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Media Dialogue Programme for Journalists from Malaysia
This Media Dialogue Programme lasted for 6 days in Berlin from 26 March-1 April 2017 and was hosted by the Department of International Journalists and Media Dialogue Programme of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF). The Media Dialogue programme offers journalists from partners of FNF to travel to Germany to learn and share experience and knowledge on the issues relevant to media freedom and freedom of speech. FNF Malaysia nominated Malaysiakini – one of our close and long standing partner in Malaysia. Malaysiakini is a news website published in English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil, reaching over 2.5 million readers every month with independent coverage of political and current affairs. In this programme, 8 journalists from Malaysiakini, including CEO Premesh Chandran, attended with high interest and expectations. On the first day of the programme, we were introduced on how press and media freedom in Germany is lived and guaranteed. The resource persons were Yavuz Selim Narin (lawyer and expert on press law) and Franz Feyder (Head of Division, Investigative Journalism of Stuttgarter Nachrichten).
The next day was a discussion with Michael Klehm of the Deutscher Journalisten Verband (DJV) with the topic on international relations and new media. Followed by an afternoon session in the Deutsche Presseagentur (DPA) which is Germany’s leading news agency. This discussion particularly raised the issue about dealing with fake news and propaganda.
The 3rd day of the programme was very interesting for the delegates since it was a visit to attending the Bundespressekonferenz (Press Conference) with speakers of German government and ministries. The delegates found this press conference particularly unique because these press conferences have their own fixed schedules and the fact that officials or representatives from government and ministries are willing to attend these press conferences is also considered exceptional in Malaysia’s case.
In the following afternoon of the same day, the delegates met with the Association of German Magazine Publishers (Verband der Deutschen Zeitschriftenverleger). The discussion was mainly about the overview of the German magazine market, challenges by digitalization, freedom of press, freedom of opinion, and freedom of religion.
The meeting with the German Press Council happened on the 4th day of the programme. During this meeting, the delegates were given the German Press Code which highlights the guidelines for journalistic work as recommended by the German Press Council. The rest of the discussion raised the issues related to ethics and self-regulation of journalists. The next discussion was on the migration and refugees in Germany which also touched the background, political implications and how the press deals with it.
The next meeting was with Correctiv where we discussed about independent journalism platform and how it is run in Germany. Independent journalism is not considered as something new in Germany and helps to spread news which are not raised or in the spotlight of the mainstream media.
The final programme ended with a meeting with Krautreporter, which is also an independent journalist platform. The discussion is basically similar to what we had in Correctiv, but with more highlight on how they run the business and how they manage their subscription-based website
