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The journalism of our future

World News Day, celebrated on Sept 28, is a global public awareness day, led by a campaign to recognise and acknowledge the value and importance of fact-based journalism, and the essential role it plays in our daily lives.

The event is organised by the World Editors Forum and The Canadian Journalism Foundation. For 2024, the organisers are presenting a campaign titled Choose Truth, conceived and designed by Daily Maverick’s Project Kontinuum.

Twentytwo13 is supporting World News Day by featuring articles written by journalists from around the world.

The article below is by Fatemah Farag, founder and director of Welad ElBalad Media, Egypt.

Deep in the south of Egypt, a young woman once told me: “Being a journalist at a local newspaper has given me the opportunity to discover and assert who I am, what my community is, and what it needs. Not be told who we are and are supposed to be.”

As we near World News Day, I am reminded of the adage “democracy is local” (Thomas Jefferson all the way back then); the work of journalists in their communities is nothing short of an expression of agency, citizenship, and empowerment – the building blocks of democracy.

Everyone’s eyes focus on elections, big events, and major changes when considering the viability of actions to bring about democracy.

But from where I stand, it is the daily hard work of citizenship on the small scale that can eventually build sustainable understanding and commitment to effective, inclusive democracy. And the work of those committed journalists who go to work every day to report on and for their communities is central to that process.

This is not an easy job. Building, managing, and sustaining local, public service journalism capable of playing critical roles in supporting their communities is, more often than not, a thankless task. Across the world, money has dried up as the business of journalism has been threatened by big tech, jobs have been shed, quality has been compromised, resources are fragmented, and the value of journalism is constantly contested.

Closing information spaces are increasingly high-risk. Just look at the past 11 months in Gaza, where Israel has killed an unprecedented number of journalists with impunity. The latest count by Community to Protect Jouranlist (CPJ) documents at least 116 journalists killed in this war.

And it is not just lives we are losing; credibility too. “Beware if you continue to lie you will grow up to be a CNN journalist,” quipped a popular meme in Arabic at the advent of the carnage against Palestinians in Gaza. There were variations: a BBC journalist, etc.

Trust in Western media’s impartiality and standards has been sorely tested – and not just in the Arabic-speaking world – bringing back the ghosts of post-9/11 coverage, the Iraq War, and even coverage of Trump and US elections. It seems the very people we aim to serve are also increasingly jaded by misinformation/disinformation campaigns, and audience mistrust and avoidance are daily realities.

We know, from our work in the heart of communities and from the disturbing trends that have paralleled the demise of local journalism, that independent journalism is critical in exploring and upholding truth. “It is such a hard job,” confides a journalist as he mopped the sweat off his brow in a field where he was reporting on farmers’ struggles in Egypt. And yet he stood his ground, and because he did, his community could find reliable information and make informed decisions about their daily lives. He is not an internationally recognised figure; people rarely know the rank and file. But his work embodies the heart and soul of what journalism is – an act of service.

We have lived first-hand the dangers to democracy posed by losing independent – particularly local – media. We are now confident in the knowledge that the survival of a diverse, proficient media sector is an essential cornerstone in that pursuit of humanity and freedom.

We can have no more doubts regarding the threat monopolies of big tech companies pose to our profession and can think clearly about the value journalism brings to society and where we need to retrench and set up boundaries.

The examples of those grasping this moment are out there: journalist-owned media outlets for some, print houses and products for others, community engagement for many – and that is just some of what is being done.

The rest is up to you: our audiences and communities. Tell us what you need. Support news organisations that are prioritising good journalism and public service. Make good and informed choices regarding the media you consume. Because only together can we build a thriving, responsive journalism ecosystem in support of justice and truth.

This article was produced as part of the World News Day campaign to highlight the importance of journalism.