Centre for Civic Education (CCE) and SHARE Foundation have publicised Journalism Guide for Digital Age, which provides answers to some of the key technical and legal issues of contemporary journalism within the media organization, but also for independent journalistic work.
Journalism Guide for Digital Age provides analysis and useful advice for journalists at both local and national level and encompasses many important and insufficiently covered topics, such as digital security i.e. encryption, email protection, secure Internet browsing, software updates, password complexity, etc. Part of the Guide also deals with the freedom of expression and functioning of online media in the digital environment, current media regulations in this area, new ethical issues, the status of journalists, general rules on privileges and responsibilities, and self-regulation. The Guide emphasizes the relation between media and personal data protection, followed by OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), which refers to the search, collection, analysis and use of publicly available and open data that can be useful to investigative journalists. In this context, various aspects of preparation and security, advanced search techniques and tools, metadata and archiving methods, etc. are elaborated.
Decentralization of news exchange amongst citizens, almost all of which are technically equipped enough to be able to instantly record, process and send information to the other side of the world, has set a difficult challenge for journalists. Thus, a new logic of data creation and processing was created, as well as new research parameters that are in effect on the Internet. This is accompanied by various security risks that arise in these conditions. At the same time, information expanses are constricted by legal norms that significantly affect the role of journalists in achieving public interest. Therefore, Journalism Guide for Digital Age aims to facilitate media research and reporting of journalists in the public interest.
Bearing in mind that there are media that do their job in the languages of minority peoples, the Guide will also soon be translated into the Albanian language.
Guide Journalism Guide for Digital Age was published within the project “Support to local media – first-hand stories! Support to investigative journalism and media literacy at the local level in Montenegro” conducted by B film Montenegro, CCE, SHARE Foundation and Institute for Business and Financial Literacy. The project is funded by the EU via Delegation of the European Union to Montenegro and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration of the Government of Montenegro.
Damir NIKOČEVIĆ, Development Coordinator