By Andrei Kryvasheyeu
Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, Belarus
Another Forum of the Belt& Road Journalists Network will be held from July 14 to July 20 in Jiangxi Province, one of the places of great significance for Chinese civilization. It was in this rich, ancient and picturesque land that, starting in the 3rd century BC, the synthesis of peoples, languages, traditions and cultures into a single powerful Chinese state began. It is therefore particularly symbolic that our Platform will broadcast a common message about a new global solidarity among journalists from Jiangxi Province, which implements four key principles of the Community of Shared Future for Mankind in the information space:
·firm belief that all countries respect each other and treat each other equally;
·creation of a foundation for mutually beneficial cooperation and common development;
·striving to create a common, comprehensive and sustainable space for safety and security;
·ensuring universal participation and mutual exchange of experience between civilizations.
I will try to give my brief vision of the implementation of these approaches as they apply to the current achievements and future objectives of our Platform.
First. Mutual respect and common criteria in the name of solidarity. In my opinion, this is the only possible alternative to the so-called rule-based world, where rules are imposed by one side and changed to suit the political conjuncture. The global journalistic community is tired of the double standard policy and crude ‘human rights interventions’ in the sovereign affairs of states and national traditions, including journalistic ones. We are no longer prepared to be mere recipients of ‘other people’s ideas and projects’, but rather to propose and implement our own ideas based on mutual respect, equality and solidarity. This is why the BRJN Platform has been able to become the most representative and largest journalistic platform in the history of journalism and human history in the short span of eight years.
Do we have the right to stop today, when certain countries and military blocs view journalists as legitimate tools and targets in information-terrorist warfare, when manipulation of social media algorithms imposes a distorted reality on entire nations, when the neural network revolution is radically changing the nature of journalism? I’m pretty sure we don’t. Hence adherence to the second basic principle: creating the foundations for mutually beneficial cooperation and common development.
The One Belt, One Road initiative demonstrates thousands of joint projects in technology, logistics, new energy, medicine, education, and culture. The task of journalists is to informationally support and promote this experience in order to scale it up to other countries participating in the initiative. This requires information ‘supernovas’ – authoritative experts whose opinion will be heard and accepted in different countries. I propose to think about forming a ‘BRJN Constellation’ in the format of a public club of our most authoritative and media-recognizable experts. Our ‘supernovas’ will be both guides of new ideas in the media space, ambassadors of the initiative, and popularizers of new knowledge in the digital information space.
We discussed the third principle of the Community – the endeavor to create a common, comprehensive and sustainable space for safety and security – in detail with our colleagues at the last Forum. We discussed the third principle of the Community – the endeavor to create a common, comprehensive and sustainable space for security – in detail with our colleagues at the last Forum. Alas, the situation with the safety of journalists in the world and, more broadly, with information security, has only worsened over the year. The number of reporters and bloggers who have been victims of combat in just two conflicts (in the Middle East and Ukraine) has already passed the monstrous figure of 300. Investigative journalists and opinion leaders are being hunted, and certain paramilitary groups and even countries are proud of and encourage the massacre of journalists. This means that our task is to create intolerance in society towards such terrorist practices, to create a real human rights center for the collection and disclosure of facts of reprisals against journalists, and to think through and implement mechanisms to protect our colleagues. As long as we react separately, on our own platforms, for example, to the shooting of our colleagues from Australia, China and the United States with rubber bullets (three incidents in just two days – 9 and 10 June) during the riots in California and Texas, these attacks will not stop, and their organizers will continue to tell us about ‘freedom’ and ‘democratic values’. Our safety is our responsibility.
Fourth. Ensuring universal participation and mutual exchange of experience between civilizations. I am convinced that this is the cornerstone principle and the foundation on which any stable building in the modern architecture of cooperation rests. Our Platform has been engaging leading journalists from different continents and with different journalistic traditions since its first day of existence. This is our strength.
We share our work experience and together we improve tools for creating and promoting media content. This is our attraction for new participants. At the previous BRJN Forum, colleagues from the All-China Journalists Association shared their experience of creating problematic and critical materials, combining media and party control. This is an excellent practice that deserves the closest attention. I can say that two strategic documents in this direction have appeared in Belarus this year at once: Decree of the President of Belarus No. 352 on the immediate response of officials at all levels to critical and problematic publications in the media and Directive of the President of Belarus No. 12, which raises the status of media editors to the level of active subjects of the implementation of the Belarusian ideology. In other words, our editors-in-chief and leading journalists are recognized not as mere tools in the hands of ideologists, but directly as ideologists. This exchange of experience in our journalistic work is not just a narrow corporate interest; it is a demand of society and time, which we have to meet.
Big projects between big journalistic associations of our countries cannot and should not hang in the air without reliance on tradition, but should also be forward-looking. Young people are always at the forefront of the exchange of civilizational cultural codes, new ideas and technologies. Hence here are some suggestions for our Platform to more actively involve young journalists and individual content producers.
Digital platforms for short videos are now at the top of the youth’s agenda. The number one in Belarus is TikTok, a network with Chinese roots. Its promotion algorithms change very often, hence the young people’s demand for an educational platform, in fact, an online school for bloggers, where they could learn from each other and be the first to learn about trends directly from the administrators of large digital platforms arises. We have a saying, “If a change can’t be prevented, it should be led”. Why shouldn’t BRJN lead the revolutionary fusion of journalism and the blogosphere, journalism and artificial intelligence-based platforms? Especially since China is a world leader in this field.
A huge additional source is the students from the PRC who are being educated in our countries. Today, about 500 young and creative future journalists from China are studying at the Faculty of Journalism of the Belarusian State University alone. Besides, many Belarusian students in the humanities study the Chinese language, culture, and traditions. I honestly admit that it is quite difficult for us to include them in joint projects to create interesting content without additional motivation. They rather see themselves in commercial organizations, where salaries are higher and career growth is faster than in journalism. Perhaps we should think about and offer a system of additional motivation on behalf of our Platform: grants, creative competitions and awards, internships, interesting student exchange programs, additional skills and competencies in new media, and press tours for such young people. Then, both during their studies and after graduation, they will be more enthusiastic about our profession, will propose relevant projects themselves, and will support the exchange of experience between civilizations.
Direct interregional cooperation is another big area of focus. Today, a great deal of attention is paid to this. Each province of China or Pakistan, each constituent entity of the Russian Federation or region of Belarus is a special world of traditions, culture, historical heritage sites, joint economic and technological projects. I am sure that our national journalistic associations and the Platform as a whole should support the practice of direct cooperation between regional editorial offices. For example, the Minsk-News Agency with the support of the All-China Journalists Association and the Belarusian Union of Journalists has signed an agreement with the media group of Gansu Province, we have already launched the platform of short video content exchange CHEERS and are preparing to shoot a series of reports about Minsk and Gansu according to a common scenario. Believe me, regional journalists are sometimes quicker to find topics of common interest and materialize them than huge media holdings that work for the whole world. Our task is to support this initiative coming from below.
Fighting fakes and destructive propaganda content is a relevant area that we have also discussed on many occasions on our Forums. We should consider what role our Platform could play in countering this information ‘pandemic’. Training seminars on fact-checking, joint exposure of the most blatant fakes about our countries by active members of the Platform and experts, direct multilateral exchange of content, joint monitoring of the common information space and proactive informing of partners, if there is an aggressive information campaign against them in your country. For example, in Belarus, in the last few months, Western propagandists have been launching an information campaign against Pakistan and our bilateral cooperation. Fakes, intimidation of the audience, rumours are being used. Our task is to inform our Pakistani colleagues about this information aggression and, with their help, to show the image of the hard-working, proud and original people of Pakistan to the Belarusian audience.
These are just some of the tasks and proposals that are seen from Belarus as the most urgent. I am confident that our Forum in Jiangxi Province, our direct and personal communication, initiatives and discussions will allow us to better understand each other and offer a common vision of a new global journalistic solidarity. By setting global goals and taking personal initiative, step by step we are moving closer to a world in which the basic principles of the Community of Common Destiny of Humanity will be implemented.
*The views and opinions expressed in the articles are solely those of the individual authors and do not reflect the position of the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Journalist Network.