The International Journalism Festival weekly round-up. Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter, by following our Telegram channel, or by joining us on X and Facebook.
Unerased. Vladimir Putin’s government is trying to scrub critical journalism from the internet. The Russian Independent Media Archive is standing in its way
Ismail al-Ghoul’s killing: targeted and discredited, Palestinian journalists suffer double punishment in Gaza. Reporters Without Borders calls for an independent investigation of these killings and for Israel to stop targeting journalists. More than 130 media professionals have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army since 7 October, including at least 31 while doing their job
Bad news: we’ve lost control of our social media feeds. Good news: courts are noticing. Giving power back to the users would not only be good for us as citizens, and it would also test the tech companies’ longstanding argument that the problems with social media is what we are doing to ourselves — not what they are doing to us. By Julia Angwin
Can the media survive? Probably not yours. As cost structures come down, so too does the need to be mass scale. And anyone that tries to reach mass scale is going to, inevitably, be disrupted by someone more niche. And even if you are niche, there is someone that could go even nicher. Being read by millions was only possible because you had no competition. Now? It’s the free market on steroids
Willingness to pay for news. The news consumer had to be invented. The news consumer got that news for cheap
A media call to arms. Double down on ‘the stakes’ until Nov. 5th
Ukrainian media battles for survival and truth amid the war with Russia. In the midst of war, Vitaliy Sych, editor-in-chief of The New Voice of Ukraine, faces daily air raid sirens, power outages, and the strain of managing one of the largest media companies in Ukraine
McKinsey global managing partner Bob Sternfels, senior partners Daniel Pacthod, and Kurt Strovink, and senior adviser Wyman Howard explore the art of 21st-century leadership and how organizations can build a leadership factory that shapes, develops, and mentors the next generation of managers.
About last week, about last year. Advocating at the UN to stem the assault on journalists in Gaza and its ramifications
The Lenfest Institute launches $10 million AI news program for big-city dailies with backing from OpenAI and Microsoft. The program will initially fund projects for AI adoption at five independently owned U.S. metro news organizations — The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Sun-Times owner Chicago Public Media, The Seattle Times, and Newsday in Long Island
Iranian general charged in plot to murder US-based dissident journalist. Justice department says eight were charged ‘for their efforts to silence and kill a US citizen because of her criticism of the Iranian regime’
2024 Rory Peck Awards finalists. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on 28 November in London. The Rory Peck Trust is an international organisation that supports freelance newsgatherers
Q&A with Roman Anin on holding Putin to account, even in exile. It didn’t take long for IStories to become one of the most prominent investigative news sites in Russia. In December 2020, only a few months after its founding, the outlet released a deep-dive into Vladimir Putin’s daughter and son-in-law. “He, as a dictator, doesn’t like when people investigate the corruption within his family. And the story was very popular,” says Roman Anin, the 37-year-old investigative journalist and founder
Testing OpenAI’s o1 models: a look at chain-of-thought prompting for journalism tasks. New LLMs are touted as smarter problem-solvers — but how do they fare in real-world journalistic tasks like data visualization and headline selection?
Journalist who exposed Cambodia’s scam industry released by authorities. Mech Dara, charged with incitement, freed on bail after video of him apologising to country’s leaders appears
Death threats and a dangerous law: how Georgian news media came under fire ahead of a critical election. “The situation is very scary,” says journalist Nino Zuriashvili, who’s been harassed for opposing a law that threatens independent news organisations
Photo credit: Masha Gessen #ijf24 by Francesco Cuoccio