by Tiziana Barillà (S-Com)
Every day, in every corner of Europe (and beyond) thousands of activists and civil society organisations produce a huge amount of news. There is no social movement that does not have media activities to express or denounce facts. And, when criticism of the official media is followed by the production of independent communication, we are faced with so-called mediactivism, which is born precisely where media communication techniques meet the direct action typical of grassroots social movements.
Thus, every day, countless independent communication channels produce information beyond the traditional media. How can this fundamental piece of democracy be improved or strengthened? This is the question that gave rise to S-INFO, an acronym for Sustainable Information, which brings together organisations from four European countries: Italy, Belgium, Malta and Romania. It is a European project born among those who wonder how to improve communication and transform the content produced by civil society into journalistic content.
For the next two years, we will have a common home, a platform and social networks ready to share content as online and face-to-face training courses on investigative journalism, grants to research and publish investigative reports, online debates on: fake news, false narratives, media populism, political pressure on the media, hate speech and anti-democratic speech. We will organise four safer spaces, one for each partner country, where journalists can meet and discuss in safety.
Last but not least, we’ll create a manifesto and a public campaign: ‘No democracy without journalism’ to claim the primary role of independent journalism in democracy, and to collect good practices developed in different EU countries.
In particular, this manifesto will be based on the experience of the Manifesto Genre Médias for an inclusive media.
New alliances to create or strengthen cooperation in the – rigorous and journalistic – coverage of three themes in particular: anti-corruption, social rights and the environment. We chose these three issues because they are among the most polarised in the current debate. Our answer is slow: to fill the gaps left by today’s fast information with good, slow journalism.
Tele Radio City, S-Com, Repubblika, Context – two independent newsrooms and two civil society organisations in four European countries – want to build a common home for independent journalists, activists, intellectuals and researchers. A safe and inclusive space where there is a place for everyone, except for discrimination. It’s impossible not to respond to this call. Because the answer to the question in the title – What future for independent journalism in Europe? – is “it depends on us”.