This programme is part of the event Creative Europe Day. Please visit the main page to reserve your spot for this programme.
“MEPs fear disinformation crisis in prelude to elections,” NOS recently headlined. Disinformation has been spreading for some time and can directly affect democratic processes. Can more intensive European journalistic cooperation counterbalance this? In the run-up to the European elections, we will be talking to initiators of cross-border journalistic initiatives who are advocating for a free and independent press in Europe in an original way. How does that work in practice? Which tactics are effective in the fight against disinformation? What impact do they hope to achieve and what threats lurk?
Ross Higgins of Bellingcat and Lili Takács of the Hungarian news platform 444 are part of The Eastern Frontier Initiative. Together with independent news platforms from Slovakia, Romania and Poland, they have joined forces in the fight against Russian and Chinese disinformation. The ultimate goal: contributing to a resilient European democracy.
Mick ter Reehorst, co-founder and managing director of Are We Europe, will also join the session and talk about The Circle: a new approach to cross-border journalism and collaboration. Four European media partners — Are We Europe (NL), Hostwriter (DE), Arty Farty (FR), and n-ost (DE) — joined forces to create media knowledge hubs in eight European cities.
The session is hosted by DutchCulture | Creative Europe Desk NL and moderated by presenter, director and programmer of the Movies That Matter festival, Bahram Sadeghi.
About the speakers
Ross Higgins is a UK-based senior researcher at Bellingcat and leads its financial investigations team. Prior to joining Bellingcat, Ross worked in the insolvency industry for over a decade in the public and private sector. Since joining Bellingcat in 2016 Ross has written about the abuse of corporate vehicles in the UK and Ireland to facilitate several global money laundering schemes. More recently, he has published about sanction-breaking supply chains from the UK to Russia. His reports have garnered significant media interest and have been cited in the Houses of Parliament as well as the Sunday Times, the Economist and the Guardian. Ross is also a trainer for Bellingcat, regularly teaching workshops and appearing at events across Europe that cover all aspects of open source investigation, with particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Ross is Bellingcat’s team lead for the Eastern Frontier Initiative.
Lili Takács is a journalist at Hungarian independent media outlet 444, she coordinates The Eastern Frontier Initiative (TEFI) project from the content side. She has a background in international relations, and holds a Phd in military studies. In TEFI Hungary’s 444.hu, Slovakia’s SME, Romania’s PressOne, Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza and Bellingcat are covering issues on broader security threatening the CEE region.
Mick ter Reehorst (1992) is the director and founder of Are We Europe, a non-profit media collective founded in 2017. The collective takes on the complex issue of European identity by showcasing talent and storytelling from around the continent and beyond. Also through its creative agency – Awe Studio. Mick studied journalism and international relations in Amsterdam and Paris. He now travels around Europe spreading the gospel of good design and cross-border collaborative journalism with his motto “Designing Europe’s Media for All”.
