The Media Freedom Cohort’s Findings Report comprises commitments gathered by a small number of government leads and NGOs, including IFEX, from more than 100 governments, businesses, media platforms, and civil society organisations on priority areas of concern: protecting journalists' safety and security, advancing freedom of expression, and bolstering independent and diverse media.
“The Media Freedom Cohort recognizes that media, the business community, philanthropy, government, and civil society all have unique roles in supporting and advancing media freedom.”
The Media Freedom Cohort – an international coalition established following the Summit for Democracy 2021, chaired by the Governments of Canada and the Netherlands, and facilitated by the international NGO Internews – have published its Findings Report, which includes commitments to protect media freedom worldwide from more than 100 governments, businesses, and media and civil society organisations. The commitments provide a concrete roadmap for making progress in the Media Freedom Cohort’s three priority areas: protecting journalists’ safety and security, advancing freedom of expression, and bolstering independent and diverse media.
IFEX, in partnership with the ACOS Alliance and the German Government, has been co-leading the working group on Protecting Journalists’ Safety & Security. Stakeholders were invited to focus on concrete and actionable initiatives to address the range of physical, digital, psychological, and gender-based threats faced by journalists, and to build on existing international initiatives such as pledges made during the first Summit for Democracy, the 2022 Media Freedom Conference, and the recommendations of the Vienna Call to Action.
The commitments received from stakeholders, including governments, tech companies, media organisations, and civil society, reveal the reality that the challenges facing journalism are too large and complex for any individual organisation or sector to take on in isolation. IFEX and the ACOS Alliance’s findings reflected a need for a holistic, systemic and collaborative multi-stakeholder approach to tackle these myriad challenges to the protection of journalists.
This initiative also reflected the invaluable efforts of civil society organisations in protecting the safety and security of journalists with many IFEX members, allies, and ACOS signatories submitting pledges. Their pledges reflect the work that civil society carries out daily that is critical both for holding governments and intergovernmental actors to account and for filling gaps in protection where they fall short.
IFEX is a global network that promotes and defends freedom of expression and information as a fundamental human right. It is a nexus for free expression expertise contributed by 119 member-organisations, spanning 90 countries, and committed to collaboration and transformative advocacy.
See ACOS Alliance’s article on the report here.
You can read the report below.
