Participants in New World Encounters hope to gain insight into innovative practices
The global challenges facing traditional media – a collapse of advertising-based business models accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, the difficulties of becoming digital-first organizations, and a decline in support for press freedom and the rise of propaganda and “fake news” – are even greater in Africa, where news organizations often lack access to the resources available elsewhere.
That’s why New World Encounters has opened its upcoming virtual study tour of German news organizations to members of the Atlantic Federation of African News Agencies (FAAPA), in a partnership that aims to extend the practices and knowledge of innovative media companies as widely as possible.
Hachimi Idrissi. the president of FAAPA, says the most pressing problems for the African press are a lack of financial and human reources, the need to strengthen kills in fact-checking and the fight against fake news, better training of journalists in innovative content production, and increasing African information on the web through integration of social networks.
“As everyone knows, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a heavy impact on the press sector,” Mr Idrissi said in an interview with New World Encounters. “Faced with the economic recession which has hit the media sector hard, it has become imperative to rethink the business model of African news agencies and the written press in general.”
Mr Idrissi called the participation in New World Encounters, which is open to news executives, companies and associations world-wide, a “new dynamic” aimed as supporting strategic inititives in the media field. “Our expectations in this area are varied and the questions are numerous,” he said. “We hope that the work of New World Encounters will be of great benefit to a new business model for African news agencies.”
Read the full interview here.
The New World Encounters on-line study tour, which begins on 17 September, will present 15 speakers over three weeks from innovative regional and national publishers in Europe’s largest media market, including Die Zeit, Funke Mediengruppe, Hamburger Abendblatt, Media Pioneer, Die Welt, Business Insider, Rheinische Post and Stuttgarter Zeitung.
For more information, please contact Sonia Gonzalez – sonia.gonzalez@upgrademedia.fr
Larry Kilman, New World Encounters
New World Encounters is a joint community organized by Upgrade Media and QuestiQ to connect people, companies and organizations across borders and industries around specific, current themes, with physical, virtual and hybrid encounters. NWE aims to break through fixed patterns, creating room for new solutions in the new digital media world we are all creating. For more information, please contact us :
David Sallinen
Founder, Upgrade Media and New World Encounters
Phone +33.6.34515466
david.sallinen@upgrademedia.fr
Ioana Sträter
Managing Director, QuestiQ
Phone +49.172.6083414
ioana.straeter@questiq.de