IMS (International Media Support)

Join us online for the launch of Where is the Money? We want to understand where sustainable interventions for tackling journalism’s economic crisis may lie. Through extensive research, including quantitative and qualitative methodologies in Asia, Africa, MENA and Latin America, we have mapped opportunities for and challenges of achieving economic sustainability for public interest media. We present key recommendations of what is needed to get us there in localised and coordinated ways. The webinar will talk through key points from the report highlighting openings in each region. The key strength of the approach is its opportunity for cross pollinating knowledge on workable trends. We hope to inspire new conversations. 💸 The study recommends more holistic approaches are necessary at local, national and regional levels. 💸 Achieving #sustainability for public interest journalism requires long-term financial and strategic will from multiple stakeholders who work towards aligned goals. Join the webinar and find out more: 📅 Date: 31 October 2024 ⏰ Time: 1PM CET 📢Register: https://lnkd.in/eX3QXJNV

IMS' Head of Journalism and Media Viability Clare Cook in conversation with Dr. Laura Moore on The Media Viability Manifesto, a global initiative that has been launched to shape the economics needed to safeguard the fundamental right to freedom of expression and access to information around the world. It has been set up to ensure the financial survival of journalism, including in the countries where IMS works. Be sure to tune in 🎧

The extreme and unprecedented killings of journalists in Gaza is now also happening in Lebanon. A few weeks ago, we warned of the imminent threat to the lives of Lebanese journalists. This morning, the IDF killed three journalists in the southern town of Hasbaiyya by bombing the house they were sleeping in. Two of the journalists worked for Al Mayadeen TV and the third worked for the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar TV. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the attack, which is believed to have targeted the journalists. It has been just over a year since Reuters' Issam Abdallah - the first journalist killed in Lebanon by the IDF after 7 October - was attacked. Since then, there have been six independent investigations into the attack and the findings leave "no room for doubt" that it was a targeted killing, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). In full accordance with previous situations where the IDF has killed journalists both before and after 7 October, no one has been charged with or convicted of the killing. On 8 December last year, Israel said that the incident was under review. We have heard nothing since and we expect to hear nothing as Israel has, for decades, had a pattern of granting full impunity to members of the IDF involved in the killings of journalists. Israel should stop targeting journalists and should be held accountable for the journalists they have already targeted and killed. Photo: Ramiz Dallah/Anadolu via Getty Images

📢 Webinar: Where is the money? for public interest media. Join us for a global reflection hosted by IMS featuring detailed perspectives on the MENA, Asia, Latin America and Africa regions. We have spent two years compiling insights into what it will take to deliver a #sustainable and independent industry that truly delivers #journalism as a public good. 🤝 We take a deep dive into regional perspectives of new forms of funding, financing and investment for public interest #media, providing a multi-stakeholder reflection in four global regions on how public interest media can be best supported over the next decade. 📰 Through contextually based research, the report - published on 31 October - offers insights into the funding landscape including needs, challenges, gaps and recommendations. The question is not whether interventions are needed to tackle the economic crisis facing journalism, but how this support should be structured. Guy Berger, chair of the IMS board, said: “If there is one fundamental principle to be gleaned from engaging with this research, I believe it is this: the complex problem of media sustainability requires holistic solutions. Isolated and piecemeal actions will not suffice. Coalitions, communities and cohorts are needed.” Join us online for the launch of #Whereisthemoney? for key insights on how media leaders are making considerable progress against difficult odds.  📅 Date: 31 October 2024 ⏰ Time: 1PM CET 📢Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3Ye7PzM Read more about the report: https://lnkd.in/eaKBYd_e

In support of Ukrainian journalists and media professionals IMS want to express our deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Viktoria Roshchyna, a brave and talented Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity. She was 27 years old.   Viktoria Roshchyna was a renowned Ukrainian journalist, covering Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. She was a recipient of the “Courage in Journalism Award” and worked to bring facts about Russia’s war of aggression and its illegal occupation of Ukraine to the world. Her fate is a tragic reminder of the many individuals who remain detained in occupied Ukrainian territories and in Russia.   Together with the Ukrainian media community we demand a thorough and independent investigation that will clarify the circumstances of Victoria Roshchyna’s death. https://lnkd.in/dDZBN3eW IMS also support the EU’s firm commitment to holding to account all perpetrators and accomplices of war crimes committed in connection with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

Together with Journalismfund Europe, IMS announce the launch of our innovative project, “Pluralistic Media for Democracy”. Our new Pluralistic Media for Democracy project will allocate funds to support and strengthen independent media across the European Union and beyond via grants and capacity building. Through strategic support in innovation, business sustainability, and audience engagement, the programme will empower media organisations to continue their critical role in upholding democracy and fostering informed public discourse across Europe. The programme will provide financial support to at least 40 local, regional, community, and investigative media outlets that operate in “news deserts” or areas experiencing strained media pluralism. The project is co-funded by the European Commission For details and deadlines📅👇 https://lnkd.in/dg-7YHpD

📢The Media Viability Manifesto (MVM) is out! Your new resource if you want to join forces to tackle the economic crisis facing journalism. Become part of the MVM community. The Media Viability Manifesto provides an urgently needed common framework for joint action for anyone aiming to strengthen independent media. Developed by 13 media development and support organizations, the MVM offers: 💡a joint definition of media viability. 💡a joint Theory of Change for media viability. 💡a typology of existing media viability tools and approaches. With that, the Media Viability Manifesto paves the way for: ✔ more conceptual clarity, systematic exchange and learning. ✔ more strategic and coordinated collaboration between multiple actors. ✔ better aligned practical implementation in the field of media viability. The Media Viability Manifesto is available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Please download it here: https://lnkd.in/drEht9ia Join us - DW Akademie, IMS, Free Press Unlimited, UNESCO, Center for International Media Assistance, SembraMedia, BBC Media Action, FT Strategies, Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD), Internews, IREX, Fondation Hirondelle and International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) - in using the MVM for more effective, united efforts for global media viability.

Since those first bombs fell on Gaza 12 months ago, the right to information about what is happening in the Gaza strip has been stifled with Israeli forces’ methodical destruction of the Palestinian territory's media infrastructure.  Journalists, who should be protected under international law, are being killed, detained, and silenced. Committee to Protect Journalists lists at least 128 killed media workers - 123 of them Palestinian - in the past year, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history.  Those who survive in Gaza face unimaginable hardship, having lost family members, colleagues, homes, and livelihoods, all while continuing to report. Support Gaza's journalists: https://lnkd.in/dPWYQ-P8

How can local media and communities overcome news deserts? A new report shares key findings, capacity-development tools and case studies from Local Media for Democracy (LM4D), a programme designed to build resilience, independence and sustainability: https://lnkd.in/eDdnkeHZ In this report we: – unfold 10 practical examples and five detailed case studies of media initiatives to overcome news deserts from 10 EU countries. – share best practices and inspiration for local media on how they can take action in short time frames. – set out the practical capacity-development tools designed by our expert advisers. – share programming methodology. – offer our recommendations on continued long-term support for local media in Europe. LM4D was an 18-month pilot programme supporting 42 grantees in 17 countries and co-funded by the European Union and implemented by a consortium that included European Federation of Journalists, Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF), IMS and Journalismfund Europe. The programme ran from February 2023 to July 2024.

We are extremely concerned about the escalating situation in Lebanon and the dangers it poses for the country’s media workers and other civilians. In Gaza, Israel has already killed an unprecedented number of journalists, some in targeted attacks, some in intense bombardments of densely populated areas. Judging from the large number of civilians already killed in Lebanon – including at least 50 children – there is little to suggest that Israel can be expected to behave any differently there. The risk to Lebanese journalists’ lives is real and imminent. IMS calls for an immediate ceasefire and stresses in the strongest possible terms that journalists are entitled to protection as civilians, and that targeting journalists is a war crime. Photo by Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images