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Münsterplatz
// Media Development Foundation & What If
Münsterpl.
53111 Bonn
The event will be held in English.
This Joint Talk brings together practitioners from What If and Media Development Foundation to dig into the realities of community-supported journalism today. Drawing from contrasting experiences in Ukraine and Lebanon, the speakers will unpack what building communities around media actually looks like on the ground, and what it takes to build journalism people trust. In Ukraine, local outlets are stretched thin, understaffed, underfunded, and now without USAID support. Many are turning to membership models as a way to stay afloat — but building a loyal community takes deep research into what people actually need, something few newsrooms currently have the capacity to do, and something no university is training journalists for. Lebanon tells a different story: not a lack of community, but an excess of fragmentation. Each community has its own media and its own narrative, with very little common ground between them, and the result is a polarization that grows quietly, story by story. Together, the speakers will explore what impact-driven community journalism looks like in practice — comparing a model built around membership under wartime funding cuts with one navigating deep social fragmentation — and what it actually takes to build it.
Speakers
