The 7th European and Latin American Publishers’ Congress (EditoRed) concluded on Thursday 21 March in Brussels with the adoption of a declaration reaffirming the mission of the profession to inform, condemning the threats to the media and issuing recommendations to support the profitability of press publishers in a constantly changing environment.
The media taking part in the conference, including Agence Europe, denounced the pressures, particularly political, that journalists can face in the exercise of their profession. “Political pressure and threats represent significant challenges that must be fought unconditionally, at all times, places and circumstances”, they emphasise in their declaration.
They mention the intimidation and even physical attacks faced by the profession in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba and Hungary, as well as the negative impact of drug trafficking on the profession. Also denounced are the appalling conditions under which the press is working in Gaza, in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas.
The EditoRed network also alerts political decision-makers to the growing competition from digital platforms, which contributes to threatening the “financial sustainability” of the media and may ultimately undermine editorial independence. It welcomes the European Union’s legislation on artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for serious prudential oversight.
“Although digital news publishers represent the essential prerequisite for the input of verified AI training content, the European regulator has left them out of the value chain generated by AI systems”, the publishers nevertheless point out. This “legal dysfunction” must be corrected, they warn, otherwise the spread of unreliable digital content will increase and the journalistic profession will not have the means to invest in reliable content.
See the Brussels Declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/bj7 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)