The General Secretary of the NUJ, Michelle Stanistreet, welcomed the attendees at the headquarters of the International Transport Federation (ITF) and reminded that there is a need to rebuild trust in journalism.
“Levels in public trust are impaired, frontline news resources have been hollowed out in many media outlets after successive cutbacks; the levels of deliberate engagement in mis and dis-information by a range of actors are unparalleled; a combination that has been turbo-charged by the rapid deployment of generative AI [...] It makes quite the perfect storm,” said Michelle Stanistreet.
Read the speech delivered by NUJ GS here.
BBC Director General, Tim Davie, told the IFJ conference that individual countries need to fight to be able to tell their own stories and news. “Journalism is now either completely or partly blocked in around 75 per cent of the world. Only 20% of people now live in what are considered to be free countries. Journalists are being denounced as foreign agents and more than 300 BBC World Service journalists are now working in exile,” pointed out Tim Davie.
“Reporters all around the world are facing escalating dangers, increased levels of persecution and harassment, and ever more subtle modes of intimidation. Nowhere more than our BBC Persian journalists who have been exposed to decades of horrendous threats and harassment.”
Read the speech delivered by the BBC Director General here.
IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger asserted that journalism is under attack, but emphasised the work that the IFJ and its affiliates are carrying out to support journalists and journalism across the world. “Journalism is under attack. And the IFJ reacts, urgently, with its affiliates, and for 9 months has been asking the Israeli government to let foreign journalists enter Gaza and let out civilians, women, children, representing more than 70% of the victims of this conflict. To date, the IFJ will have raised several hundred thousand euros for journalists and their families in Gaza.
The IFJ also mobilised in February 2022 after Russian aggression in Ukraine. The donation campaign was a success and our long-standing and solid partnership with UNESCO allowed us very quickly to deliver bulletproof vests, helmets, generators before building solidarity centres for journalists on the front, but also in the centre and west of the country.
In total, six centres have been opened and are managed by our Ukrainian unions and last week I signed a new $100,000 project with UNESCO so that these structures can survive for a few more months. In two and a half years, the IFJ and UNESCO have sent nearly €800,000 to Ukraine.
Journalism is under attack. But journalism knows that it can count on the IFJ and its affiliates,” Anthony Bellanger concluded.
Read the speech delivered by IFJ GS (in French) here.