A case for the press council

Imagine, they say: you are selling drugs, you are insane, they should cut you open and put a bullet in your head. Imagine this happening on social media, for the whole world to see. Finnish investigative journalist Jessikka Aro has gone through all this. It started right after her first article about Russian troll factories in Finland. The Russian mafia tried to silence her with slander, lies and death threats. But she did not back away: her book "Putnin Trollit" was released in Finnish in 2019, English and German translations will be published in 2022. Eero Hyvönen (Finnish press council) and Sonja Volkmann-Schluck (German press council) examine this landmark case, its impact on the Finnish press landscape and possible ways to counter fake news and information warfare. The production is an effort of the German and Finnish press councils and was developed and produced by Roman Kern.

Exactly ten years ago, there happened one of the worst traffic accidents in Europe. A bus brought Belgian kids back from a ski trip in Switzerland and crashed in a tunnel. The accident made the news for many days. Soon the media itself came under criticism when two major daily newspapers published portrait photos of the children who died. Photos that these children had posted on Facebook before the accident – laughing and carefree on the ski slopes. Sonja Volkmann-Schluck from the German Press Council looks back on this case, with Pieter Knapen from the Raad voor de Journalistiek Belgium and Liesbeth van Impe, editor-in-chief at Het Nieuwsblad.Music:I Dunno (Grapes of Wrath Mix) by spinningmerkaba (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/56346 Ft: Jlang, 4nsic, grapes