OSCE Media Conference Ended with Adoption of Recommendations

Baku / 20.07.18 / Turan: The 15th South Caucasus Media Conference "Qualitative Journalism for Reliable and True Information" was concluded in Tbilisi with the adoption of recommendations for governments in the field of media and freedom of speech under the auspices of the OSCE.

Representatives of governments, media, expert community of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and other countries took part in it.

The recommendations cover issues of assistance to the governments of OSCE participating States in self-sufficiency and self-government of the media, improving their quality and sustainability, access to information, protecting journalists, neutralizing hate speech, building trust and cooperation between governments and the media.

During the conference panel sessions addressed a number of issues, such as the digital transformation of the media and its impact on the practice and quality of journalism, the quality of information in the era of "fake news" and disinformation, regulation and self-regulation in the digital age, and recent developments in media freedom in the South Caucasus.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Arlem Desire, described the contrasts in the South Caucasus as respecting the freedom of speech and harassment of journalists. At the same time, he called paradoxes the possibility of gathering information by journalists and the existence of manipulations, and an unprecedented scale of challenges of the century of fake news.

To address these challenges of the century, the interaction of all states and the journalistic community in close cooperation with all OSCE structures is needed, Desire said. --0---