Sasho Ordanoski on the Panel “Democracy under Siege”, conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024 Skopje
In this critical time, there are three missions that journalists and editors, and media are doing, in the previous contexts of how the media will work. Very important things. One is the gatekeeping, so the traditional media are the gatekeepers. NATO is following daily one million and two hundred thousand websites. Daily. So, if those websites were traditional media, they were the gatekeepers of what information gets to the public.
The second, very important role was the agenda setting. So when out of zillion information you offer three or four hundred news daily, then the second thing is agenda setting. Meaning that- you say, look, this is going on the front page, this is going on the eighth page. So out of three hundred news you are actually setting the agenda for the day.
And the last role is actually – framing. The media is putting an angle to already set agenda, after that gatekeeping process, so the media would give an angle.
Journalism is not a science, it’s a set of skills, so to become a good editor, is actually understanding these things, because they are a question of skills.
In the last ten years, we have a big fight between editors, journalists, media and so on, versus algorithms. Because algorithms do not have this kind of editing process with skills, the business model of the algorithm is different. The internet should have been the marketplace of ideas, and it started some twenty years ago. Today, the internet is a rabbit hole. Because algorithms are actually dealing with clicks, not on the importance, not on the framing, not on the angle, not on the gatekeeping.
Ordanoski pointed out that a year ago he was in Estonia with a NATO project, and shared the experience of Estonia where there is a 24-hour police service, where citizens can report inappropriate content or disinformation.
“The police detect the source or the person spreading disinformation and take specific measures. There are 25 percent Russian speakers in Estonia. Estonia is dealing with disinformation with a systemic solution,” he added.
Ordanoski emphasized that we need a systemic solution to combat disinformation, not a “big brother” system, but a system that will be functional
D. Tahiri
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editor: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
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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
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