Crises are a constant in the world, and news organizations need to adapt and learn how to identify opportunities under difficult situations. Whether because of wars, authoritarian regimes, pandemics, or even the climate crisis, journalists across the world are faced with the need to keep expanding their reach and serving their communities while also dealing with extreme outside pressure.
“A crisis is a necessary shock to the system to realize you have a gap”, said Aaron Ainomugisha of Rise News Uganda when discussing possibilities for innovation while working under pressure.
To better understand those scenarios, IPI’s World Congress and Media Innovation Festival 2024 held the panel Pivot under pressure: How media innovate through crisis. Moderated by Alia Ibrahim of Daraj Media (Lebanon), the panel showcased on-the-ground experiences from media professionals in Uganda, the Philippines, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
The key to dealing with crises, said Ainomugisha, who works on amplifying voices and bring attention to often-neglected issues in Uganda, is to create a setting in which “journalists are empowered to do their job, but also open their minds. You have to understand where you are from and understand the crisis at hand”. Specific solutions then depend on specific challenges.
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For the Kyiv Independent, which saw a massive increase in reader support at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this meant a shift in perspective: “It took me a while to realize that I did not need to save The Kyiv Independent from dying, but to make it grow”, said CEO Daryna Shevchenko. The problem with that, however, is that “for part of our audience, our content is not vital. Every time something else happens in the world, the world forgets about Ukraine”. As such, The Kyiv Independent has to “rethink, rethink, rethink all the time”.
We create a roadmap every year for the whole year and follow the plan as much as we can. But we cannot afford to just sit around and be super cautious about launching products. If we kept waiting for our chance, we would not do anything. We have to innovate to grow.
Veronika Munk of Denník N underscored the importance of constant action. When the Slovak authorities started pushing to undermine press freedom in the country, hundreds of journalists were forced to quit their jobs. “But then we saw people protesting in the street”, Munk said, “and we thought that the biggest mistake would have been not to stick together and create something new”. This happened despite lacking funders and a clear strategy to start.
When the crisis happens, you have to act. Sometimes, being strategic is the opposite of sitting down and planning. It is standing up and doing something.
Crucial qualities are “flexibility and persistence”, added Don Kevin Hapal, Head of Data and Innovation at the Filipino news outlet Rappler. Under former president Rodrigo Duterte’s regime, Rappler was slapped with a dozen legal cases and its journalists were repeatedly threatened online. What helped them, said Hapal, was that “we were fast at acknowledging the crisis”.
“We were not actively thinking innovation. We were thinking survival”. Part of their strategy was “keeping what they did best”, which was, of course, journalism.
We had to double down on investigations to make sure that people don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.
In the end, journalists’ power lies in taking ownership of the stories that they believe serve their communities, added Ainomugisha. “I think we have been made to believe that a journalist or media house cannot control their work. You have to control your work.”
For the Rise News Uganda Network, which focuses on topics such as gender and sexual minorities, this often means resisting opposition from big media houses that do not or cannot deliver sensitive stories. “We don’t beg them to deliver the story. We make alternative arrangements to get it to the public and we keep owning our story”, said Ainomugisha.
