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from GFMD IMPACT
Tuesday January 31, 2023
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Scroll down for the latest opportunities to engage with inter-governmental institutions dealing in media freedom and media development as well as the latest research on how to support independent media. But first, this month's GFMD IMPACT Briefing on the Media Freedom Cohort of the second Summit for Democracy.

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  THE BRIEFING   

GFMD invites you to become part of the Media Freedom Cohort of the second Summit for Democracy.

The Media Freedom Cohort is a multi-stakeholder platform which aims to bring together civil society actors, media, private sector leaders, philanthropic partners, academics, and government decision-makers, with a shared commitment to making concrete progress in improving media freedom.

 Commitments:  One of the key functions of the Cohort is to gather commitments to funding, funding models, industry standards, public policies, and other initiatives that will help media outlets survive and thrive in the coming decades.

 Criteria:  We are striving for commitments that are measurable, replicable, and achievable, believing that these commitments will best allow for systemic change.

 Deadline:  24 February 2023

As well as gathering commitments, the other role of the Cohort is to gather:

  1. Evidence on best practices and lessons learned regarding how governments and other stakeholders can improve media freedom and “Bolster Independent and Diverse Media” at home and abroad.
  2. Multistakeholder, participatory, and demonstrably effective projects and initiatives that are scalable and have the potential to bring about systemic change.
Based on the Commitments, evidence and initiatives that are gathered, the working group co-leads will produce a report that will be published by the Cohort ahead of the Summit and fed into the Summit’s processes wherever possible.

Media Freedom Cohort outcomes and advocacy opportunities: GFMD is planning to promote the work of the Cohort at the following events:

Details about the Global Democracy Coalition will be published on their website shortly. Contact the Forum if you want to participate and for more information

GFMD will publish details about how the Media Freedom Cohort and other stakeholders can engage in the Summit on the engagement opportunities section of our website as soon as we have further information. 


 About the Media Freedom Cohort: 

Civil society lead: Internews

Government leads: Canada and the Netherlands (the current co-chairs of the Media Freedom Coalition)
Based on the media freedom pledges made at the first summit, the Media Freedom Cohort’s work has been divided into three priority areas:
  • Working Group 1 – Protecting Journalists’ Safety & Security
  • Working Group 2 – Advancing Freedom of Expression
  • Working Group 3 – Bolstering Independent and Diverse Media

How to join: 
- Email media-freedom-cohort@internews.org, indicate the working group you are interested in joining, and nominate a contact point for your organisation. You will then be connected with the different working group leads.
- You can also request to join Working Group 3 by sending an email to mediafreedomcohort-wg3+subscribe@groups.io


GFMD’s role: 
- GFMD is the civil society lead for Working Group 3 - “Bolstering Independent and Diverse Media”. 
- GFMD will be using the cohort as an opportunity to continue the work on best practices for supporting journalism and media, more specifically our recent consultations on:

TO KNOW MORE

 
  • The article Whose media freedom is being defended? Norm contestation in international media freedom campaigns by Martin Scott, Mel Bunce, Mary Myers, and Maria Carmen Fernandez analyses how international advocacy campaigns approach and define media freedom, and what influences this process. It does this through a two-year case study of the Media Freedom Coalition—an intergovernmental partnership of over 50 countries—that included 55 interviews with key stakeholders, observations, and document analysis. This revelatory case sheds light on how norms of media freedom are constructed and contested on the international stage, and their implications for journalists, media freedom and geopolitics. A summary of this article is available here.

  WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?  

Our HELP DESK uses a network of experts and resources brought together by the GFMD IMPACT team to respond in a timely fashion to requests from donors, media development and journalism support practitioners and policymakers. Email helpdesk-impact@gfmd.info for more information and to submit a request. 

  TOWN SQUARE  

📄 UN Human Rights Council report: Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression to the UN Human Rights Council, Irene Khan, invites stakeholders to provide written inputs for her next thematic report on freedom of opinion and expression and sustainable development. The report will be submitted to the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council in June – July 2023. All submissions will be published on the OHCHR website unless there is a request to keep them confidential. 

More context: The full call and details for submission can be accessed here.

How to engage: Please send your submissions to hrc-sr-freedex@un.org with the subject line "Input for the report on FOE and sustainable development". Additional supporting materials, such as reports, academic studies, and other types of background materials are welcome and may be annexed to the submission. 
📅 22nd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA): The Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) will hold its twenty-second session under the overall theme of “Urgently transforming institutions for a greener, more inclusive and more resilient world in times of multiple crises" in United Nations Headquarters in New York from 27 to 31 March 2023.

More context: Further details are available here.

How to engage: All NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC, major groups and other civil society organizations wanting to attend the 22nd session are requested to register no later than 6 March 2023. Register here.
📅 UNESCO Global Conference: Taking forward the Windhoek+30 Declaration on Information as a Public Good, UNESCO will host a global conference gathering ministers, regulators, judicial actors, the private sector, the UN family, civil society, academia, intergovernmental organizations and the technical community from around the world to shape digital platform regulation. The conference will be held on 21-23 February 2023 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris

More context: Further details are available here.

How to engage: Registration is open until 17 February 2023. Click here to access the form.

MORE ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES

 
  •  2023 Knight Media Forum, the premier annual event for leaders in philanthropy, journalism, and technology, will be held between 22-23 February. Join to learn from leading thinkers and practitioners, and foster efforts to strengthen, scale and sustain informed and engaged communities. Register here.
  • Global Investigative Journalism Network's Global Shining Light Award, a unique award which honours investigative journalism in a developing or transitioning country, done under threat, duress, or in the direst of conditions, is open for submissions. Submissions deadline: February 28, 2023. Submit your entry here.

  WHAT TO READ THIS MONTH   

Impact Architects launch the updated IA Impact Tracker to Assess the Impact of Journalism (Jan. 2023). Real-world change in journalism can now be defined, tracked, and measured by news organizations, funders, and other stakeholders through the latest iteration of the IA Impact Tracker. After a decade of working in newsrooms across the globe, Impact Architects' co-founder and principal Lindsay Green-Barber says the tool aims to “create a cohort of users and foster a culture of impact.”

AI and Disinformation: State-Aligned Information Operations and the Distortion of the Public Sphere (Jul. 2022)
This paper by Courtney Radsch analyses the dynamics of state-aligned disinformation campaigns and the role that AI plays in this context. It specifically examines coordinated campaigns deployed against journalists and media outlets, their gendered dimension, and how they leverage and manipulate AI systems to contort the public sphere.

Infrastructural content moderation: the case of Mariupol (Jan. 2023). The latest Global Voices Advox article explores how in addition to the obvious humanitarian consequences that internet shutdowns in a war zone bring, infrastructural content moderation is a potent and dangerous approach to spreading disinformation.

GFMD IMPACT

This newsletter is brought to you by GFMD's International Media Policy and Advisory Centre. GFMD IMPACT enables informed, evidence-based decisions about media development and journalism support strategies, programming, funding, and advocacy by:

  • facilitating meetings of donors, practitioners and academia to enable knowledge sharing, experience exchange, learning and collaboration;
  • commissioning research, publishing briefings and curating the most relevant resources for the sector;
  • managing a Help Desk, which uses GFMD's network of experts and resources to respond to requests for research, surveys, and insights in a timely manner.
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