Impact: Citizen Voice in Media

There’s nothing more important to functioning democracies than an informed, engaged public. When citizens have access to trustworthy media that includes diverse perspectives and sources, they are empowered to speak out on the issues that most affect them.

The Problem

To hold governments accountable, citizens need accurate information about complex issues. In too many places, legal restrictions, threats, and intimidation impede journalists’ work, and journalists themselves lack the skills needed for investigative reporting. Citizens, too, often lack the education and know-how to effectively evaluate and participate in local media.

The Solution

Internews supports citizen voice in media by providing journalism training and mentorship that helps independent reporters produce in-depth, informative content. Our media partners produce work that engages citizens through education and two-way conversations. Media literacy programs give everyday people tools to combat misinformation.

How Supporting Independent Media Supports Good Governance

The United Nations identifies eight elements of good governance. Internews’ work, overlaid in orange, has a direct impact on citizens’ ability to participate and hold governments to account.

Infographic on media's role in democracy

Impact - Liberia

In advance of Liberia's historic October election, with the support of Internews, 126 public debates were held in every single district, a first for this post-conflict nation, enabling lower house candidates to reach Liberia’s electorate in person – many for the first time.

The town of Butuo in Nimba County was host to the first-ever debate for candidates wanting to represent the region in Liberia’s third post-conflict presidential and legislative elections. One of the residents, 59-year-old Joseph Dahn was happy to witness this historic event.

"Thank God we are talking democracy in Buuto, not war, because this is the birth place of the Liberian civil war that killed thousands of innocent people. People only remember Buuto when you talk about the war years, but the story is different today as we host a debate that will help citizens vote for the right candidate for this region.”

The Challenge for Journalists

In this video, Journalists from Kazakhstan, Kenya, El Salvador, Moldova, Pakistan and Tajikistan reflect on the challenges of working in media, trying to be a watchdog on the government:

Informing Afghans About Elections

Two young women reporters, Wahida Faizi and Sofia Mohammadzai, along with several other reporters at Salam Watandar, received awards from the Independent Elections Commission for their outstanding elections coverage:

Impact - Moldova

In rural Izbiște, Moldova, head librarian Alexandru Rusu saw an opportunity to teach elders how to combat misinformation and propaganda while they waited in the local post office for their pension checks. With the post office door as a projection screen, Alexandru started media literacy classes, one of 16 librarians around the country participating in Internews’ MEDIA-M project.

"With the help librarians, who have the trust of people in their communities, we have encouraged citizens to analyze everything they see, hear or read; dissect the information that seems strange to them, and document it from the sources at their disposal.” — Oxana Iutes, Deputy Chief of Party with Internews in Moldova

More Information

Strengthening local independent media to support citizen voice is at the core of Internews' work. For more than 35 years and in more than 100 countries, Internews has strengthened the capacity of thousands of media professionals, human rights activists, and information entrepreneurs. These partners have reached millions of people with quality, local information, improving lives and building lasting change.

A group of people smile and clap and wave their hands

“I can eat Tilapia again!”

With local elections recently completed and national elections approaching in April of 2019, political issues are a hot topic in Indonesia and rumors are flying. Disinformation and misinformation have become a serious problem. Indonesia’s population is among the top five users of Facebook and Twitter globally and, during the 2017 election period, political groups used hundreds of fake and anonymous accounts to churn up religious, ethnic, geographic and political divisions. Since early this year, Internews has been partnering with AJI and the Google News Initiative to improve the quality of news and information reaching citizens in Indonesia and to combat misinformation and “fake news,” especially leading up to the elections. Journalists participate in a workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia that provided training in using tools from the internet to verify information. Credit: Internews“From (this) January to March, there has been an increase of up to 300 percent of hoax information spread in the community, compared to 2016,” said Dian Lestari, Chairperson of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) chapter in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, during a hoax-busting and digital workshop for students and the general public. This rise, gathered from information from the West Kalimantan Police Cyber Crime Unit, is predicted to continue to increase during the period before Election Day. Reinardho Sinaga, the Secretary of AJI Pontianak and a Google-certified trainer, added, “All information or news should be verified first to determine if it is potentially a hoax or not. It is necessary to identify the content and the source.” Debunking misinformation Through the Google News Initiative project, journalists learn how to conduct online verification, find original content, debunk disinformation and misinformation, and protect their data. They also learn how to better communicate with their communities, delivering accurate, high-quality reporting and building trust. For example, an image of an invitation to an event where the Governor of Jakarta was supposedly going to announce his bid for the presidency was circulating through social media. It caused a stir because the invitation appeared to come from the Islamic Student Association Alumni Corp, which has declared itself nonpolitical (in 2017, hoaxes were used to stoke religious animosity). The image was debunked as a hoax by Edmiraldo Siregar, one of the Google News Initiative trainers who works for Liputan6.com, a participant in Cekfakta, a collaborative fact-checking and verification platform launched by Internews and its partners. Ika Ningtyas is a regional coordinator for AJI and a young journalist from East Java province who works freelance for several media outlets, including Tempo, an Indonesian news portal. She participated in the Training of Trainers hoax-busting workshop conducted in February 2018 and soon after began helping Tempo with their participation in Cekfakta. “I become involved when Tempo needed advanced verification using online tools. These tools are very useful, because not all hoax information can be solved by conventional verification,” says Ika. Most of the workshops are conducted in Bahasa Indonesia and led by local journalists. Credit Google News InitiativeIn Pontianak, another trainer from the Google News Initiative Training Network, Reinardho “Edho” Sinaga, trained a group of people in his town how to check and verify misinformation and disinformation. A participant asked if they could verify some information that she believed was true. She had heard that her favorite dish, the fish tilapia, was dangerous to eat because it causes cancer in humans. She had not eaten tilapia for the two years since she heard that rumor. Using tools provided by the Google News Initiative Training Network, Edho found that the story was false. As soon as the training was over, the participant went straight to the nearest restaurant to find tilapia. She sent a message to Edho, saying, “I can eat tilapia again!” Although this is a comical example, the effects of disinformation are no laughing matter. Disinformation in the health and humanitarian sectors can have serious consequences. Likewise, Indonesia has a long history of lynching and mob justice, and disinformation can have deadly consequences on social cohesion, as disruptors look to tear at the heart of the country’s rich social and cultural fabric. Local Sustainability and Collaboration To increase its effectiveness and reach, the project aims to train local journalists in all parts of Indonesia. To that end, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) will train 750 journalists and more than 1,000 bloggers, students, and researchers through the end of 2018. “I’ve never attended a workshop like this,” said a participant at a training in Denpasar, Bali. “For me it is a very crucial issue that should be discussing broadly, especially when we are consuming a lot of information from the Internet and social media. At least now I know what kind of information should be re-shared to my friends and minimize spreading hoaxes.” In May, Masyarakat Anti-Fitnah Indonesia (Mafindo), the Association of Indonesia Cyber Media (AMSI), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Internews, and Google News Initiative organized the Trusted Media Summit. At the summit, 22 respected national and local media outlets, in collaboration with Mafindo, launched CekFakta.com (or “FactCheck.com” in English), publicly committing to raise journalistic standards by not propagating misinformation. All hoaxes and rumors circulating in the public are reported and entered into the Cekfakta database and go through a verification process, the results of which can be accessed by participating media. “For the first time, the mainstream Indonesian cyber media collaborates,” said Wenseslaus Manggut, Chairman of the Indonesian Cyber Media Association. “We put aside competition for bigger things.” Restoring and maintaining public trust and confidence in media is a goal that we all share. Since the launch of the first Training of Trainers in Jakarta on January 27, 2018, the Google News Initiative Training Network has grown into a vast network of 50 trainers and 1,431 trainees in just seven months. The trainers were trained in two TOT events, and the trainees have participated in 42 Google News Initiative trainings and Google News Initiative half-day workshops across Indonesia Internews is also partnering with Google News Initiative in India to provide high-level training to 8000 journalists across English and six other Indian languages that include Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada to fight against misinformation and fake news. (Banner photo: Participants of the Trusted Media Summit chant their commitment to fighting misinformation in Indonesia. Credit: Google News Initiative)