Ahead of World Press Freedom Day 2018, Internews joined forces with the European Commission’s Brussels Info Point and other partners to discuss “What the international community needs to focus on to better support and protect press and media freedom.”

The discussion on the 24th April was moderated by Internews’ CEO, Daniel Bruce. Also on the panel were: Caroline Giraud, Media4Democracy.EU; Anne Marie Hammer, Global Forum for Media Development; Tom Gibson, Committee to Protect Journalists; Alberto Rabbachin, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology; and Adeline Hulin, Freedom of Expression, UNESCO.

A series of videos from Internews’ media partners around the globe were shown highlighting their views on current challenges to press freedom. Issues highlighted included gender discrimination in media houses in Pakistan, not having enough resources to verify facts in Kenya, and acute political interference in Kazakhstan.

Media literacy was mentioned frequently throughout the debate, and how it enormously contributes towards tackling modern challenges of misinformation and propaganda. Panelists discussed adding media literacy into the curriculum in the EU and beyond in order to help tackle a crisis of trust facing the media sector.

The debate also raised issues surrounding media ownership transparency, freedom of journalists to operate, and the importance of international action and diplomacy in tackling threats to press freedom.

Watch a video of the event:

Watch a video, showed at the event, of journalists expressing their views about challenges to media freedom: