“The global health crisis has highlighted how widespread fake news is and how destructive it can be to our societies by undermining cohesion and instigating social unrest.
Social tensions, emerging in the context of the crisis, have weakened the world’s democracy indicators and media freedom. A wave of demonstrations against the response to Covid-19 and media has swept across Europe.
read more Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė: Governments must protect democracy and the media
“Human rights, the rule of law and media freedom are inextricably linked. In this respect, this year’s M100 Media Award is a sign of our appreciation for Alexei Navalny’s struggle – and a sign of our solidarity with all opposition leaders, activists and journalists who, like Alexei Navalny, are risking their lives to fight for a pluralistic, democratic Russia.”
Dr Leonard Novy is member of the M100 Board and Director of the Institute for Media and Policy Communication (IfM), Cologne/Berlin
“Alexei Navalny deserves the highest recognition for his courage and persistence in repeatedly denouncing corruption and abuse of power by the elites in Russia. Despite severe harassment by the regime, he has not allowed himself to be intimidated. His commitment to human rights and freedom of expression at the cost of personal suffering is incredibly admirable. Distinguishing Alexej Navalny with this award is also a sign for the almost 400 political prisoners, murdered politicians and journalists in Russia.”
Astrid Frohloff is a German TV presenter and journalist and member of the M100 Board.
Elmar Theveßen, bureau chief of ZDF’s Washington, D.C. studio, expert on international security and terrorism at ZDF and participant of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, on this year’s topic:
“Liberal democracy is under attack – from the outside and from within. The coronavirus crisis has revealed bitter truths that we have been ignoring for far too long.
It is only an honest analysis of the challenges and threats, and a willingness to find new responses and develop new concepts to overcome them, that will enable our value system to be asserted once again and ensure its survival in the face of authoritarianism. This process should place the focus on people. As Theodor Fontane once said: “We should love everything that’s old, as far as it has a claim to our respect, but it’s for the new that we should really and truly live.”
Potsdam, 10 September 2021. Today our M100Young European Journalists Workshop on “Reporting in Crises and the Crisis in Reporting” starts online on Zoom!
16 aspiring, dedicated journalists from Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania and Russia have been selected to discuss and analyse in practical workshops how media in general and journalists in particular can provide guidance in a time of seemingly perpetual crisis. Special emphasis will be placed on strategies and concrete tools available to media-makers for a future-oriented, credible and resilient journalism that is responsive to its audiences.
read more Start of the M100YEJ „Reporting in Crises and the Crisis in Reporting”
Angelos Athanasopoulos, Editor-in-Chief Politics of the Greek daily newspaper “To Vima” and participant of this year’s M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, describes what from his point of view went wrong during the COVID pandemic and what individual countries and the EU can do to improve their resilience:
“The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated governments’ ability to respond to a major global crisis with extraordinary flexibility, innovation and determination. However, emerging evidence suggests that much more could have been done in advance to bolster resilience and many actions may have undermined trust and transparency between governments and their citizens during the pandemic.
Resilience is the ability not only to withstand and cope with challenges but also to undergo transitions in a sustainable, fair, and democratic manner. Countries have introduced thousands of emergency regulations, often on a fast track, to counter the effects of the pandemic. Some alleviation of standards is inevitable in an emergency, but must be limited in scope and time to avoid damaging citizen perceptions of the competence, openness, transparency, and fairness of government.
read more Angelos Athanasopoulos: Four Dimensions for better Resilience
• Christian Lindner to hold the laudation
• Award Ceremony on 6 October in the Palace Theatre of the Neues Palais, Potsdam/Germany
Potsdam/Germany, 3 September 2021. This year’s M100 Media Award will be presented to the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his foundation FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation). The award for Navalny, who has been in prison since January, will be accepted by his closest associate and confidant Leonid Volkov. The laudation will be delivered by Christian Lindner, the Federal Chairman of the FDP, who has been campaigning for Navalny’s release for months.
“Alexei Navalny is a tireless fighter for justice, transparency and democracy,” Lindner states. “Despite unlawful detention, he continues to fight for a free and democratic Russia. It is an honour for me to give the laudation on the occasion of the presentation of the M100 Media Award to Alexei Navalny.”
“I am honoured and proud to accept the M100 Media Award on behalf of Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation,” Leonid Volkov says. “It’s very important that his and our activities to raise awareness about corruption and spread the message of freedom through social media over the last 10 years are also recognised in Europe.”
We asked some of our participants for statements on the theme of this year’s M100 Sanssouci Colloquium.
Alexandra Borchardt, Senior Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, writes:
“Trust in journalism has increased during the pandemic in most democracies. This contrasts with what some politicians suggest who would rather see their own version of the truth being spread. Now the media must capitalize on this trust. Citizens need a journalism that takes its audiences and their needs seriously, listens respectfully and adds value in a world of information abundance. This includes the search for perspectives, nuance and common ground in an increasingly polarised world. Journalism can do a lot better at flagging what connects communities rather than what divides them while appreciating human diversity.”
You can find an overview of this year’s participants here.
Association of German Magazine Publishers (VDZ) supports the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium!
Since 1992 the VDZ has been a strong community in which around 500 publishing houses, mostly medium-sized companies, are organized and publish together more than 6.000 magazine brands. They represent the journalistic, cultural, and economic interests of the magazine publishers nationally and internationally and are committed to free and democratic reporting and society.
• Benjamin H. Bratton and Andreas Reckwitz open the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium on 6 October
• Theme for the international media conference: strategies out of the permanent crisis
• M100 Media Award at the Castle Theatre in the New Palace, Potsdam
Potsdam, 11 August 2021. No other occurrence has changed and tested politics, society and the media worldwide as much as Covid-19 has. The lessons we need to learn from the pandemic in order to make our democracies more resilient is the theme of this year’s M100 Sanssouci Colloquium. Entitled “From Crisis in Perpetuity to Democratic Resilience”, the international media conference will take place using a hybrid format on 6 October at the Castle Theatre in the New Palace in Potsdam.
