has been indicted. Newspapers' titles never say 'Italian man kills his daughter', but do often say 'Young Maghrebi rapes girl'.

According to a study conducted by the organisation, Caritas, there is a tendency to believe that foreigners commit most crimes. The international organisation has used the fact that migrants are often found in the crime related news stories, to create a campaign poster that sends out a positive message about integration.

“The usual migrant protagonist of a crime related news story”

Facts and figures

Facts and figures need to be used as much as possible, as they outline events and give them a real shape. For example, according to the World Migration Report 2011 "Communicating effectively about migration" published by the International Organisation for Migrations (IOM), people think that migration flows are much more important than they actually are. For instance, the study reports that the general public in Italy perceive that the percentage of migrants corresponds to 25% of the population, when it actually amounts to only 7%. In the United States the perceived figure is 39%, whereas the actual percentage is 14%. The public debate tends to focus more on emotions and politics rather than facts and figures.

Human stories

Readers are going to sympathise much more with a story about young Khaled fleeing from the war in Syria rather than with one about hundreds of migrants who lost their lives while crossing the border, or about the number of Syrian refugees reaching one million. Names and life experiences make a story livelier and capture readers' attention. Interviews bringing out personal experiences are not very common. According to the IOM, civil society organisations should encourage migrants to use the media to make their voice heard.

Limited access to sources

Undocumented migrants' arrival in the European Union is very difficult to report on, due to very restricted – most of the times forbidden – access to reception and detention centres. Therefore, citizens know little to nothing about life conditions in these centres. Consequently they are not particularly concerned by possible human rights abuses. Because of this obstacle, the coverage of migration issues is not complete.

Catchall issue

Migration is a catchall issue. The amount of space that migration occupies in the public debate varies according to the political agenda. For example, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made wide use of it in his political discourse, as his campaign was strongly based on security.

During periods of crisis the migration issue is often presented as a problem by politicians to distract the public opinion from unemployment and budget cuts, and to put the blame on foreigners rather than on the government in place. This is for example the case in Italy, where, according to the study conducted by Caritas, "foreigners became the scapegoat for Italians' uncertainty typical of a phase of strong cultural changes and economic crisis".

It is often said by right-wing politicians that migrants are a bargain for countries of reception and that they cost a lot of money, but a campaign video, whose data are based on a report presented at the French Parliament, made by the European Greens, proves that through concrete calculations, migrants are actually beneficial to the society welcoming them. The campaign takes the example of France, where, in 2009, migrants produced a wealth worth €12 billion. 

Photo of the image that appears on many of the blocked websites. (Image Credit: Al-Bawaba)

Many journalists and human rights organisations condemn the new law’s imposition of repressive restrictions on freedom of information, accusing the government of seeking to control the country’s Internet.

Posing a threat

Naseem Tarawnah, Co-founder and Executive Director of Amman-based citizen media platform 7iber, is well aware of the increasingly prominent role that websites play in Jordan with wider Internet access, expanding social media use among Jordanians, and increasing popularity of online news platforms.

Tarawnah thinks news websites pose a major threat for the state because they can break news faster than newspapers, and overcome state censorship. ‘’The government may influence or control news in print media, but it’s much more difficult to do that in the age of the Internet’’, he observes.

While Jordan has been successful in controlling mainstream media, which is mostly owned by the government and government-affiliated business people, it hasn’t been able to control electronic media.

Tightening the grip

Jordan’s new press law, amended by a September 2012 royal decree, gives the government power to regulate websites, forcing them to register and obtain a license, or risk being blocked. News websites are also required to appoint chief editors, who must have been members at Jordan’s Press Association for a minimum of four years. Editors are responsible for ensuring that user comments posted on webpages do not violate Jordanian laws, and are related to the content of the published material. 
 
Licensing news websites is in contravention of Jordan’s constitution, and violates international standards on freedom of information as well as public statements released by the Jordanian government.

The official motivation behind these actions is that the new legislation aims to organise the work of websites, which are often attacked for allegedly creating false news, while denying allegations that this move restricts freedom.

Rising concern

The decision by Jordanian authorities came only two weeks after the International Press Institute (IPI) held its World Congress in Amman, where Jordanian Prime Minister Ensour praised the role of media and affirmed the importance of press freedom.

The IPI issued a statement, which was circulated to the media expressing deep concern over the government’s orders. They also conducted an emergency press freedom mission to Jordan, and sent letters to the Prime Minister and the king. 

The IPI’s Communications Director Anthony Mills recognises that the emergence of online media outlets in the region has been accompanied, in some cases, by unethical conduct. Nevertheless, Mills points out, the response should be neither to apply strict regulations to all websites, nor to close down every unlicensed news site. He, instead, suggests that news website owners should comply with a set of journalistic professional standards through self-regulation.

Protestors gather outside Parliament to voice their outrage. (Image Credit: Hussam Da’ana of 7iber)

Curtailing opinions

Daoud Kuttab is Founder and Director General of AmmanNet, the first website to be included in the blocking list. Despite the claims of regulating online journalism to motivate the suspension of several sites, Kuttab sustains the licensing protocol implies that government officials can disapprove news that stray from the official line. ‘’I feel there’s more than trying to regulate the website, there’s an attempt to curtail an opinion that is not to their satisfaction’’, he says.

For Jilian York, Director for the International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) imposing licensing on online media comes from a place of fear. She is convinced the move has a chilling effect, which translates into self-censorship as well as actual censorship. “I think it makes people think twice before trying to start up a news site again’’, York comments. 

Although Jordanian authorities initially assured they would purely target news sites, blogging platform 7iber was added to the blocking list, raising concerns about further restrictions of online freedom by the state. 

The co-founder of 7iber, notes a rise of political news sites in Jordan, arguing that the government is essentially after any electronic publication that produces political content or news about the country. Tarawnah considers the licensing process to be a way to create a culture of fear and freeze online debate about Jordan’s public affairs. He also points to Jordan’s laws, typically drafted with ambiguous language and difficult to fight, threatening journalists to regulate themselves.

Acting out of fear

According to Mills, Jordan’s move is partly due to the growing weight of online media, but also to lack of knowledge over news sites along with an unwillingness to embrace the inherent rights of online journalists. ‘’More broadly, there’s a reticence to dynamic vociferous media including online media, which is inherently beneficial to the country as opposed to a potential threat’’, he explains.

The IPI’s Communications Director warns that by requiring news outlets to be licensed, the state potentially fuels self-censorship, and opens up the possibility of the licensing authority to exclude those websites that express views that counter the government’s agenda. 

This cartoon represents Jordan's decision to block various news websites (Credit Image: 7iber)

Tarawnah strongly believes the state is less concerned about the perceived impact of international media on foreign audiences. Instead, what poses a threat is the local media that can influence Jordanian minds. ‘’When you have an Arabic language outlet, and if it’s political and has a growing domestic audience, that’s a problem’’, he states.

Kuttab, who also runs Community Media Network, argues that the blocking of websites in Jordan is aimed at punishing the wider public, and preventing Jordanians from knowing facts about their own country.

The amended law is largely seen as an attempt to extend censorship over traditional media and transfer it online, so Jordanian bloggers and journalists addressing local audiences are also subjected to the same threatening environment as their mainstream counterparts.

Refusing to back down

Several news sites have refused to register, dismissing Jordan’s announcement to block hundreds of websites.

Local media organisations and web activists are pursuing technical, political and legal ways to put pressure on the government in response to the website blocking orders. Appeals have been made to international organisations, protests have been held, and a number of lawsuits are being prepared demanding that the constitutional court review the press law. Many mirror sites have been created, and brochures have been widely distributed to guide people on how to use proxies.

Kuttab explains that AmmanNet has created mirror sites to bypass the block, and is using social media to make information available to the Jordanian public.
In the coming months, 7iber plans to raise awareness and encourage discussion among Jordanians, since there’s no public debate that is taking place in the mainstream media. In the interim, the media platform continues to fight the press law in full.

Despite the fact that Jordan has been urged by rights organisations to restore access to the websites currently blocked, there’s no indication that Jordanian authorities are ready to reverse the ban for the time being.

Small editorial team and excellent quality

New newspapers in Italy typically start with a large number of employees. Revenues usually come from four sources: subscribers, kiosk sales, advertising and public money. But the entire organization of Il Fatto Quotidiano is comprised of fewer than two dozen people. It’s a tiny editorial team compared to other Italian and European newspapers.

The editorial staff consists of some of the best Italian investigative journalists: Marco Travaglio, Peter Gomez, Marco Lillo and Antonio Padellaro, the executive editor of the paper. At the beginning of 2009 the social capital of Il Fatto Quotidiano started with 600,000 euro, some of it put up by the journalists and some from the publishing house, Chiare Lettere. No major industrial group has invested in this newspaper. Furthermore, Il Fatto Quatidiano decided not to receive any public funds, unlike all other major Italian newspapers.

The Italian Constitution is its only source of inspiration

Il Fatto Quotidiano serves a growing niche of readers and in so doing has attracted a dedicated readership. It makes all possible efforts to provide information free of prejudices and political influences. The decision of Antonio Padellaro, the executive editor of this newspaper, to be inspired just by the Italian constitution has been perceived by the audience as a totally new element in the media landscape. In Rome, this EJC correspondent asked Mr. Padellaro about the independence of his newspaper:
 

• “We do not have owners. Well, the newspaper is owned by its journalists. This fact gives to us a substantial independence. The journalists of Il Fatto Quotidiano are the shareholders and we guarantee with their professionalism the freedom of the newspaper. We are not an ideological newspaper. We made an agreement with our readership. We produce a newspaper that has of course its limits but it is genuine. We will respect this quality because it has been rewarded by the readers.”
  
  Mr. Padellaro continued: “Our independence let us gain in Italy a role of real opposition. Not a preconceived or political opposition but a vision that is against the dominant vision in the media. Our editorial line is based on the Italian Constitution. It may seem rhetoric […] but we put on the suit about the freedom of the press that is made by the article 21 of the Italian Constitution”. 

As a refresher, Article 21 states that “All persons have the right to express freely their ideas by word, in writing and by all other means of communication. The press may not be subjected to authorisation or censorship.”

 Advertisers have no influence on the editorial line. No public fund is received.

Pressures on Italian journalists to please the political class in general have increased in recent years, making for poor service to the public in terms of information of the relevant facts about the Italian political life. Further, newspapers can be influenced by advertisers: by car manufacturers, banks or telecommunication companies. Their influence is typically visible in a lack of investigation on the behavior of these companies and a weak role of a newspaper as a watchdog.

Il Fatto Quotidiano has less dependence on advertisers as compared to, say, Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica or La Stampa, the three major Italian newspapers. In each of these titles, advertising occupies around 40 percent of the pages. Il Fatto Quotidiano gives 10 percent of its space to advertising. So how can Il Fatto Quotidiano be profitable?

“Let put it frankly: we accept advertising by major industrial groups but our editorial line does not depend on it. If we have the advertising, good, otherwise we move on in any case. We started with a small editorial team and our economic independence is possible thanks to our readers, the sales in the kiosks and the subscribers for the paper and on line edition,” said the vice executive editor, Marco Travaglio during a conference at Università Bocconi in Milan in 2010.

Watch-dog attitude

An investigative approach is prominent in the editorial line of Il Fatto Quotidiano. The staff regularly produces journalism based on common sense, smart questions and a watch-dog attitude toward the behavior of politicians and corporations. There is a sense of the right to report, critique and reply. The paper tries to serve as a watchdog in the interest of the readers, taking not just a scandalistic approach but an attempt to protect of the dignity of the citizenship against the abuses of any kind of power and misuse of public funds. The newspaper is written for the readers, which is not an obvious quality. No kind of reverence is extended to the political class.

The online demand for objective information

Marco Travaglio has a video section called “Passaparola” (Word of Mouth) on Beppe Grillo’s blog www.beppegrillo.it which has 175,000 unique daily users. Grillo, the comedian who founded Il Movimento 5 Stelle (The Five Stars Movement), runs one of the most visited news websites in Italy. Travaglio noticed the demand for Italian-language information free from the influence of the country’s political parties. There is interest in news stories based on facts and not on the desire of applauding the political class. Giving visibility to facts often buried on back pages provoked more than 500,000 contacts to many videos of Marco Travaglio. He summarized the processes of Mr. Berlusconi and talked about other current scandals that were missing on the major national media. Il Fatto Quotidiano has its own website with an average of 700,000 unique users each day, or 9 million UUPM (unique users per month – source: Nielsen Sitecensus).

An alternative to television and other newspapers

Only Il Fatto Quotidiano, Libero and Il Giornale open with a front page whose content diverges from that of other national newspapers. Il Fatto Quotidiano is a case study especially peculiar to contemporary Italy. The key element of success has been not to repeat the rundown of last night’s television news when so many dailies do so. Il Fatto Quotidiano rather uses its front to present news not covered on TV in a different order of priority and with more depth.

Filling a void in the Italian media landscape

The state of the press in Italy is not brilliant: journalists in general are under the influence of advertisers and of the owners of the newspapers, most of which are not disinterested publishers. They are usually investors with interests in many other fields. A majority of the media prefer not to put under scrutiny topics that may concern their ownership. When the owner is a major political leader, then the priority of the news is obviously biased and the quality of journalism is compromised on a vast scale, even though the freedom of the Italian press is guaranteed by law.

Il Fatto Quotidiano was founded during a moment of Italian history in which its Parliament produced laws to protect the prime minister from its criminal proceedings and protected his economic interests. So it seems natural for a newspaper whose only source of inspiration is the democratic constitution to find an eager readership.

Today, after three years of its launch, Il Fatto Quotidiano has grown to include an economic section and a cultural insert called Saturno and the number of journalists has increased. In any case, after the initial boom the number of daily sold copies decreased from 75,000 in 2011 to reach the constant readership of 57,000 in 2013. The printed copies are stable at 110,000.

Let’s hope that this success will continue. 

Since the January 25, 2011 revolution, hardly a week passes without demonstrations or civil unrest erupting somewhere in this country of 91 million.

The Black Bloc provoke police near the Shepherd Hotel. The Muslim Brotherhood calls for Million Man Marches. Groups of liberals gather to do the Harlem Shake in front of the Brotherhood’s headquarters. Rival groups fight in front of courts or the presidential palace. Sectarian conflicts erupt near churches.

Tear gas is abundant. Disorienting laser lights are shined into the eyes of police or protesters.

Freelance or on assignment, journalists are in the middle of it all. Many are Egyptian; some are foreign.

Australian journalist Ed Giles is one of several foreign photographers here supplying the front pages of the New York Times, Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald with documentation of post-revolution Cairo.

“What you’re doing is looking for very strong single pictures, and to do that you have to be pretty close to what’s happening. You have to see the expressions on people’s faces and their reactions to what’s happening.”

So how do reporters like Giles, some of whom don’t speak Arabic, stay safe while covering Cairo?

Attend hostile-environment training

TOR International, a London-based company that offers a variety of risk-mitigation courses, trains BBC journalists who are assigned to what BBC terms “medium-high risk” countries.

Lasting anywhere from several days to a week, TOR courses help journalists begin to understand risk mitigation, first aid, how to avoid surveillance, common military and police tactics and more.

Courses are tailored to the area where the journalists are going, from Mali to Afghanistan or Cairo.

“It’s all about planning and understanding,” says Harry Williams-Cole, the managing director of TOR. “Understanding the environment you’re going to be working in and what you’re going there to do… Knowing what the risks are likely to be, and then planning accordingly.”

TOR’s weeklong courses cost around 2,500 British pounds per week. So how is a freelancer to afford such a course?

Apply for grants

Giles won a bursary offered to freelance journalists by the Rory Peck Trust to attend a 2011 hostile-environment training course in Lebanon.

“It's really important to take responsibility for yourself,” Giles says. “The training was something I really wanted to do for a while because I think it's really important to mitigate as much risk as you can. This job is really risky.”

The Rory Peck Trust offered approximately 45 bursaries in 2012 to cover the majority of costs for freelancers to attend accredited hostile-environment training sessions, says Sarah Giaziri, program officer for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Hostile environmental training helps you think of key questions before you go to places that could potentially be dangerous,” she says.

Cairo-based Dutch freelance photojournalist Ester Meerman says she took brief safety courses in journalism school while working for NOS. While in-the-moment shock can sometimes make it hard for journalists to remember their trainings, she says, it is useful to have thought about how to handle situations like arrest or kidnapping – a situation she faced in Cairo last year.

Have health insurance and know the location of hospitals

Mapping local hospitals and being aware of emergency services – or the lack thereof – costs journalists nothing but their time. It is essential information to have on hand should a crisis arrive.

Obtaining insurance before traveling to Cairo might take more time – and money – but it can make a huge difference on the ground.

The level of assistance that injured journalists in crisis who have health insurance receive is far greater than that available to reporters who failed to obtain coverage, Giaziri says.

“Time and time again people don't have a plan, and insurance makes such a big difference when it comes to having the money to get home or cover medical costs.”

Giles says he purchased a policy from Reporters Without Borders for around 280 US dollars. The French not-for-profit offers various insurance schemes to reporters around the world. Rory Peck’s website links to additional insurance providers known for working with freelance journalists.

Some insurance providers may give discounts to journalists who have completed hostile environment training courses.

Interview reporters who have been in the country

Many journalists are happy to share local knowledge that can prepare reporters for conditions on the ground. For example, the level of physical and verbal harassment encountered in Cairo is far higher than in many other countries, says Dutch freelance photographer Meerman.

“I doubt a female reporter would run a serious risk of getting sexually assaulted when covering a protest in the US or Europe,” she says. “For both males and females the verbal abuse is fairly absurd. I only have to take out my camera and nine out of ten times at least one person will come up to me and ask me what I'm doing. 'Why are you taking photos?' 'What are you taking photos of?'

“People will just randomly forbid you to take photos of things and sometimes will even go as far as to obstruct your view or try and take your camera away. I know of many cases of people getting escorted to a nearby police station by the police just for taking photos of random things on the street. That wouldn't happen in most other places in the world, I think.”

Consider a press credential

In post-revolution Egypt, rules about press credentials can seem murky. Especially for reporters working on brief assignments, they may seem not worth following.

But being able to present proper credentials can be useful for foreign journalists conducting interviews on the streets. Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was briefly detained in April when a café owner where she was interviewing young people accused her of being a spy. She did not have an up-to-date press card on her person when doing the interviews, and the café owner requested police arrest her. They did; Netjes was detained for the afternoon and the Dutch ambassador to Egypt picked her up.

Contact information for the Cairo Press Office is available here.

Learn tendencies of protestors and security forces

There are rhythms to protests, some journalists say, and knowing them can help reporters decide where to stand and where and when to duck out of the way.

American freelance photographer Cliff Cheney came to Cairo in April 2012, although he’d been to Egypt on assignments as early as 2009. Well known in Twitter circles for covering protests around the city, Cheney is one of several journalists who say they are hassled least on the front lines of a protest.

“It’s the people on the sidelines and those who are kind of ‘halfway fighting’ who lead to problems; usually people who aren't involved in the fighting start problems with me,” he says. “When there's actually fighting, people are worried about themselves and actually, you know, dying.”

Meerman concurred.

“In my experience it's generally safest the closer you are to the frontline of the clashes,” she says via email. “That's where the least harassment is, because those people are generally too occupied with throwing and avoiding rocks, bullets and tear gas to be feeling me up or verbally harass me.”

Being aware of how the police or central security forces (riot police) operate is also essential to saying safe, reporters in Cairo say. Giles says the tactics of riot police in Cairo are similar to those of authorities in the West Bank.

“They’ll try to draw protestors to a point where they're a long way forward, say, down a long straight street,” he says. “Then they’ll suddenly run forward and catch or shoot as many as they can.
“It’s important to avoid getting drawn into one of those situations.”

Bring the right gear

Meerman says she carries “My camera, several lenses, gas mask, safety goggles, scarf, sunglasses if sunny, iPhone, something to tie my hair back with. Some pocket money for food, drink and possibly a microbus or a taxi. When it's cold or at night, a hoodie, so people can't instantly tell I'm a) female and b) foreign.”

Cheney says he brings carabineers to connect his expensive camera to his clothing. This makes it harder for them to be stolen in a crowd.

While bulletproof vests, bulletproof glasses, gas masks and bandannas are – depending on the situation – appropriate to carry to a Cairo protest, helmets are questionable.

“They make you look like a combatant,” Cheney says.

Use social media to stay abreast of developments

A well-sourced, trustworthy Twitter feed can help journalists communicate in real-time with each other, as well as protestors, about developments on the ground. This can be a useful way to know, say, if the situation is becoming more violent just one street over.

Plus, being active on social media lets a wide range of people know you’re safe and still working. Tweeting live reports also serves to promote your work to prospective editors.

Try to stay off the grid

“I think if you go anywhere as a journalist you’re more likely to be surveilled than anyone else,” says Williams-Cole from Tor International.

“Be aware of your surroundings, be aware of who might be following you but also be aware of the communication devices you’re using. You don’t need to be followed by intelligence services; police can quite happily sit in an office and use Twitter or Facebook to see what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with.”

Giles says he always assumes he is under surveillance; when using tools like satellite phones he avoids connecting from his current place of residence.

Consider, when possible, delaying the publishing times of some content until you’ve left an area. And always keep in mind possible repercussions for sources, Williams-Cole added.

Old-fashioned surveillance is still around, too, of course; anyone from an intelligence officer to a petty thief can overhear conversations about equipment and locations of upcoming interviews and plan an attack - on a reporter or a source.

Establish codes with editors before reporting begins

This can be as simple as deciding, in advance, that Tahrir Square will be called Place A and that the presidential palace will be Place B. That way you can SMS, email or Tweet your editor that you’ve left Place A and are now reporting from Place B – without too much fear of giving your position away to unsavory surveillance forces.

Assigning codes to source names and travel routes might also be beneficial.

Know when to leave the scene

Meerman says any of several triggers might prompt her to leave a protest: credible reports of people being hurt by rubber bullets, live ammunition, birdshot or stone-throwing. She’ll also leave when noticing many young children at the frontline.

“Going in at that point is an open invitation to get sexually assaulted, and quite possibly get your stuff stolen,” she says. 

Cheney says he often leaves when crowds become unsympathetic and demand he stop photographing.

“There's really no arguing at that point."

Don’t stop here

Relevant, free guides to reporting from dangerous places are available online here, here and here.

Their actions to diversify the European media landscape are among the first registered European Citizens' Initiatives. But the group, known as EIMP, faces an uphill climb, needing to overcome both political opposition and smaller than expected number of signatories.

Do the variety of newspapers and magazines on newsstand shelves, ranging from quality broadsheets to niche magazines about RC modelling, suggest that Europe has a problem with media pluralism?

The organisers of the EIMP say yes.

A grassroots effort within the EU machine?

Their success depends on their ability to gather a million signatures from the citizens of the European Union. So far only about 9,000 people have signed on; the formal deadline expires in November. Although the EIMP will seek an extension, the pace of signature collection needs to be hastened for the petition to be considered.

No one knows how the procedure will work once, or if, the signatures are collected. The Commission cannot be forced to propose a law. Even if does, the key support of the European Parliament is not unequivocal, although the people behind the initiative remain optimistic.

Getting political

The EIMP was launched two years ago by two NGOs: Alliance Internationale de Journalistes and European Alternatives. Its name is self-explanatory – the EIMP campaigns for legal protection of media plurality in the European Union. It opposes censorship and seeks to defend freedom of the press.

Lorenzo Marsili from the EuroAlter, and spokesman for the EIMP, explained last year during the launch event in the European Parliament that no state in the European Union can rest on its laurels.

“Even countries with established democracies, such as Great Britain, are not immune to crisis in media landscape,” he said.

Marsili believes that lack of pluralistic media may be one of the most serious threats to democracy.

EIMP says it aims to tackle problems including legal threats to media freedom (such as in Hungary), undue economic influence (United Kingdom) or overlap of political, economic and media interests (Italy, Romania or Bulgaria). Organisations involved also come from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Portugal. Anna Lodeserto, EU Campaign Coordinator, adds that Austria and Italy have also joined, and cooperation is strong with Germany.

Focus of campaigning varies in different countries depending on local issues. One the strongest is the Hungarian branch, which grew out of the Facebook-based initiative “One million for Hungarian media freedom.”

Beyond the involved organisations, the EIMP received some backing from the politicians, notably Martin Schulz, the EP president and leader of the social-democrats fraction. The list of politicians in favour of the initiative extends beyond the states where it is based.

For now, however, citizens are more important as supporters than politicians. For the EIMP has chosen a novel means of advocacy: the newly-established European Citizens' Initiative.

Taking initiative

Increasingly more civil society groups are exploring this one-year-old procedure. The ECI was introduced by the Lisbon Treaty to improve the democracy in the EU. Citizens have the right to submit an initiative to the European Commission, which is registered if legally sound. Next, the organisers have to collect one million signatures from at least seven member states of the EU within a year, mostly online. Despite some technical issues, thus far it works in theory.

“It is a weak instrument,” says Austrian Green MEP Gerald Häfner, among the creators of the ECI.

“I see it as a first foot in the doors; now you need to push and push.”

The organisers remain confident of the Commission's approval. However, the European Parliament, which together with the Council of Ministers would vote on the proposed law, is divided on the issue. One of the main reasons, according to Giovanni Melogli, is the majority of the centre-right European People's Party in the Parliament. Both Hungarian Fidesz and Italian People of Freedom are members of the EPP. These parties, led respectively by Orban and Berlusconi, are accused by the EIMP of violating press freedom.

Melogli says left-wing, greens and liberal fractions - which in total have got slightly more MEPs than the conservatives - supported the launch of the campaign with some 40,000 euro. But they presently give no money. Melogli adds that the Parliament urged Commission to act in the past and that even within the EPP the opposition to the initiative is not solid.

Hoping and risking

For the political considerations to start, the EIMP needs to collect an additional 990,000 signatures. Melogli remains hopeful that the threshold will be achieved in November, but also adds that the EIMP has applied for an extension due to technical problems of the Commission's website last year.

“A few other ECIs have also lost time and we are cooperating closely with them. Our goals and teams are not in conflict, we are not competing,” stresses Lodeserto.

Even in the case the inititative gets approved by all EU bodies, it is far from certain what its results will be. The organisers are not proposing an actual law. Rather, the formulation of the EIMP's goals is vague. “We demand amendments to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive aiming at protection of media pluralism”, we read. Practice shows that the result might differ wildly from the proposal.

The outcome of the EIMP is uncertain.

But that matters little, argues Ioana Avadani, from the Romanian Centre for Independent Journalism.

“When you start advocacy, you do not expect to win. You hope and you accept the risk," she said in the EP.

“This ECI, if nothing else, will have one million citizens thinking of their media, and that is a lot.”

• Mobile Twitter
• Viber
• Line
• WhatsApp

I was told that the project is being managed by Yasser D. Alruhaily, Executive Manager of the Network & Information Security Department at Mobily. The project's requirements come from "the regulator" (which I assume means the government of Saudi Arabia). The requirements are the ability to both monitor and block mobile data communication, and apparently they already have blocking setup. Here's a sample snippet from one email:

From: Yasser Alruhaily <…….. .. .@mobily.com.sa>

Date: Thursday, May 2, 2013 1:04 PM

Subject: Re: As discussed last day .further discussion

we are working in defining a way to deal with all such requirements from regulator and it is not only for Whatsapp, it is for whatsapp, line, viber, twitter etc..

So, what we need your support in is the following:

• is there any technical way that allow for interception these traffic?
• Is there any company or vendor could help us on this regard?
• is there any telecom company they implement any solution or workaround?

One of the design documents that they volunteered specifically called out compelling a CA in the jurisdiction of the UAE or Saudi Arabia to produce SSL certificates that they could use for interception. A considerable portion of the document was also dedicated to a discussion of purchasing SSL vulnerabilities or other exploits as possibilities. Their level of sophistication didn't strike me as particularly impressive, and their existing design document was pretty confused in a number of places, but Mobily is a company with over 5 billion in revenue, so I'm sure that they'll eventually figure something out. What's depressing is that I could have easily helped them intercept basically all of the traffic they were interested in (except for Twitter; I helped write that TLS code, and I think we did it well). They later told me they'd already gotten a WhatsApp interception prototype working, and were surprised by how easy it was. The bar for most of these apps is pretty low.

In the name of terror

When they eventually asked me for a price quote, and I indicated that I wasn't interested in the job for privacy reasons, they responded with this:

I know that already and I have same thoughts like you freedom and respecting privacy, actually Saudi has a big terrorist problem and they are misusing these services for spreading terrorism and contacting and spreading their cause that's why I took this and I seek your help. If you are not interested than maybe you are on indirectly helping those who curb the freedom with their brutal activities.

So privacy is cool, but the Saudi government just wants to monitor people's tweets because... terrorism. The terror of the re-tweet. But the real zinger is that, by not helping, I might also be a terrorist. Or an indirect terrorist, or something. While this email is obviously absurd, it's the same general logic that we will be confronted with over and over again: choose your team. Which would you prefer? Bombs or exploits. Terrorism or security. Us or them. As transparent as this logic might be, sometimes it doesn't take much when confirming to oneself that the profitable choice is also the right choice. If I absolutely have to frame my choices as an either-or, I'll choose power vs. people.

Culture over time

I know that, even though I never signed a confidentiality agreement, and even though I simply asked questions without signaling that I wanted to participate, it's still somewhat rude of me to publish details of correspondence with someone else. I'm being rude by publishing this correspondence with Mobily, not only because it's substantially more rude of them to be engaged in massive-scale eavesdropping of private communication, but because I think it's part of a narrative that we need to consider. What Mobily is up to is what's currently happening everywhere, and we can't ignore that. Over the past year there has been an ongoing debate in the security community about exploit sales. For the most part, the conversation has focused on legality and whether exploit sales should be regulated. I think the more interesting question is about culture: what do we in the hacker community value and prioritize, and what is the type of behavior that we want to encourage? Let's take stock. One could make the case that the cultural origins of exploit sales are longstanding. Since at least the 90's, there has been an underlying narrative within the hacker community of not "blowing up"; or "killing" bugs. A tension against that discipline began with the transition from a "hacker community" to a "security industry," and the unease created by that tension peaked in the early 2000s, manifested most clearly by the infamous AntiSec movement. Fundamentally, AntiSec tried to reposition the "White Hat" vs "Black Hat" debate by suggesting that there are no "White Hats" only "Green Hats" - the color of money. As someone who also regretted what money had done to the hacker community, I was largely sympathetic with AntiSec. If I'm really honest with myself, though, my interest in the preservation of 0day was also because there was something fun about an insecure internet at the time, particularly since that insecurity predominantly tended to be leveraged by a class of people that I generally liked against a class of people that I generally disliked. In short, there was something about not publishing 0day that signaled affiliation with the "hacker community" rather than the "security industry."

The situation today

In many ways, it's possible that we're still largely operating based on those original dynamics. Somewhere between then and now, however, there was an inflection point. It's hard to say exactly when it happened, but these days, the insecurity of the internet is now more predominantly leveraged by people that I dislike against people that I like. More often than not, that's by governments against people. Simultaneously, the tension between "0day" vs "publish" has largely transformed into "sell secretly" vs "publish." In a sense, the AntiSec narrative has undergone a full inversion: this time, there are no "Black Hats" anymore, only "Green Hats" - the color of money. There are still outliers, such as Anonymous (to the extent that it's possible to be sympathetic with an unguided missile), but what's most significant about their contribution is that they're not using 0day at all. Forgetting the question of legality, I hope that we can collectively look at this changing dynamic and perhaps re-evaluate what we culturally reward. I'd much rather think about the question of exploit sales in terms of who we welcome to our conferences, who we choose to associate with, and who we choose to exclude, than in terms of legal regulations. I think the contextual shift we've seen over the past few years requires that we think critically about what's still cool and what's not. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion and the bulk of the community is totally fine with how things have gone (after all, it is profitable). There are even explicitly patriotic hackers who suggest that their exploit sales are necessary for the good of the nation, seeing themselves as protagonists in a global struggle for the defense of freedom, but having nothing to do with these ugly situations in Saudi Arabia. Once exploits are sold to US defense contractors, however, i's very possible they could end up delivered directly to the Saudis (eg, eg, eg), where it would take some even more substantial handwaving to think that they'll serve in some liberatory way. For me at least, these changes have likely influenced what I choose to publish rather than hold, and have probably caused me to spend more time attempting to develop solutions for secure communication than the type of work I was doing before.

It's happening

Really, it's no shock that Saudi Arabia is working on this, but it is interesting to get fairly direct evidence that it's happening. More to the point, if you're in Saudi Arabia (or really anywhere), it might be prudent to think about avoiding insecure communication tools like WhatsApp and Viber (TextSecure and RedPhone could serve as appropriate secure replacements), because now we know for sure that they're watching. For the rest of us, I hope we can talk about what we can do to stop those who are determined to make this a reality, as well as the ways that we're already inadvertently a part of that reality's making.

So, WHO is he?

“He’s a genius and a revolutionary,” says media strategist Tetsuji Nitta. “He has an extraordinary ability to tell what the future holds.”

For example, Horie had been using a social service network such as Japan’s largest SNS Mixi before such a service became a boom, Nitta said. Years ago, Horie used to say “broadcasting and telecommunications will be converged.”

This was before the birth of the American platform Hulu, BBC’s iplayer and any other streaming or video on demand services. Horie’s view at that time sounded unrealistic or a threat to the existing media. Now streaming video is a norm. Horie was Japan’s maverick, defining the future based on his belief in technology. And the young people pinned their hopes to him when Horie challenged the establishment.

Getting rich

Born in Fukuoka, one of Japan’s southernmost prefectures, Horie set up a web production company, On the Edge, in 1996 with his university friends. He went to the nation’s most prestigious academic centre, Tokyo University, but dropped out. In 2002, he purchased an Internet portal firm, Livedoor. Through mergers and acquisitions, Horie boosted the company to a market capitalisation of 730 billion yen at its peak.

Horie was different from any other typical Japanese top management figure. He was young, never wore suits, massively rich and didn’t hide the fact that he was rich. In his blog he chronicled his daily life eating at luxurious restaurants and meeting celebrities. His books on how to be rich and successful sold like hotcakes.

He also made a subscription-based mail magazines a new viable business. He kept writing for his micro-media even when he was in prison. Horie gained notoriety in 2004 when he offered to buy a baseball team, Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes. A business proposal to a major baseball team from an unknown rookie was unprecedented. While this did not work out, he furthermore stunned the public in 2005. Horie announced that Livedoor had become the largest shareholder of a radio station, Nippon Broadcasting Systems. According to the reports, Horie’s aim was to grab the radio station’s subsidiary Fuji Television, a major network.

It was a rare hostile bid in a consensus-driven society. In the end, his plan to claw back Fuji did not go far enough (Livedoor and Fuji agreed on a compromise which was for Fuji TV to purchase Livedoor’s shares in NBS), young people’s adoration of Horie as a role model continued to grow. Horie’s popularity even caught then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s eyes in 2005. Horie was asked by Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party to run for the upcoming general election as its candidate. He eventually ran as an independent and lost, garnering 84,433 votes while the winner, a career politician Shizuka Kamei, got 110,979.

Challenging the mainstream

By 2005, Horie, with Livedoor news under his belt, began to voice a vision for mainstream media. His brut view on the mainstream media was shared and welcomed by those who viewed the media as part of the establishment.

At times, however, Horie ruffled feathers of the liberal-minded people, who are normally his fans. A typical example was when Shoko Egawa, a seasoned journalist, interviewed Horie and reported their conversation in her blog on February 8, 2005. Horie indicated that he could start a newspaper that would print articles chosen by readers’ ranking rather than by the paper’s editorial staff.

“The paper will print what readers want to read, chosen purely by the market principle,” he said. Egawa countered, saying that the ranking system won’t pick up minority (but important) opinions. Horie said, “What’s wrong with that? There isn’t much meaning to carry stories which not many readers want to read. They are rubbish.”

Horie added, “it is arrogant for newspaper people to set aside a big space for topics which nobody wants to read.”

Yoshimi Tonooka, who runs a web marketing company Wise Project, says he “felt uncomfortable” reading this in Egawa’s blog. Still, Tonooka, who has been following Horie’s activities mainly as a critic, admits that Horie’s view that news topics will be ranked according to readers’ choices, are “now in reality by Googole’s search algorithm, such as Google News.”

Sudden fall

Horie’s business came to a halt in January 2006 when he was arrested by Tokyo public prosecutors on charges of fabricating financial reports and spreading false information to investors. After a series of trials, he was found guilty of falsifying Livedoor’s accounts and misleading investors. He was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months. In 2011, his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court and Horie was sent to prison.
Livedoor was delisted and its portal site business was sold to a South Korean firm, NHN Corp.

Some say his sentence was too harsh, that Horie was singled out because of political retaliation for his challenging the establishment. Whatever the truth, focus is now on what he will do next. At the press conference in March, Horie mentioned the creation of a new form of news media on the Internet. He has not elaborated – much.

When an IT journalist and author Toshinao Sasaki met Horie in prison last year, he talked about his media plan in more detail. According to Sasaki’s mail magazine distributed on 9 July 2012, Horie’s new media project will be an assortment of “critiques and opinions based on facts.” There will be “edgy views “which will be good enough not only for readers in Japan but also for overseas readers.

He also referred to his interest in investigative reporting. Horie seemed to have been confident that it is possible to monetise such a project, even while finding a viable model for an Internet newsgathering operation is a conundrum for all media operators worldwide. Though still quite vague, does Horie’s vision mean anything now? Wise Project’s Tonooka and others in Japan think so.

“There is a growing objection to the journalism by the mainstream media which works as a judge of the news value and gives out the news in a top-down way. Horie’s vision to build a news system on the ’Net is quite interesting,” says Tonooka.

Nitta says if Horie, having experienced “unjust accusation,” sets up an operation focused on investigative reporting, it may be a good stimulation to the mainstream media which compete with the delivery speed of the news.

Jo Ishiyama, a media consultant, believes this is a good moment for Horie’s media business to succeed. “Things changed since he was arrested. At present we are in a society where other people’s evaluation is a key.”

In a social media era, he says, “how many supporters and sympathizers you can gather around you is an important factor to do business. What you do is evaluated by others.” He also suggests that Japan’s movers and shakers in the online business have been following Horie’s footsteps. “Horie’s influence in Japan’ information and technology world is still huge.”

So, whatever Horie chooses to do next, Ishiyama believes that the support from the new generation of ’net entrepreneurs will help him. Ibaraki University’s Prof. Junichiro Koga cites that having spent time in prison is not necessarily a negative factor for a business person to succeed.

“If Horie can carve out a new form of journalism, it is no doubt that the mainstream media will change.”

While that raised the eyebrows of many; local journalists contacted by the EJC don’t see his words having any effect on their profession, and feel their ability to their jobs and media freedom is not endangered in the least.

“Despite what Zeman said I don’t think freedom of speech as guaranteed by the constitution is threatened,” said Katerina Safarikova, editor of Ceska Televize’s web pages.

“Zeman is a man of the past, spent the last 10 years in his retreat in the forest. He resumed political activity thinking the world was the same as 10 years ago, including the media.”

Zeman was Prime Minister from 1998-2002 and to say he had a tenuous relationship with the media is putting it mildly. Unfortunately, it seems these negative feelings have carried over into the present day, when both the media and the country have changed significantly.

“Most Prague-based media are right-of-centre leaning and that runs contrary to Zeman’s beliefs but I think he hasn’t come to accept media as an independent institution,” said Jan Richter, a journalist with Czech Radio.

“His comments in his speech took it to another level – to say the media are corrupt mafia and liken them to neo-Nazis is outrageous and not true. The comments came after months of campaigning and the media was against him. But he should know better.”

Both Richter and Safarikova mentioned that freedom of speech is not under threat here, and Tomas Nemecek, editor of a weekly law and justice supplement for daily Lidove noviny</a>, who also writes on society and politics added that in the Reporters without Borders´ Press Freedom Index 2013 the Czech Republic is rated No. 16.

“The Czech Republic has a competitive print media market, the best public TV in the post-communist area and a flourishing blogosphere,” he said via email.

“No matter what an obscure politician who accidentally got into the mostly ceremonial position of the Czech president says, the local media scene is one of the most evident blessings of the last 23 years.”

When it comes to the daily grind, more pressing issues seem to be at hand and these are no different than what’s hurting media organizations worldwide – time, money, staff.

“It would be good to have more time and money for organizations,” Richter said. “More staff would be better; it would make me a better journalist if I had time to work the story.” He adds that working for a public broadcaster the structure can be a bit rigid but he’s never felt pressured to not follow or abandon a particular story.

“Stories might be cut if they are deemed uninteresting or unbalanced,” he said. “Some stories might not get done because we can only get one voice, then it might be scrapped. But I’ve not encountered any political pressure regarding stories here. I don’t think it or media freedom is an issue.”

Economics and training are the biggest detriments to journalism here, Safarikova said.

“It is economics – we are a small country and a small media scene, especially print – what I see are bleak times ahead and it’s already happening with cooperation between dailies,” she said.

“Some of them belong to the same owner but have very different histories, traditions and readers. But you need money to support the teams so they integrate departments, for example sharing a foreign desk, photo desk, etc. I see this leading to a reduction in different opinions, leads, angles. It’s a threat, but money driven.” She’d also like to see more role models for younger journalists.

“Education and practice – good principles and strong editors to work with journalists to point out mistakes, lapses in stories,” she said. “You also need a place to practice – if the recession continues inevitably the number of papers will be reduced, private TV stations will be forced to comply with what audiences are demanding which means less news. This reduction and concentration of media is bad.”

These thoughts, common to and probably affecting journalists everywhere, have not changed these three professionals’ feelings about their jobs. All seemed to be passionate about journalism, with Nemecek voicing it.

“It is the best job you can have. Really. I mean it.”

Dutch journalists Petra van Doest and Esther van Rijswijk recognised a marketplace for a tool that sorts and filters the mass information available to the public. So the two recently launched the application Mattermap, a tool that helps scrape, order and publish information in a bright journalistic mindmap.

“The idea is simple,” van Doest says. “Everyone likes structure: we put papers with the papers, pencils with pencils and we like to throw away the things we don’t consider relevant. For me and Esther, the public debate felt as a messy household that needed a clean sweep. And journalists contribute to that; if they do their research for an article, they quickly collect the facts and start analysing but easily forget to give an overview of what already has been said about that topic.”

For more than two years, Ter Doest and Van Rijkswijk worked on a visual infographic that would facilitate the gathering of background information and particular viewpoints about chosen topics. The goal was to make information gathering and consumption easier.

The Dutch Stimuleringfonds voor de Pers granted the two a subsidy as they felt Mattermap could help the reader – who often doesn’t follow debates about certain topics from the beginning – be able to grasp topics more easily and more rapidly. Readers would be encouraged to form an own opinion.

The result is a bright, straightforward journalistic mindmap. The Mattermap creator puts the central issue in a big circle surrounded by boxes with different ideas or perspectives about that issue. Big black lines lead to clouds with quotes, videos and research results that support or illustrate the specific viewpoints.

In a glimpse, one can see various perspectives on a topic. In a Mattermap about the new Dutch King Willem-Alexander, for example: who likes him, who does not and why. In another Mattermap, relevant arguments on whether the Arab Spring has been fruitful or a flop, are clustered. Interestingly, in every cloud, one can add hyperlinks and relevant information about the person referred to, therefore providing context. 

Simplifying the Info-trend

Tools for mindmapping and the creation of infographics and visual tools that enable readers to think through complex issues are growing in importance in all forms of media. Comparable to Mattermap are tools such as Debate Graph and Wrangl, both apps that try to visualise ideas and perspectives.

The biggest difference, however, between Mattermap and Debate Graph is that the latter is meant as a working tool to crank up debates and keep them going: little balls with arguments expand into new balls and everyone on the web can add to the discussion.

“It makes a discussion very comprehensive,” Van Rijswijk says, “but loses its survey ability.“

Mattermap is more focused on the audience that has no time peruse hundreds of arguments.

“Mattermap keeps it simple, the journalist has done his research, gives an overview of what he found and encourages the reader to think for himself,” Van Rijswijk says.

So far, Mattermap has been well received and several Dutch media outlets have shown interest.
The application is free and everyone can create an account.

But Ter Doest and Van Rijswijk are considering creating a paid model, one that would allow a media outlet to change the design to one in harmony with its corporate identity.

Currently the Mattermap software is only available in Dutch, but a Quick Start in English is present along with two international Mattermaps.