Internews’ #InformationSavesLives campaign aims to support journalists around the world so they can provide vital information to their communities. As the world faces the global COVID 19 pandemic, this work has never been more important. Your support is urgently needed.
Artyom Liss is Internews Media Advisor, based in Vilnius, Lithuania. He’s led a series of webinars for Russian-speaking journalists across Central and Eastern Europe, and says their top concerns are two-fold.
Reporting effectively on a pandemic – its causes, impacts, and solutions – relies on data. But, journalists ask, “How do you report on the numbers, on the statistics, in a scenario where you can’t trust your own government to give you the exact figures?”
Internews media advisors are pointing to resources and techniques to address these challenges, including guides from First Draft, the Global Investigative Journalists Network, and the International Journalists Network, and our own series of Russian-language webinars and partner mentoring.
But the other concern, Artyom says, is business-based. “Can the small regional newspapers survive? Can the small online operations in various places across the Russian-speaking world – Can they survive this lockdown?
“We are in this for a very long slog. … There needs to be a long-term solution to how we deal with the coverage of the epidemic, and the lockdown.”
The pandemic crisis is also an information crisis, and journalists are the first responders. In an emergency, information saves lives. Please help those on the information front line.