Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks a lot for joining. I'm Antonia Navesen. I'm a research professor at the Vrije Universite Brussels here in Belgium. and I'm dealing with the impact of digital technology on media industries. So really happy also for this then to be moderating this panel to briefly give some context to the discussion. Well, if you were here in the previous session,
Really, there are two words that we heard a lot, even more and more. I think it was a really perfect transition. In the end there, it was the worst platform in the world. the word algorithm. I would like to start with the positive side of them because we're probably going to develop more than the negative side. But of course,
With digital technology, with the platforms, you can, in theory, produce content much more easily. And so many more people have access to these production tools. You can then distribute. the information, the media content that you produce more easily to anyone in the world. What you need is a device and it's a connection. But of course...
That's a nice side of it. But the thing is that now you have also intermediaries, you have gatekeepers, you have the online platform providers, and they decide in the end what is available, what gets recommended. what gets moderated, and also who will have the access to the content. And there are more than just
provider of a service. These online platform providers, they provide us access to a public space to the public sphere, they really have a crucial impact in the end on the information that circulates on what we know about each other, what's going on in the rest of the world, or even sometimes even in our... in our city. Um... There are tons of examples of things that can go wrong in this sense. Again, there were examples given before. I'm sure some are going to be given now.
And when I was starting to write on this, I thought, okay, then I'm going to write about Twitter now, X and Elon Musk. Oh no, I'm going to talk about the Romanian elections canceled because of TikTok account. Oh no, I'm going to write about Meta, who doesn't want to fact check.
too many examples and I'm not supposed to be the one really talking now in any case what all this shows and what I think will be discussed as a starting point yeah is that When you have the control, when you have such gatekeeping power in a few organizations and sometimes even of a few people, there are really risks of abuses, of censorship, of biases. This is probably going to be the starting point for what the panel is going to discuss.
But I also am looking at them to not only analyze, as probably more a scholar would do, but also reflect in terms of what could be done, especially for independent media. And for that, let's start with maybe the more negative side of it to then go to the more positive aspects. How do you assess the current situation for independent media and especially online? And maybe if you could introduce yourself before your first answer.
Yeah, sure. Is this on? Yeah. Yeah, sure. So my name is Agostin Frey-Brown. I'm a doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, and I work with the Department of Media Studies and... the Institute for Information Law and in my PhD I look at media infrastructure and how it has changed in the last 10 years
As you mentioned, there are many things that are happening all the time. Like the speed of the news is huge. But it's also worth looking at the bigger trends and what's been going on in the last 10 to 20 years. And that's what I'm... tried to do in my PhD and I guess that On the positive side, I wouldn't have a lot to say because I think the situation is pretty negative for independent media. In a situation where basically...
Independent media as a whole has outsourced this infrastructure to big platforms. And I can go a bit more in detail about that later if you want. But basically, both in terms of hosting websites, in terms of hosting data, in terms of distributing their content through social media, there are complete dependence on...
the likes of Amazon and the likes of Facebook and the likes of Google. And yeah, it will be good to create new spaces, but the situation right now is pretty dear and it's a combination of 20 years of embracing the platforms, you know. problematic way I would say. Hi everybody, I'm Samuel Maccolini from VD News. VD News is the Italian partner of Sfera Network. We are focused on social change, so おー I'm an author and I do coverage on different topics.
from social struggle and working condition, but also nightlife issues. and everything that can be tied to the change of society. so with VD News we are a partner of Sfera Network and of course we try with Sfera to tell to our audience how there is a new generation of people in Europe that has strong values and are interest in different important issues starting by social change. In my opinion, I can talk for Italy. The situation in Italy is not so good because...
The independent media landscape in Italy is very old, so we have a lot of publishers. but they are in niches. And... The most interesting thing is that with social media, it came out that there are new... new media outlets but also like a small publisher. that are able to reach a lot of people. And in the case, this is, of course, the case of VD News, but... in the last four years. I think starting with the pandemic in Italy, we saw that, I don't know, like suddenly...
it came out that there are four or five new media that colonize the social media landscape. But, you know, media that... go on hard news and it was I don't know for the people that work in journalism in Italy this is the most I think interesting I don't know, things that happened in the Italian media landscape. But it is not enough because, of course, I think we are missing the new generation. because there is a new generation of audience that clearly...
Don't read the newspaper or mainstream or independent, what else. And they are very fragile. and they can be influenced by the far-right propaganda on social media. And, for example, this morning... I was... Just looking at Instagram and it came out that one of the main disinformation spot Instagram page in it that is called like. I think, Welcome to Favela, so this strange name. So they had a meeting with Elon Musk. Okay, so... So I think what is happening in America...
could influence even the Italian landscape, but also in Europe. So I'm not so happy right now. No money. Okay, now it's okay. Hello, my name is Paulina Januszewska. I am a journalist at Kyrtyka Polityczna. You may know. because we are part of the SPERA project and Critical Critics is an online journal. and also part of NGO organization based in Warsaw. I worked there almost five years and I write about social inequalities also about media and working conditions
Climate Change and Peminism. And I am also author of Bushik Journalism book. This is obvious reference to David Graber's book. bullshit jobs because of course I write about the situation in Poland, but I think that many issues are common in a global situation. I think that specifically to us management skills and also working conditions are very, very hard and we don't have good managers at editorial offices.
We don't have good salaries. We don't have good... strong unionization, And I think that also we are struggling when we are talking about current situation because of government, because of course... It changed two years ago and it is less conservative and less... UN skeptic, but the fact is it's still conservative.
Our government doesn't want to cooperate with us. And so that we have actually... harder situation than before because We don't get, for example, money from a foreign organization who think that, okay, you train the government, so now... your situation is good. It's not the truth. And I will also, I would like to address the situation of workers because we...
We like to think about journalism as a mission as creative work, which is actually, you know, something, something it's, you know... it's We do it because we like it, we love it and we are always ready.
to do something for democracy and other things. But when you are talking about democracy and other big issues, big values, you don't talk about just obvious just simple things like salary for example and I fight with that and I think that independent media in Poland is a very tiny piece of media in general. And I hope it will change. But I think also that independent media never was.
never were in the golden ages or something. There were always troubles and we are actually kill joys you know we are always as the opposition of the mainstream and I don't think that our mission is to be bigger or be mainstream. We are giving the mainstream some directions, some ideas, and I think that in our media actually started very important discussions. who are actually in the mainstream, right, for now. So yes, that's it. Thank you. That leads me to the
Second question, indeed the situation is not ideal. So what do you see then as strategies that independent media could pursue? online particular when it comes to to be or to remain viable, to remain visible. You talked about reaching the young generation. So for example, how do you become visible to them? You mentioned economic issues, working conditions, or the question of infrastructure also maybe. So many angles, I assume.
Yeah, I really love your comment about working conditions of a journalist because I think that's a really important question and also a question of independent media staying independent. But I guess what's really interesting from an infrastructural perspective is that it's been kind of like a reverse of situation where...
Bigger media conglomerates are actually developing their own independent solution outside of big tech. Independent media is depending more and more on... on these massive available solutions that are... kind of massively available because they rely on market concentration. So I'm thinking, for instance, about how BME conglomerates are able to have their own data solutions or their own data lake. or negotiate.
when they are using cloud services provided by Amazon, Google, or Microsoft. They're able to negotiate better deals or tailor deals. independent media just simply gets whatever is offered off the shelf. Sometimes it's simply a WordPress solution or things like that.
which obviously work because at the end of the day you don't have that much money you don't have that many people you don't want to have developers people working in the back end those are also salaries that a lot of organizations cannot afford but in the end you're just putting all of your content into structures that don't belong to you, over whom you have very little control, and that could hike their prices a lot.
So I think On a small scale, the solution that I would say would be to talk about trying to invest into independent providers. So in Europe, that can be OVH or Scalar Whale, who are still big tech, but are... you know, at least European. But ultimately, I think that's a very unsatisfactory answer. This is, at least on an infrastructural level, this is an industrial issue. And I think it requires industrial solutions.
Independent media needs to be one of the voices on the table that actually starts talking with big tech, because as we saw with the deal of Alex Springer or Le Monde with OpenAI, Some media do have the capacity to talk with big tech, but those are the usual suspects.
And a lot of voices are extremely important for democracy because precisely they're able to change the narrative and to bring all the issues into a table are just completely left out of those discussions. So yeah, once again, slightly disappointing answer. Of course, I agree that there is a problem about the means of production, of course. these big tech platforms that of course have a role in making it difficult for independent media, but not also independent media, to be sustainable.
But I don't know if it is the main problem right now. It is a really... a really big problem but in my opinion as a journalist the first problem is our role as a journalist and try to understand why people don't follow our work and why people I don't think that what we do is important for democracy. So what I can see in Italy... is that in the last decades people People don't read the news and don't want to hear what the media said.
And this is sad because of course it all started because of some bias on the mainstream media. and some stereotypes about journalists. that comes from the mainstream media but it had the effect to, I don't know, just stigmatize all the category in Italy. So I think we have to work like to... to reach more audience and to make possible for them to understand that our work is necessary for democracy.
And that's why, for example, I know that the mainstream social media are owned by big tech and they are algorithms and So they don't every time works for... you know, for the best of democracy and journalism, but... I think in this precise moment of our journalistic life, I think maybe in Italy, but even in other countries, this is a compromise we have to do.
We have to stay. We have to push on social media because now it's the only way even to... to approach the people and when I say approach the people I say the people not the reader of some I don't know little independent media in my opinion, is that a media must be independent, but also need to have an impact. That is the title of today.
And so I think what we can do now is to push a lot on social media I don't know if my vision is biased because I come from Italy and as I said before in the last year they di mainstream social media Just... make a monopoly of the information because nobody reads sites anymore. But I don't know, I think... if the mainstream media goes on social media, we as VD News and as independent media, we need to stay there and to offer a counter-narrative.
To be honest, I'm a little bit tired of talking about social media and this Goliath who we had to fight. And I think that maybe in the world when... Everything is online. Maybe we have to go offline. Of course, we need regulations. We need to sit at the table of naval negotiations. Yes, I agree. But we have to know our powers. Maybe do some reality check and maybe once everything is connected to technology, we have to make some things that are analog.
I don't want to reinvent the wheel or... maybe making gazettes, papers, but maybe we have to fight maybe find a more radical revolutionary ways to make connections with people, make connections with our... people who want to support us actually because the main problem now is that people are feeling loneliness.
They are feeling lonely and they have to, for example, talk and analyze the world and understand it more. So I think the role of today, nowadays, journalists is not... only to inform or maybe you know, show his ego and wisdom and the other things. Maybe this is time for... it and understand the world together because it's changing very fast.
I think that we have to find more ways to grow maybe locally, make connections with local society, maybe talk about small things like, you know... um, fight with parkings, fight with Dan... I don't know, politicians who are working locally, maybe with some things who are very new to us. Yes, social media is very big issues, but I don't think that we have supplies to fight it.
Thanks a lot. Maybe you want to respond already? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't necessarily a response, but it was more kind of like I think there's two things at play. On the one hand, it's social media per se, but on the other hand, it's all the infrastructure is made. What you said, I really like the means of production.
And that's more about hosting of websites. That's about where your data is stored. That's about where your CMS is, what's your software. And that's also dominated by big tech, but it's exactly the same thing. And I think that it's kind of like related to what you were saying about breaking free of that also requires breaking free of the entire productive environment because it's not just kind of like posting a tweet or posting on Facebook, but it's kind of like having an entire...
Yeah, basically a productive environment that has been made in order to make that posting possible and that has really over-determined media to go in that direction. which yeah I kind of agree perhaps it's not the only way of doing it even though it's a terrain that has to be contested for sure absolutely I agree. I think... It is a... It's like a step. we have to do just now because we are in this situation. So, in my opinion, now it's impossible to escape.
the mainstream platforms but it means that if you are able to create a community and you are so strong to bring the community and go away to find new way to an independent way, independent sites, independent platform to continue to do your work. I think it should be our goal. But right now, for me, for the situation, I have to be really pragmatic about it because I worked before. working for VD News. I work for a national newspaper and so I know how they work and, you know, the...
It's not that Uh... It's better to have like a newspaper with an owner, a rich owner that decides what do you have to write, you know. So it's just a part of the system. Of course, it's a different system. But I think... the fight, you know, between the newsrooms and the... the midst of production and of course the property is still there.
I don't know For me, now we have to stay there and try to occupy places that are not places that... were created for us, but I think we have to stay there because the people are there. even if the people don't want to stay there of course people have a lot of loneliness and probably social media are I don't know hacking our brain and it's all true but now the momentum is there so I think we cannot stay outside we have to stay there and fight to find a different approaches.
And I also think that it's not one solution, one recipe, actually. And maybe we are the ones who have to build the niches. Maybe niches for... connoisseurs right but I don't think that we can dream big of course but I don't think that we have to be big to have an influence. So, you know, the people who actually want to support us. I know that, for example, Kritika Politikna is...
And this medium who actually is read by people with PhDs. So, you know, they have money, they have also families, they have cousins, they have... I don't know, other organizations. We can make things with them and then they are going to other people. So it's some kind of networking, right? And I think that we have to focus on that. particular but i don't think that there is one and best way we also have to be to change our solutions. Something from...
You know, social media was, for example, know how the algorithm works and one day and other day. It's not. So, you know, some things who was good for us yesterday won't be tomorrow. And I think that... actually is very interesting for a job because we have to change all the time and also has many possibilities to do that. and also we have this space for doing experimental things. So I think that's a very, very great value. Thanks a lot. I was a bit worried before starting that you would
have the same opinion, but I really appreciate that you come approaching. I think we all agree on the difficulties, but with very different solutions. We have a title for this talk, but you already touched upon it. Do we need to build new spaces from scratch? Do we need alternative spaces, alternative tools? I have the feeling...
Some of you are more saying, yes, we need something new, for example, in terms of the infrastructure. And on the other hand, and the two are not necessarily completely excluding each other, but on the other hand, also the idea, okay, the There are spaces, we don't like them, but there are spaces, there are rules that changes overnight. There are algorithms, we don't like them, but we need to be there. Also because the audience is there and that...
Yeah, that's a bit the battlefield. Is it a bit in the opposition? Is it a correct summary or is it a bit too simplistic? I agree with the colleague. when she said that we have to exit the bubble and social media and to go in the real life. For example, this is, you know, in the internal discussion in NVT News, this is one of the main issues. for sure. Um, because, uh, working on, uh, on social media, um, and, um,
It creates a wall sometimes between the real community and real life. And yes, I think... It would be great. if we can find the opportunity to create a new space in which we can meet our community digitally and offline. But I think, in my opinion, what I saw in this year in Italy, there were years with a lot of... i don't know examples of new media that really tried to do that kind of path but what I saw is that... at the beginning maybe you are you have enthusiasm and you try to do your best
because you really love what you do. But in the end, it is definitely unsustainable. And that's, in my opinion, the big problems. So it's okay to have, I don't know, a small company with a small audience that perform great journalism. I don't know, I have a connection with a community, but usually this model, in my experience, is very difficult to... to make it sustainable and so what's happened you talk about the working condition of journalists and of course I was
I had a lot of problems as a journalist to be sustainable with my income for years. But what I saw is that... those kind of solutions so to stay small stay independent stay connected to a small community. sometimes are not sustainable and so what happened that The only journalists that can work in that kind of organization are sometimes, I think, rich people that can have the opportunity to work for free. This is, I think, a problem because, you know,
It's beautiful to say, okay, I work for an independent media. I don't bring money by... bad companies, etc. That's I think the basis for being independent, but of course the sustainability and the income of the journalists is... the main problem so I don't know if I'm biased because of my experience in Italy but I hopefully want to do the path you proposed, but I don't know if it is possible. Just... Yeah, maybe we need some...
you know... For example, commercial jobs for... source of doing money right for example publishing or you know cafes or I don't know, maybe events, culture or something else, parties. I don't know. We can do a lot of things, but we don't... about journalism as something that will be lucrative no it won't actually if you want to do good journalism you won't get the money so maybe for organization like ours, for media like ours.
It's a challenge to think about other sources of financing. So maybe that's the way to do that. Maybe just because the word I mentioned very quickly, but I don't know if you have anything you want to develop about this. Is there a place then for a regulation coming from government or because we are in Europe coming from an EU level or more local, I don't know, or is it something we should already discard?
yeah I think so I think absolutely and I think that we are in extremely dire need of regulation and of good regulation because I mean we saw what happened with the AI Act which actually is a lot of the underlying technology that is used by a lot of media companies now but we need to ensure that all media outlets regardless of whether they're public broadcasters
corporate media or indeed independent media have access to independent infrastructure and beyond regulators. That's where I come back to my idea of industrial policy because in order to address some of these I think it's also important to have kind of plans from the European Union that actually decide, okay, this is a project.
a journalism sector that actually is not profitable but is important for democracy and therefore we're willing to invest systematically and not a step of favor that is just given on you know like all these poor people we're going to give them some money but actually this is something we're going to develop structurally for the next 5, 10, 15 years in a way that actually allows us to plan ahead.
I'm very pessimistic on whether we can get that from the Commission on the line, too, or even if the structure of the European Union would ever allow for that type of question. But I think that we are in a very dire situation if we want to. go in that direction, which to me is the only one that could be sustainable and could actually create a good and healthy environment for the decades to come.
You asked about the regulation which is connected to some profession or... Any regulation. It could be ignore subsidies or regulating that... Yeah, the market in terms of competition, infrastructure. Yeah, market, of course, but I don't think that something who is connected to the ideas, values, and other things, you know, they wrote that. it will be something called which is lucrative. Of course, we need regulations, but I don't think that it will fix the problems.
But, of course, we can do some standards about ethical journalism, of course. and maybe this standard about salaries from the tax or you know working conditions because in Poland we have a very good law labor law and the problem is in execution of it so And yeah, we have actually good regulations, but they are not led. So I don't know if I have a good answer for that. Gracias. I think it's the same in Italy. We have...
We have a strong love that should... help journalists to the income of journalists and, you know, the journalists to be independent and work for... for the wellness of the community but you know the problem is that the companies sometimes try to, like, don't respect the law. And in Italy, we have a big, big problem. I about precarity in the field. That is absolutely the standard. And so I think, in my opinion,
is not a fact of regulation. There are two things, in my opinion, that we need a better law. because we have a law for the distribution of public money for the media. But this law... now but it's an old law and this law you know with this law it gives money only to some newspaper and paper newspaper so all the new media are not they cannot have money to be sustainable And I think... A clever government that really loves democracy absolutely has to change this law.
You know, there are federation of journalists that pushed a lot for this change. And the second... thing is that we need to have appeal to the audience because of course we can also deal with the problem of the unsustainability of journalism. But if nobody reads news, we have a problem. I'm just a little bit upset about that. I'm sorry. But I think this is the main problem. So why we are doing this and for who?
Okay, so if people don't follow you, I don't know why I have to do this work. People have to understand why I stay for them. Okay. thank you do we have questions from the audience Where are you following? I think someone will come with a mic. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the panel, the interesting insights. I have a very clear question to Paulina because I didn't think what you said about actually rebuilding communities offline.
Sounds as an innovative, actually, solution, which is a bit different from the discussion so far. Not just this discussion, I mean, like the global discussion about actually trying to occupy certain spaces.
in platforms that we don't really have a say in the way they are regulated. So I just wonder whether you are aware of some specific examples of like... newsrooms that have actually decided to go out to the field maybe in Poland or in other countries because me, for instance I know that there have been some examples in Slovakia.
where there was a newspaper actually it's an investigative media outlet that decided to apply this policy of actually like spending some time every month like outside Bratislava actually in Spanish actually sometime with local communities in order actually to show them how journalistic work is carried out and actually show them that journalists are real people, they're not traitors, they're not actually like Soros agents. So are you aware of any kind of example like in Poland?
about this building of offline communities? Thanks. A specific question is... If you are aware of any of these examples of actually like media and newspapers actually trying to build offline communities, Offline right? Offline yeah Yeah, we have, for example, Pismo. I don't know how to translate it in English. There is a foundation organization who... actually make newspaper but also they have online version and they are some kind actually magazine who is
dedicated for middle class in big cities and actually they are very progressive. Actually they are stealing a lot of topics from us. Actually, more... more leftist than them. But I think that it's great because people are really engaged to... this editorial office and people who are connected with it, because they are organizing many... for example, premiere of every issue of this magazine.
And there are a lot of people. It's free, of course. It's organized at a very nice place at the city center. I think that they are building a very, very close local community and I don't know how it looked like from the economic side because I don't know exactly how much money they are doing but actually I think that's a very good example of being more analog and offline than others. media. I don't think I have another one example, but maybe I will think about it and then I add something.
yeah the mic is coming Hello. To follow up on the discussion of online, I was wondering if you wouldn't be worried that going offline As you mentioned, magazines that are able to do this, like Pismo, are creating a little bubble that's even more middle class, even more urban. I see some people nodding. And would you see that? as a bad thing or as an acceptable thing. Thank you. Sorry, just before you answer, I forgot to say, can you just briefly introduce yourself before asking your questions?
So we are making bubbles, right? And I think that it's struggling to break them. But I don't think that it's... Yeah, Bismo maybe. I don't think that independent media has this. possibility to make a very wide audition, right? Publicity. I don't think that we... can be mainstream. No. We can make this contact with people who maybe have more supplies than others, but... we can make with them some kind of activities who can go further. But maybe it's for us No. and a challenge to
I do the opposite what mainstream media are doing. For example, if we are... focused on big cities, maybe go to the smaller one. Actually, Kritika Polityczna is doing it. And we had... We have places, for example, in Never mind, okay. We have other places with smaller towns and actually it's working, but, you know... We also have a problem that in Poland we centralized everything in Warsaw.
So many institutions, many cultural, but not only government also, is based in Warsaw. So it's very difficult to do something else somewhere else. But actually we are trying and this more maybe. will also do something like that. I don't know. They are in Warsaw now, but I don't know the future. So I hope that it will be developing. No without question. Thanks, Ada. I'm from Petite Singularité. Just a quick remark, because I think... somehow discretion
is a sign of trust for hard contexts, in hard contexts. When you go underground, That means that you have some value to hide from the power and all. And I think we should value that. more like people do, especially people who fled hard conditions. who fled censor and stuff like that because yeah if we just stay on mainstream media and so on, that means that we are not threatening the power somehow. No?
Sorry, just to be a bit sure about your question, are you saying that independent media then should go out Of more mainstream social media? Or should it be on several fields? Yeah, I think it should be... Obviously, we should... have a plan B. We should have backups. But we shouldn't fear getting a bit more underground, because underground don't necessarily mean, for me at least, getting into a bubble.
Because staying in a bubble, I think, is more about... Sorry, I will... I'll let you answer, maybe. It's just a matter of where you get in touch, where you get to reach out with people, where you communicate. Obviously, if you only, as you said before, as you do in Kritika Polityczna, you're going to smaller cities and so we need to go to the countrysides we need to go to like low-key places and so on I think now I would agree with that, that independence means that
We have contact with many people, with immigrants, with queer people, with workers. Actually, I know we like to believe that we are closed in the bubble, but actually when I think about... Krytyka polityczna da people from environments, right? So I am also a representative of My parents don't have a higher education, for example. I think that, yeah, maybe underground, it's possible to make this connection, which are not very...
popular in mainstream media when you have to be there, you have to have connections and other things. I don't know, maybe I like that idea. I think underground is an approach. And it must not be a limit for... you know because if I would understand you said that them being underground. It's like you have respect for the community that is underground and the story.
of the underground spaces and the underground journalism okay and I think this is true but also I think it must not be a limit for what You know, not a limit for... for the self-expression, but a limit to involve more people that can join and bring those values.
So I'm scared sometimes that... maybe when we talk about the bubbles, that we are not able to... to talk with people that maybe could join our viewers of the world, but... I don't know why we need to figure out that we are not so appealing for them or maybe they... misleading what we do and not understand so I think Death Underground is a very important approach, but we also need to explain why it is important and why these values are our values.
my query was it she said that we should value undergrounds well not only it's also it's also that title uh we will value other grounds somehow and trust undertook I think battle is that sure to press the balladies. Maybe not the main screen. Ito. Indy. We can take one last question if you're okay. Hello, my name is Yuri from Germany and I just wanted to add to this maybe like dualism of underground and then the mainstream or platforms that I think
I mean, there are already possibilities like Mastodon where the code is completely open source and transparent. Or even, I think, places like Wikipedia.
It's like, I don't know why they're every year searching for individuals to put money on it, that it can still exist. So I don't know if you have maybe more... ideas where the good platforms are already there and if you maybe could put this also to the policymakers to say we need more public funding for social networks that are open source or we need more funding. not only for public libraries but also for Wikipedia and maybe other spaces
that you already know where you think. Maybe they just need some money to grow against the Twitter or whatever. I think... I think we need of course the money but we also Need the arm. We also need a strategy and all the... the skills of a class of managers, I don't know, even in independent media, that in Italy we miss a lot of these kind of people. because all of these people come from mainstream media and they are very old and don't understand a lot the digital transition.
So I think, yes, we need the money and it should be great if... to get those money you have also to ensure that you are working well and you are working for the community and that your project is not a vanity project but it is a project that that have an impact and stands for, for your people. Okay. I don't know if, uh, uh, I asked for, um, well, but, I think money are a part of the story, but
The other part of the story is how to use that morning in a useful way. Okay, so I think that you think If you are a good lawyer, good politician that makes a law, you have to... you know, to write down a clear law that makes possible to, you know, the independent media that really needs those kind of money to do their work well for the community. Gracias.
Yeah, I agree to what you're saying. I think also in connection to this question, I think it's important to draw distinction because to me, the underground is precisely not the things I can get funding from the European Commission.
either or. If you get funding for the European Commission, you're probably not on the ground. But there's an ecosystem of independent media that doesn't necessarily have to be on the underground. They can be in the periphery pushing for certain subjects in, and there I completely agree that they should be. much more coherence in terms of what we ask people so we can ask them okay you have to we can give you money and then in return you have to use
certain platforms, we have to use certain providers that are European that conform to certain laws, which is not really what we're doing now. And I think that could be a great tool of... self-regulation of the ecosystem of saying, okay, you get X subsidies and you have this and this and this obligation, which is something that the European Union does in many other aspects, so I don't see why they wouldn't do that. That to me is very separate from the underground.
which doesn't run with these types of things. And luckily enough, it doesn't. Last question. There's one word that hasn't been pronounced here. It's organization. and I think that's key it comes before money let's get together I mean I will in France there's the French platform Bastemedia that is working very well it's There hasn't been any need of so much funding. Money was not the issue. The issue is organization.
and the will to do so and bringing together the people capable of doing so. You're talking about managers. I would talk about technologists also. What tools do we use? What tools can we build for ourselves? They are available. They exist. So it's about really putting down the discussions in my point of view. And secondly, I would disagree when you say there's no way to get commission money for underground structures because...
There is quite many underground structures that do cascading funding or other ways of third parties that are managed by the Commission. Sorry, I'm a little bit tired, but maybe I don't know if I understood the whole concept, but... You said that you don't agree with the fact that underground media... are not involved in a
money raising from institution. Any final reaction? I think we need to stop here. But thanks a lot for the interventions. Thanks a lot for your attendance and the very smart questions.