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Any learning needs a bit of repetition. Without a reminder - or two - people of the low attention span era tend to divert their gaze for celebrity gossip or cat photos. So it is, also, with media subjects.
The German Digital Awards grand prize was awarded this past week (April 11) to ad agency DDB Germany and producer MediaMonks for “The Uncensored Playlist” campaign of Reporters Without Borders Germany. The annual awards are sponsored by the Federal Association of the Digital Economy (BVDW). The campaign consists of ten previously censored stories rewritten with music and presented as pop songs to sneak around censors. Streaming music platforms Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music shared the campaign worldwide on World Day Against Cyber Censorship 2018.
"The truth always finds a way, especially through the internet, but in countries where there is censorship, the powerful always find a way to suppress free speech and keep digital platforms free from unpleasant messages," said juror Anke Herbener, quoted by marketing portal horizont.net (April 11). The campaign received attention including a Cannes Lions Gold in 2018 for creative use of streaming media. (See previous article here)
UNESCO announced this week (April 10) that the 2019 Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize will be awarded to Reuters journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone. Unfortunately, they will be unable to attend the May 2nd presentation in Ethiopia. They are still in jail in Myanmar, where they have been since December 2017. (See previous article here)
"They were arrested because they documented a taboo topic regarding crimes committed against Rohingyas," said jury chair Wojciech Tochman, quoted by rappler.com (April 10). Earlier this month they were awarded the Amnesty Media Award for investigation. Other awards include, jointly, Journalist of the Year at the UK Foreign Press Association Media Awards and the National Press Club (US) George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting.
Media awards are important. These are not simply mindless exercises in self-congratulation. At a time when the media sector is regularly bashed, abused and deserted taking a few moments to highlight the good stuff keeps the good people focused. Two industry awards this week honored quite different sectors. Both were given to stop-you-in-your-tracks messages.
TBWA/Helsinki with JCDecaux Finland and Clear Channel Finland received the Grand Prize at the annual Effie Awards Finland, presented this week (April 11). It honored an outdoor campaign for newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that appeared during one week in June 2018. The 280 installation campaign had a limited intended audience, the presidents of the United State and the Russian Federation, meeting that week in Helsinki.
Along major city routes, including a giant electronic installation at Music Hall where the summit took place, there was a simple message: “Mr President, welcome to the land of free press.” In press freedom indexes for more than a decade, Finland has ranked in the top five, often on top. Finns are very proud of this. (See more about press/media freedom here)
“Helsingin Sanomat is making tireless efforts to shed light on this complex state of the world, and this media output gave it a visible framework, at the right moment,” said jury chair Päivi Häiko, quoted by advertising portal marmai.fi (April 12). The campaign has won several advertising awards.
Also visual was the World Press Photo Award winner, announced in Amsterdam (April 11). Getty Images senior photojournalist John Moore grasp the agony of migrants seeking escape from one horror only to find another. The June 2018 photo showed a tearful and frightened 2 year old Yanela, a migrant from Honduras, as law enforcement officers detained her mother at the US/Mexican border. Time Magazine published (July 2, 2018) a montage of US president Donald Trump looking down at the crying Yanela with the title “Welcome to America.”
"My goal since I began photographing immigration and border security issues a decade ago has been to illuminate a story that is often told through statistics,” said Mr. Moore in a Getty statement (April 11). “I'm very proud to see that this work is having an impact on a global audience.” Mr. Moore has won several photojournalism prizes, including the Pulitzer in 2005. He recently published Undocumented, which focuses on immigration.
With European Parliament elections looming large, news outlets are under the microscope. The viral scourges of fake news and propaganda are - still - swimming around in the troubled waters. Advocates of real journalism are issuing health warnings.
Poland’s Society of Journalists (Towarzystwo Dziennikarskie - TD) blasted state TV and radio for biased news coverage. Its statement (April 7) leads by quoting the Venice Commission (Council of Europe - 2006) on electoral law: “Free media are a conditio sine qua non (an indispensable condition) for providing voters with diverse information on elections and referendums. Thus, it is important that freedom of the press is constitutionally and legally guaranteed and not undermined in practice.” (See more about elections and media here)
“We believe that in Poland media freedom is in practice undermined,” said the TD statement, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza (April 7). “European elections in 2019 may be free in Poland, but they will not be correct if all parties are not treated equally by public media. The PiS’s (Law and Justice party) interest in the elections in Poland is compromised by TVP (Telewizja Polska) and Polskie Radio.” Since the accession of the PiS TVP and Polskie Radio management and staff have been with filled party supporters. (See more about media in Poland here)
The statement detailed various complaints from a lack of contrasting opinion and to presenting those with opposing views as “enemies of Poland.” In the main TVP news program, “there was no pluralism, impartiality, balance or independence required from public media by law.” The statement also noted criticism on TVP of Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who was murdered in January.
This and other news - Onet.pl (April 8) reported that rival political parties plan to dismantle TVP and Polskie Radio entirely if PiS loses autumn parliamentary elections - brought out state broadcasting supporters. “Who wants to liquidate your jobs and why?” said National Media Council chairman Krzysztof Czabanski, a PiS appointee, on state radio Jedynka, quoted by wirtualnemedia.pm (April 9). “It turns out that some people can not be reconciled to the fact that they have lost power and influence, and by all means (they) try to recover them.” Waxing conspiratorial he identified the nemesis as “a very deep shadow, (that) includes not only the founding fathers of these media or people who were such pillars for those media behind which real masters hid.”
Legal battles over media freedom being rather grey events the subject generally receives little more than platitudes while authoritarians go merrily on their way. Last week UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt scored a bit of star-power. Prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has been named, officially, Special Envoy on Media Freedom, which carries ambassadorial ranking.
The announcement was made (April 5) at the G7 foreign ministers meeting in France. A joint initiative of the UK and Canadian governments will result in an international conference this summer to tackle media freedom and protections for journalists. The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not attend. US president Donald Trump often refers to critical news outlets as “enemies of the people.” The UK daily Times, principally owned by Rupert Murdoch, reported the prime minister’s office resisted Mrs Clooney’s appointment.
“Violence against journalists has reached alarming levels globally and we cannot turn a blind eye,” said Mr. Hunt at the meeting, quoted by UK daily Independent (April 6). “The media has a crucial role to play in holding the powerful to account. There is no escaping the fact that draconian and outdated laws around the world are being used to restrict the ability of the media to report the truth.
Mrs Clooney “will use her expertise to chair a panel comprising the world's best legal minds to develop and promote legal mechanisms to prevent and reverse media abuses." (See more about press/media freedom here)
She has represented Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in court cases in Myanmar and Al Jazeera reporters in Egypt, which "has shown me how easily vague laws and corrupt courts can be used to silence dissent and muzzle the media,” she added. Amnesty International has ask she meet with them on the jailing of two Northern Ireland investigative journalists.
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