Dear friends of My Country Talks,

It’s a pleasure to welcome you to the April edition of our monthly newsletter. We just came back from the 2022 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, where we met some amazing people, presented our work on two panels, and kicked-off our new global dialogue project The World Talks. This newsletter is a recap of our experience. If you missed the conference, you can find recordings for every session on the Festival website.

Don't miss an update from My Country Talks - subscribe to our newsletter here.

The International Journalism Festival 2022

News and how to use it: where does the audience fit in?

Our project lead Hanna Israel participated in this panel hosted by Alan Rusbridger, the editor of Prospect Magazine and former editor-in-chief of The Guardian. Rusbridger’s new book discusses the gap between journalists and readers, and how innovative newsrooms are being more inclusive of their audience. Together with Lea Korsgaard, publisher of Zetland and James Ball, the Global Editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the panel gave examples of best practices for audience engagement and discussed ways to overcome negative trends the industry has faced in recent years.

Watch the recording of the panel here.

Engaging audiences across divides

Hanna, together with founding journalist of My Country Talks, Philip Faigle, also presented this panel with Nina Fascieux of the Solutions Journalism Network and Emily Kasriel from the BBC on their work creating reader dialogue programs. Philip Faigle co-created “Die 49”, an attempt to represent all of Germany through 49 participants who discussed issues before the 2021 election. Emily Kasriel leads the Crossing Divides project at the BBC, which trains young people in deep listening - a skill she demonstrated during the panel.

Watch the recording of the panel here.

The World Talks kick-off 

If you missed our last newsletter, we announced that My Country Talks is going global in 2023 with The World Talks. During the International Journalism Festival, we brought the idea to a group of 12 media professionals from around the world to hear their feedback and ideas. Among them, we spoke with the senior editor of Radio Free Afghanistan, the new formats editor at the Wall Street Journal, the project lead of the Constructive Institute, the managing director of Unbias the News, and many more brilliant people who we cannot thank enough for their time.

Our takeaways from the conference

We know there are many potential pitfalls when it comes to organizing global talks with newsrooms around the world. The idea of putting together people from all different parts of the world into one-on-one conversations can, at worst, reproduce power imbalances or neocolonial narratives. That is why the panel on "Decolonizing global media coverage" was so impactful. During their talk, the panelists challenged concepts such as foreign correspondents who often know very little about the country they are reporting on, or the blatant racism of some of the current media coverage on Ukraine, where a country in Europe gets portrayed as "civilized" vs. apparently other “uncivilized” war zones around the world.

From the media side, one of the most interesting panels of the Festival was “How to decide how to do new things (or not) in newsrooms”. The panelists spoke very candidly about the institutional reasons why innovation can get stalled in media organizations, especially when technology is involved. Without surprise, the conversation turned to the influence of big tech platforms on innovation. A very interesting insight came from Chris Moran from The Guardian, about what isn’t innovation. He encouraged media to stop developing new formats for Facebook or the other big platforms, and leverage the talents of journalists to create brand new products.

Calling all Americans to cross divides 

Join America Talks 2022, which will take place on April 21 & 23 during the National Week of Conversation. We were very excited to be part of the inaugural America Talks event in 2021, when more than 6,000 participants signed up for a conversation across political divides. This year, an even larger coalition of American organizations have come together to organize a new dialogue event, inspired by the MCT methodology. If you are interested, you can learn more and sign up at the following link: https://americatalks.us/