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edited by Marco Nurra
What does GDPR mean for journalists? From 25 May 2018, General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, will be enforced by regulators across Europe. This need-to-know GDPR guide explains what this will mean for newsrooms, b2b media, and freelance journalists.
More countries are trying to criminalize fake news. In March, Poynter rounded up all the anti-misinformation actions around the world. Things haven’t really slowed down since then.
Deepfakes, misinformation, and what journalists can do about them. Nothing online is quite as it appears, now less than ever. But in a way, this technological leap could actually be good news for journalists — and might also provide an opportunity for the kind of goodwill gesture that tech platforms ought to extend to a suspicious public.
Fact-check the fact-checkers. Just don’t vilify them. “Too often, attacks on fact-checkers seem politically motivated rather than based in genuine dissent. One political group that is now accusing the fact-checkers of being “leftists” is the same that in 2016 sent another fact-checker — Agencia Publica’s Truco — a photo of a penis with “Check This” when politely asked to provide evidence for a claim made,” writes Alexios Mantzarlis.
News stories in Europe are predominantly by and about men. Even photograph sizes are unequal. A new study out from the European Journalism Observatory provides a look at just how bad the problem is in Europe.
“I’m not quoting enough women.” A New York Times columnist made these Twitter lists of experts in key subjects for his writing — all of whom are women. “Journalists and conference organizers aren’t going to solve gender imbalance. The pipeline — making sure both men and women have ample opportunities to serve in government, run organizations and become distinguished experts — is indeed more important than anything else. But journalists and other gatekeepers are letting themselves off too easily if they don’t admit their own role in the pipeline problem. […] All of which means that journalists aren’t being neutral if they just go about their business and pretend to ignore gender. They are allowing sexism to help dictate their sources — and are perpetuating the problem. The people who get quoted today, after all, are more likely to be invited onto a panel tomorrow and offered a sweet new job next year.”
4 questions to ask yourself to make your stories more gender-sensitive. The road towards gender equality is paved with better journalism — a journalism able to represent and treat women of all backgrounds as equal, and one that includes them in the news with respect and integrity.
Covering LGBTQ issues brings risk of threats and retaliation for journalists and their sources. The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke with journalists and news outlets based in Argentina, Iran, Indonesia, the U.S., Uganda, and Russia, about the challenges they face reporting on LGBTQ issues.
Mexican journalist shot dead, the 32nd killed since December 2012. “Impunity continues to incentivise the killers,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Four journalists have been murdered in Mexico so far in 2018, according to CPJ, and two of those killings are confirmed to have been carried out due to the reporters’ work.
A look at Google and Facebook’s funding of media and journalism. Taken together, Facebook and Google have now committed more than half a billion dollars to various journalistic programs and media partnerships over the past three years. “The result is a somewhat dysfunctional alliance. People in the media business (including some on the receiving end of the cash) see the tech donations as guilt money, something journalism deserves because Google and Facebook wrecked their business. The tech giants, meanwhile, are desperate for some good PR and maybe even a few friends in a journalistic community that — especially now — can seem openly antagonistic,” writes Mathew Ingram.