Source: Politics<\/p>\n
What if we couldn’t discover truth in the future? <\/p>\n
That’s a real prospect in many countries today, where collapsing news media economics and deliberate use of misinformation \u2014\u00a0including by governments \u2014\u00a0is hiding truth from the masses.<\/p>\n
Mark Thompson, a former New York Times CEO and BBC Director General, calls it \u201ca darkening climate to do with governments and other elites deciding they don’t have to put up with impertinent journalists asking difficult questions, or people who have the temerity to report what’s actually going on, rather than what the government would like people to think is going on.\u201d <\/p>\n
Global Insider spoke to Thompson, who has teamed up with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa \u2014\u00a0joint winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, with Dmitry Muratov of Russia \u2014 to launch an International Fund for Public Interest Media. <\/p>\n
The threats to Ressa’s freedom and journalism are real: “Every day, I live with the real threat of spending the rest of my life in jail just because I\u2019m a journalist. When I go home, I have no idea what the future holds, but it\u2019s worth the risk,” she said, accepting her Nobel Prize in Oslo. <\/p>\n
Thompson and Ressa hope to \u201cstage a multilateral intervention,\u201d Thompson said, and inject up to one billion dollars into public interest media outlets to secure them a sustainable financial footing. The Biden administration has committed to contribute up to $30 million dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re seeing the failure of not only major organizations \u2014 we know that media and journalism is hard everywhere \u2014 but the last hopes for objective journalism in country after country. If we do nothing in much of the world, independent journalists will disappear: So what can we do to stabilize it and give it a chance to survive?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth never gets completely stamped out. But you don’t want the truth being something which is really only shared in whispers and rumors. The truth needs a shape, it needs to be shared at scale if it’s going to be going to influence what happens in societies.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some completely controlled societies \u2014 China being a good example \u2014 but there are many, many countries where it is still possible to do journalism: It’s just very difficult.<\/p>\n
“Donald Trump’s campaign against the \u2018enemies of the people\u2019 was taken as a kind of green light by authoritarian leaders and and populist leaders to launch their own campaigns \u2014 often quite sophisticated digital campaigns. I think of countries like Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Mark Thompson, co-chair, International Fund for Public Interest Media <\/p>\n
\u201cThe knock-on effects in terms of support for that open political debate and democracy, support for the rule of law, by holding institutions to account, can help countries become more investable. When you think about how you get a country from a bad place to a better, prosperous place and a more open society, money spent here (on sustainable journalism) can have a disproportionate effect. We think governments should think about at least 1% percent (of aid) going to support independent media. Achieving that would triple the current aid investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Mark Thompson, co-chair, International Fund for Public Interest Media <\/p>\n
\u201cLegacy media have a set of assumptions about audiences, which are not just reprehensible because they show the wrong attitude to the audience \u2014 they’re also I think commercially dangerous because you get left, you get stranded in a kind of a shrinking iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent decades being told at the BBC that young people like music and old people like speech, and that if you did serious speech radio you’d only get an older audience. We discovered this at New York Times with The Daily and some of the other podcast that it’s simply not true \u2014 podcasts are a fantastic way of sharing serious ideas and serious journalism. The Daily has a significantly younger audience: something like two-thirds are under the age of 40, and half are under 30.”<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Mark Thompson, co-chair, International Fund for Public Interest Media<\/p>\n