The President of the German Journalists’ Association, Mika Beuster, speaking at the panel “The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism” of the Conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024 Skopje.
In Germany, we report on right-wing nationalism and extremism and use platforms like Facebook, X, all those platforms where we have control over the content reaching a wider audience. We have a few laws for online media but the regulations are not that strong.
“TikTok is a pre-read medium among young people, and that’s something we need to take into account and we as traditional media need to think about how to reach every type of audience. We now need to change the way we report and have the appropriate infrastructure and we need that knowledge about social networks,” he stressed.
Delving into politics in Germany, Beuster pointed out that he does not expect there to be any victory in such elections because the real perspective should be taken into account because they are the second largest political force. But what 80 percent say is not acceptable.
We should worry about the fact that we have a party that is pro-Putin and pro-Russia. Now there is a new trend in populist politics, one person is taken and the whole policy is tied to that person. In what cases is there a pro-Russian pro-Putin policy.
We need to keep an eye on the still stable countries in Europe, because they are beacons that shine a light to the regions that are fragile, so the more important is that we talk about this here, and connect people, journalists, civil society, because we can not rely on the governments in Europe to do the job for us, it’s our job, to provide stability and journalists can be part of that solution and act smartly.
And I am very interested on that what we can learn today from all that, pointed Mika Beuster.
D. Tahiri
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
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#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
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#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
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#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
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#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
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#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
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#DefendingDemocracy PRESS CONFERENCE
For more information on the Conference, please visit the special website DefendingDemocracy
