On 19 and 20 April, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) will be hosting a series of two webinars as part of the project “Building independent media to counter political interference” funded by Open Society Foundations.

Journalists and media organisations in Europe have been facing unprecedented political pressure in recent years and especially during the Covid pandemic crisis. Such attempts may stem from politicians requesting to alter or halt the production of certain news stories to control the flow of information; smear campaigns to discredit journalists constitute another threat to media freedom; a third type of interference is through national laws such as recent Covid restrictions on media, which may prevent the dissemination of information even though that is a matter of public interest.

To reduce the potential harm on media independence caused by such various political pressures, the webinars aim to gather committed organisations and policy-makers defending media independence to find ways and mechanisms to counter political interference in media and to maintain the independence of media in Europe.