site.bta2024 New Horizons in Journalism International Conference Takes Place in Sofia

The 2024 New Horizons in Journalism: Global Elections and Democracy international conference took place at the Hilton Hotel in Sofia on Monday.

During the event, Prof. Jane E. Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota stressed that journalists are on the front lines of the fight to keep democracy alive. She participated in a panel discussion on "Disinformation and Polarization in High-Stakes Election Situations." Prof. Kurtley said that the tools of democracy can be used for both good and evil purposes, and that is why journalists cannot say that the issue of keeping democracy alive is not their problem.

The discussion also included Patrik Szicherle, Research Fellow at the Centre for Democracy & Resilience in GLOBSEC, Hungary, and Madalina Voinea, researcher at EFOR, Romania. The moderator was journalist and media consultant from South Africa, Camilla Bath.

Szicherle  said that currently anyone can become a journalist, can start an online blog, a YouTube channel, provide information through a social media account. He noted that everyone wants to be the first to report something, but that opens up potential for mistakes, for false information,and  this ultimately affects trust in the media, and its decline increases people's susceptibility to misinformation.

Voinea focused her speech on the European legislation on digital services. For the first time, there will be real mechanisms to ask the big platforms with over 45 million users for access to information, she noted, adding that these data are important in the work on investigations, including those related to the subject of the elections. However, the chance of journalists from Eastern Europe or a smaller market getting information from such platforms is close to zero, she noted.

Geopolitics and US elections were among the highlights of lectures by Thomas Hanson, a diplomat at the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and David Schultz, a professor at Hamlin University in the US, within the conference.