 OK, I'd like to welcome everyone here today. My name is Roddy Flynn, I'm an associate professor in the School of Communications, but I'm not the reason that you're all here. You're here to listen to Renata Schroeder from the European Federation of Journalists. Just have a couple of notes, just like to offer out to everyone here, sort of the rules of the game for today. Broadly speaking, we're going to start off with Renata speaking for between 20 and 25 minutes. There will be an opportunity for people to throw in questions in the chat function on Zoom, and I will deliver the questions basically directly to Renata. We should stress that this is being recorded, and this is a public event, and so both the initial address from Renata and the Q&A session will be regarded as on the record. So again, I would strongly invite you to submit your questions even during the talk, if they occurred to you at that point. But we will wait until the end before you actually start putting them directly to Renata. And I would ask you that when you're putting forward your questions, if you could just identify who you are, and if you're affiliated with any particular organization, that would be very helpful to know. And if anyone would like to tweet the event, the Twitter handle for today is, or X handle for today, is askieaea. So I'd just like to briefly introduce Renata. She is the director of the European Federation of Journalists. She joined the International Federation of Journalists back in 1993. She has worked widely internationally. She has worked in the UN, New York. She worked in the Friedrich Haberts Foundation in Brussels. She joined the European Federation of Journalists back in 2003. And her academic background comes from initially international relations and political science at Boston University. And she's also studied at the Free University of Berlin, where she did her master's in 1992. But that's all you need to hear from me. Let me hand over the floor to Renata. And thank you so much for being here today. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you very much for having invited me and for giving me the opportunity to talk to you on these, at least I feel, burning issues which are close to my heart. And I truly believe ever more important for all citizens, young and old alike, who wish to live in a liberal democracy and who wish to get the facts right, who wish to use their right to know and who wish to look behind the curtains and make governments big business and whatever you want accountable. Today, indeed, we face many challenges from wars in Europe, the climate crisis, economical inequalities, you name it. People are afraid and ever more prone to simple messages. Yes, to disinformation coming from illiberal forces, foremost Russian Kremlin or Trump and his followers, but as we all know, not only. We all talk about this year as a super year of elections. And we know that for elections to be fair, independent media and access to it is a sine qua non, including for the upcoming European elections. Before I will outline some major threats and challenges to media freedom and the work of journalists and also come up with some proposals, what we need to do. Let me just say a few words about the European Federation of Journalists, for which, as you just learned, I have been working for 30 years. The EFJ is the umbrella organization of 73 journalist unions and associations from 45 countries, always in the Council of Europe member states. And Belarus and Russia, who are not in the Council of Europe and who unfortunately, our organizations now have to work from exile. Our headquarters are in Brussels with a small dynamic staff, we are eight. Our special and unique task is to defend both professional and social rights of all journalists, including the ever growing number of, unfortunately, mostly precarious freelance journalists. The EFJ is recognized by the European Union and the Council of Europe as the representative voice of journalists in Europe. We are a member of the European Trade Union Confederation and we are engaged, thanks mostly to the EU in many projects dealing with trust and journalism, with self-regulation, with monitoring of media freedom, with media literacy, local media, investigative journalism projects, of course, artificial intelligence and unfortunately evermore, the issue of safety. We advocate for journalism as a public good in which journalists are enabled to do what they are best at, reporting, investigating, analyzing, putting events in context, engaging with the audience, asking critical questions, explaining, yes, being the watchdog and debunking this information. Our affiliates differ a lot in strengths and organization density in the Nordic countries. Over 90% of the journalists are unionized, whereas the further you go south or east, the more challenging it is. We believe that only strong independent unions and associations can help journalists to sustain an enabling environment I will talk more about. Our affiliate in Ireland is the National Union of Journalists. So after this little introduction, where are we today? What are the major threats and challenges? The recently published report, and I show it here, press freedom in Europe, time to turn the tide, focuses on issues which may determine the freedom and integrity of electoral processes and democracy. It is the annual assessment of press freedom, groups in Europe by the partner organization of the Council of Europe Platform for the Safety of Journalists, which includes the EFJ and 14 other media freedom groups, but also the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union. Attacks, harassment and intimidation of journalists, restrictive legislation by many governments, the lack of independence and inadequate funding for public service media and media regulators, media capture by political or private interests, and I will talk more about it, state surveillance and slaps, staying for strategic lawsuits against public participation, all constrain journalist freedom to report on matters of public interest. The past year was defined by wars in the Ukraine and Karabakh, and of course the very deadly war in Gaza with at least 109 journalists killed for doing their job. No wonder that the freedom to report on national security matters is a prominent and very challenging issue, which brings me to state and spy surveys. The unprecedented use of surveillance mechanisms, including spyware, intimidates journalists as is its intent and can deter them from investigative sensitive stories. The Picasso scandal, you may have heard about it, exposed by a collaborative network of media outlets led by the International Collaborative Journalism Network Forbidden Stories, revealed in 2021 that nearly 200 journalists around the world had been targeted with that branded spyware, including in Azerbaijan, in France, Greece, Hungary, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. And experts believe figures for the number of journalists within the EU have been targeted with such tools could still be the tip of the iceberg. This was the main reason why the European Commission included an important article on protection of journalist sources and the restriction of the use of spyware in its proposal for a European media freedom act. I will talk about that a little bit later. France fought to the very end for national security exemption in the act, showing a clear lack of commitment by politicians and governments to media freedom. Thanks to intense advocacy by journalists, digital rights and other civil society groups, however, this was not included in the final text adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers just a few weeks ago. But the possibility of spyware being deployed against journalists will still need to be strictly monitored through transparency and judicial control. Slaps, which I mentioned before and you may have already forgotten what it stands for, journalists and media outlets are often sued for defamation also in Ireland of exacious lawsuits. Often they are asked heavy fines or their assets are frozen that often leads to self-censorship or just the impossibility to continue sensitive investigations. Daphne Karwana Galicia, the Maltese investigative journalist who was brutally murdered in September, 2017 had faced at the time of her death, 43 civil and five criminal libel suits. According to the Coalition Against Slaps in Europe, a slap is an abusive lawsuit filed by a private party with the purpose of silencing critical speech. For example, when a business executive goes to court to intimidate a journalist or human rights defender with the goal of complicating their work. And yes, slaps are on the rise. The other term I mentioned before is media capture. In particular, in Central and Eastern Europe, oligarchs or governments have bought media to pursue the political or economical interests. Populous governments and other vested interests have taken over large media holdings. Public service broadcasters are used as most pieces of the state. I think Hungary has been the best example here. Poland now with the new government shows how difficult it is to get rid of such media capture. Romania, Bulgaria, but even Italy and Greece have all increased captured media as well. Media capture can take multiple forms such as media ownership, pressure through advertising, bribes, and even jailing and physical violence against journalists. Media capture is shown to be a growing phenomenon linked both to the resurgence of authoritarian governments. Hungary, again, being a good example, but look at what Putin is doing in Russia, as well as to the structural and financial weaknesses afflicting media markets. In this environment, political figures and economical elites are colluding to undermine the independence of privately owned media. I just had a few moments ago with Slovakian journalist here who asked me if we are concerned of what's happening in Slovakia and to tell you the truth, we are extremely concerned. Just as an example, the newly elected Prime Minister Fiko, first thing he was doing is getting rid of or destroying the public service media and establishing a new public service media or trying to, which follows his political ideals. The European Commission has already alluded to the government that is completely against such a new law and we are very curious what will be happening. However, I could go on and on, but I just wish to briefly outline four more threats or challenges which are in connection with the lack of business models for independent public interest journalism we face today. And these are precarious conditions. Local news deserts, the use of AI-generated content and clickbait journalism you probably have heard about. Hand in hand with the rise of misinformation, the business model for independent journalism is withering and the status of professional journalists is at a low end. Precarious working conditions, especially for freelancers, threaten the quality and independence of their work. According to the latest media pluralism monitor from the European University's Institute Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom in Florence, which is supported by the European Union, only four European countries out of 32 analyzed offer good working conditions for journalists. Guess who they are? Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and yes, Ireland. The results show, however, a particularly worrying labor situation in many countries and above all in Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro and Romania where journalists who do not enjoy the status of employee completely lack social protection. This precarious status is most apparent in local media. Although these outlets, especially local radio are often or most of the time the most trusted and important when it comes to debunking this information, when it comes to providing contacts at local regional but also at national and European level, a recent CMPF study highlights the increasing number of news deserts throughout the EU where such media are no longer available as well as a related decline in local journalists and deterioration of their working conditions. And very often when there is no local independent media anymore then our friends, the Russian trolls and others are intruding or right-wing parties as we had now an example in Turingien where influenced IFD free papers are circulated in bakeries and gas stations. Regarding Ireland, the report says local media are an important feature of Irish life which is reflected in high levels of public trust. Unsurprisingly, there is considerable concern about threats to local media and the implication for social cohesion and democracy. The potential for news deserts has been raised parliamentary hearings at academic conferences and by the National Union of Journalists. In Ireland there are no real news deserts. Interestingly, it is the rapidly growing suburbs of Dublin City that are most immediate of risk of being news deserts. These suburbs lack the media presence commensurate with their size. With the speedy transformation of Generative AI used in the newsrooms, the already fragile information ecosystem has new challenges. We all know that as well, of course, many opportunities. What is urgent to keep or re-establish is the trust in journalism. AI may be seen as a means to transform the information ecosystem, but Generative AI in particular carries the risk of increased misinformation and so falling public trust. I only need to use the word of deepfakes. The use of AI needs to be regulated accordingly so as to empower journalists to be quicker, more efficient and more innovative rather than substituting for the absence. Training here is paramount, but with lacking resources, AI may be misused to replace journalists. And journalists are asked to compete with the social networks attention-driven economy with clickbait and with influences. You name them. It's a sort of alternative media landscape which is growing. It's unfortunately most often not quality and boring facts that get the most attention. As we learned from an MIT study in 2018, lies go eight times quicker than such boring but very important facts. So thank you so far for listening to all these challenges. Let's pause a moment and think about what to do. And I will be very happy in the discussion afterwards to get some suggestions from you as well. I have three here to turn the tide. And to be honest, I think we do not have much time before, again, the Russian and Trumpist trolls take over. And I don't want to be too negative, but I want to shake a little bit your brains. So first, what is very important is the enforcement of international standards. EU regulations, specifically the European Media Freedom Act, but also the SLAP directive, which is called by some the DAF directive. Second, we need broad alliances to support journalism and media literacy. And third, we need a sort of Marshall plan for investing in quality information in good journalism. So let me say just a few words regarding enforcement of international standards. The Council of Europe has set a lot of very good standards and recommendations on all important issues dealing with media, media concentration, protection of sources, public service media, ethical standards, the quality of journalism, recommender systems and it just adopted also a recommendation on SLAPs last week. But though member states have endorsed them all, the implementation is not taking seriously. It is and remains soft law. This is one of the reasons why the EU has done more than ever before to try to create a safer and sustainable space for journalism, not least by pursuing the European Media Freedom Act. It has adopted a directive against the use of SLAPs, against journalists and human rights defenders, just recently it has adopted the Digital Service Act and Digital Markets Act, both very important to create a fairer level playing field and make Big Tech more accountable and transparent. It has adopted an Artificial Intelligence Act, not least to make sure that human control must be guaranteed. It has supported many projects linked to press freedom and journalistic self-regulation. It has supported studies on so-called media deserts, but it also has given funds for cross-border investigative journalism for freelancers and for also local media. It supported training on the safety of journalists as well as social dialogue. All together, around 50 million per year has gone to media organizations under these rubrics. This is not enough, but at least it shows that something has been done. The EMFAR, the European Media Freedom Act, we make all historical regulation as for the first time it covers not only the audiovisual sector, but all media, including the formerly called written press. In a nutshell, the EMFAR shall create an enabling environment where journalists and media are better protected from government's political influencing, where journalists and their sources are protected, including from spyware, where public service media's independence and financing is secured, as well as media transparency rules and tools for editorial independence are in place. The regulation establishes a sort of public interest test when it comes to mergers in the media sector. It also creates a so-called media privilege when it comes to content moderation of the big platforms. Though the regulation with direct national impact is less ambitious than we had advocated for and a lot of the text is very vague and principle-based and will indeed be difficult to translate into positive action, it is, and I want to stress that, the first regulatory EU achievement on media freedom and for that alone must be highly welcomed. This is all good, but if we do not have political will, it will be difficult. And this political will with the rise of illiberal parties and governments is limited. And that's why, and here I'm coming to the second point, we need to convince citizens that illiberal parties are no good for our democracy and for our quality of information and much more. We need a broad alliance of civil society readers and listeners, journalists, organizations, trade unions, academics, media literacy organizations, schools, university, cultural and environmental organizations and so on to sustain journalism and to convince policymakers and politicians that just as environmental protection is urgent to counter the climate crisis, protection of journalists and journalism is essential to resolve the information crisis. Without citizens enjoying the right to know, without accountability and transparency, without ethical journalism, also without media literacy, there is no democracy. As the OSCE representative on freedom of the media rightly put it, without media freedom, there cannot be any security. We just organized with the financial support of the European Commission a great journalism and media literacy festival in Florence with over 1000 participants where we discussed the role of journalism in showcase good journalistic projects, good media literacy and we also gave prices to young people who are engaged in both. We will have the second festival in Croatia early next year and hope to continue such great activity. Many young people participated and were interested in supporting us in this thrive for journalism as a public good and that gave some hope. And yes, I'm happy to get any good suggestions in terms of how to improve such a festival. In here I'm coming to the third point which I already mentioned, journalism as a public good needs funding. It needs a mix of public, private and foundation-based funding. Independent professional journalism is expensive if it wants to be good. In our view, we need to tax big tech and innovative ways to fund journalism besides, of course, citizens convincing to pay for information. Audience engagement, new journalistic formats support for media literacy, the right use of AI, they're all crucial to make journalism a tool for citizens to connect, to debate learn and engage in public discourse in today's ever more polarized society. That is why we just adopted our EFJ manifesto prior to the EU elections. It's called Stand Up for Journalism and here we propose exactly three action points for the future EU policymakers. The first is regarding the viability of journalism, the second is on safety, how to better protect journalists and the third one is on regulating generative AI. Thank you very much.