Geopolitics and journalism cross in an increasingly complex scenario, they agreed today in pointing out editors from various media during the panel “World Geestrategy and the impact on the media. The role of the media in international conflicts”, in which the growing pressure on the press was revealed in a world where the news is often weapons of influence.
The intersection between geopolitics and the media focused the beginning of the debates of the second day of the VIII Congress of Media Editors in Europe and Latin America, which is celebrated in the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias, during a dialogue that was attended by Maciej Stasinski, International Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland); Carlos Roberts, Deputy Secretary General of Drafting of the Nation (Argentina), and Pedro Araújo, Executive Editor of Jornal de Notícias (Portugal).
When talking about the deterioration of liberal democracy and its impact on journalistic exercise, Stasinski emphasized that “critical and free journalism can only exist in liberal democracies. In other regimes, the media are gagged or become spokesmen of tyranny,” he reflected.
The international chief of Gazeta Wyborcza warned that the main threat to democracy no longer comes from abroad, but from within the system itself, and cited as examples the massive misinformation driven by large technological platforms and the interference of political interests in the digital ecosystem.
“Today, public opinion is fragmented and manipulated by factual powers with own agendas,” he said.
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Social networks as the main source of misinformation
For his part, Carlos Roberts raised a reflection on the role of the media in the coverage of international conflicts.
“Our role is, at the same time, insignificant and gigantic. We are not actors of war, we do not negotiate peace or decide military strategies, but we have the responsibility of telling the truth, of exposing the realities that governments and networks try to distort,” he said.
Roberts stressed that the proliferation of false news and the public’s migration to unsecured sources have weakened the role of the traditional press. “We have to inform in a world where information is increasingly in the hands of algorithms and propaganda,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pedro Araújo addressed the influence of geopolitical actors in the configuration of global information.
“We are in a moment of reconfiguration of world power, with China, the United States and Russia disputing territories and influence through economic and military strategies, but also through informative manipulation,” he explained.
Araújo caught attention to the role of social networks in digital diplomacy and how these platforms have altered the dynamics of journalism. “Instant access to information has turned the media into news reactors, instead of public discourse curators,” he said.
The panel concluded with a common warning: journalism faces an existential crisis in which it must reaffirm its role as a guarantor of truth in a world where misinformation is a power tool. “Inform, inform, inform,” Roberts recalled as the essence of the trade, even in times of war and crisis.
With EFE information
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