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Protect free media in democracies, urges Estonia's former president Kersti Kaljulaid
In recent years, numerous reports and studies have emerged warning that democracies around the world are backsliding and autocracy is on the rise. A free media could be the key to reversing this trend, according to former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid.
The former Estonian leader said supporting free media is part of defending democracy. “Democracies indeed are always voluntary. You always have to go and vote and sustain our democracies, and every nation finally has the right to ruin their country as well. We've seen countries… give up on democratic path,” Kaljulaid said during a Global Stage panel on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last month.
But when democracies that have begun to crumble manage to turn back, it’s often because there is “some extent of the free media remaining in the country,” Kaljulaid said.
Watch the full conversation: How to protect elections in the age of AI
Watch more Global Stage coverage on the 2024 Munich Security Conference.
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- Ian Bremmer: On AI regulation, governments must step up to protect our social fabric ›
- How to protect elections in the age of AI ›
Was CNN's Town Hall with Trump a mistake?
"The media is not the enemy. The media is the people. And yet that messaging's gone so awry." Media journalist and former CNN host Brian Stelter expresses such a basic thought in the latest episode of GZERO World, and yet it's one about which so many Americans disagree. Stelter joined media historian Nicole Hemmer for a special panel interview on the current state of our hyper-fragmented media landscape and to look ahead at how news outlets can recapture voters' trust ahead of the 2023 election.
A big part of that mission, says Stelter, is to do more listening. "We need to hear so much more from voters and, frankly, so much less from these politicians that are pandering to them."
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: "Politics, trust & the media in the age of misinformation"
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Politics, trust & the media in the age of misinformation
Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, GZERO World takes a hard look at the media’s impact on politics and democracy itself.
In 1964, philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “the media is the message.” He meant that the way content is delivered can be more powerful than the content itself.
A lot’s changed since 1964, but the problem has only gotten worse. The ‘80s and ‘90s saw the rise of a 24/7 cable news cycle and hyper-partisan radio talk shows. The 21st century has thus far given us podcasts, political influencers, and the endless doom scroll of social media. And now, we’re entering the age of generative AI.
All of this has created the perfect ecosystem for information––and disinformation––overload. But there might be a bright spot at the end of the tunnel. In the world where it’s getting harder and harder to tell fact from fiction, news organizations, credible journalists, and fact-checkers will be more important than ever.
How has media changed our idea of truth and reality? And how can we better prepare ourselves for the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation that is almost certain to spread online as the 2024 US presidential election gets closer? Can trust in American’s so-called “Fourth Estate” be restored?
Ian Bremmer sits down with journalist and former CNN host Brian Stelter and Nicole Hemmer, a Vanderbilt University professor specializing in political history and partisan media.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
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Podcast: The past, present and future of political media
Listen: Trust in journalism is rapidly eroding. At the same time, partisanship is skyrocketing.
Ahead of the 2024 US election, the GZERO World Podcast takes a look at the media’s role in politics and democracy itself. What lessons has the press learned since 2020 and how will the first election in the age of generative AI play out? Donald Trump’s presidency and role in contesting the 2020 election was a unique challenge for journalists. How do you reliably cover the US president and leader of the free world while he regularly repeats misinformation? And how to you challenge a politician whose entire brand is premised on the idea he’s being attacked by the press?
There's also the issue of covering some of the more extreme elements in both political parties. Politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traffic in conspiracy theories and often, outright lies. But they have a growing constellation of media platforms, from NewsMax to Joe Rogan, to reach an increasingly fragmented audience distrustful of mainstream news sources.
What lessons did journalists and the media take away from 2016 and 2020? And how will generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney impact the upcoming US presidential election in 2024?
Media experts Brian Stelter, journalist and former CNN anchor, as well as Nicole Hemmer, a political historian specializing in partisan media break down the current media landscape in a conversation with host Ian Bremmer.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Russia and the global order
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Lots of Russia news, as is so often the case over the last year. A little bit less frankly about Ukraine and more about Russia's position vis-a-vis the US and the global order, and I fear/suspect that that is increasingly going to be what we're going to be talking about going forward. One big piece of news, of course, this American journalist for the Wall Street Journal arrested on charges of espionage, Evan Gershkovich, it's going to be a secret trial. The Russians, having picked him up, said that they caught him red-handed. There is no presumption of innocence when you're grabbed on espionage in Russia.
The Americans will probably never find out what they're even specifically charging him with. And this is 20 years, up to 20 year sentencing, almost certain over the coming couple of months that he will be found guilty and then probably sent to a high security facility, could be tortured. I mean, this is the sort of thing that we've been seeing from Alexei Navalny over the past year, and is a clear step up in a direct action against American citizens by Russia. We haven't seen anything like this, frankly, since the '80s. So I mean since the heyday of the Cold War, '86 I think was when Daniloff was arrested. So in other words, before Perestroika, before Glasnost. This were the real old days of, as Ronald Reagan called them, Evil Empire. Well, that's clearly where US-Russia relations are right now. And unlike previous arrests, this meant to cause massive headlines and meant to be arbitrary, meant to chill the idea that Western journalists can conduct their business in Russia. They should obviously all leave. And also meant to show the Americans that the Russians are willing to take more direct, albeit incremental, steps beyond outside the Ukraine War directly.
If you go to Russia, if you listen or watch their state media, you'll see that they have been saying that they're fighting a war, not against Ukraine, but against NATO. And that's because NATO is providing the training, they're providing the equipment, they're providing the material, they're providing the intelligence. They're not involved in the fight directly, but they're certainly indirectly engaged in a proxy war after the Russians illegally invaded Ukraine. The Russian response to this is increasingly being willing to lash out against Westerners. And I think this is an important and significant escalatory move, even if it's one that has been calculated by the Russians not to lead to a precipitous American reaction, not the kind of thing that we want to see.
And then on top of that, this weekend, another terrorist attack, this in St. Petersburg, and where a cafe that had been owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the CEO, Owner of the Wagner Group, this paramilitary organization that has been doing a lot of fighting at Putin's behest, of course in Ukraine. And in early fighting, reasonably successfully, more recently not so much, in part because they've not been able to get ammunition, and they've been increasingly public about that and increasingly directly critical of the Russian Defense Ministry, of Russia's regular military forces and hierarchy and leadership, not of course directly in any way critical of Putin himself. But that fight has been growing, and so the fact that Vladlen Tatarsky, who is a very well-known military blogger, is incredibly hawkish, is hugely supportive of the war in Ukraine and has been supported by Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, he was assassinated, bomb went off, apparently hidden in a statuette that was presented to him by some woman who attended the talk.
Of course, immediately we're going to hear that this was the Ukrainians behind it. The Ukrainians, of course, were found to be behind the assassination attempt of Aleksandr Dugin, who is a strong sort of ultra nationalist, calling essentially for genocide of Ukrainians. And didn't get him, got his daughter instead, when at the last moment they switched cars. That's a terrorist attack, he's a civilian. But certainly wasn't intended to have collateral damage. Here you saw the video perhaps, I mean, it blew up the cafe and lots of other people were injured. It could have been the Ukrainians. I'm not saying it's implausible, but in this case, I think it's unlikely. I think it's more likely that this is a group that is not happy with Prigozhin increasingly attacking them. So perhaps either anti-war movement in Russia, or perhaps more likely pro-war movement in Ukraine, which is the vast majority of the Russian people at this point, but anti-Prigozhin, anti-Wagner group.
And the fact that there is this internal fight in Ukraine, ultimately that that's not likely to go well. And they haven't been able to take the town of Bakhmut after months of fighting, after lots of crowing by Prigozhin that this was imminent, and even Zelensky was able to visit in the past couple of weeks. Clearly an enormous embarrassment for Prigozhin, and this implies that he's under a lot of pressure. And frankly, I mean, there have been some rumors that he could be the next president of Russia challenging Putin. I think it's much more likely that he isn't with us for very much longer, that someone takes him out. But in either case, what we're seeing is more instability in Russia, more pressure on Russia.
The Russian economy performed extremely well compared to the sanctions that were leveled against it in the first year of the war. Indeed, the Americans have been surprised with how resilient the economy was. In the early days of the war, the US focused much more on economic sanctions and less on the provision of direct military support to the Ukrainians. Turned out the latter was much more important than the former in making a difference in the battlefield. And that was probably an early mistake by the Biden administration. But now that we're in the second year, we are seeing that Russian gas is getting stranded, Russia's having a harder time exporting oil, also at a significant discount, and the pressure on the Russian economy is growing. They've also lost an enormous amount of human capital, and of course the cost of the war itself. And they have to rebuild their own military industrial complex, which means they lose a lot of the contracts for export, which were a big source of hard currency for the Russians.
And we saw Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch, recently saying publicly that he sees the Russian economy under a lot more pressure. He wasn't saying that three months ago, six months ago. So all of those things imply that while the war in Ukraine is becoming somewhat more stable, not as many frontline attacks, frankly not as many civilians getting killed, and not as much movement territorially either in favor of the Ukrainians or the Russians. That may change with an imminent Ukrainian counter offensive, though even then, probably not all that much. But the position of Russia vis-a-vis NATO, we continue to see nothing but escalation, as we are in the 14th month of this war. And that, of course, longer term is much more dangerous geopolitically.
So that's a little bit for me. That's where I see right now. I hope everyone's going well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Iraq then and now: Reflections from NBC's Richard Engel
As a young freelance journalist, Richard Engel was one of the only US TV journalists to broadcast from Baghdad throughout the US-led invasion of Iraq. On the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, shares the story of how he ended up reporting on the ground and what he saw after troops arrived.
Despite limited access for journalists, Engel was able to get into Iraq by applying "human shield" visa and entered the country under the guise of a peace activist. What he found upon arrival was a population beaten down by years of dictatorship, and a choatic, disorganized government. As the invasion began, more and more people came out of the shadows, and expressed their joy that “ Americans were coming in and getting rid of Saddam,” according to Engel.
However, the aftermath of Saddam's removal was a different story. "When Saddam was driven out of power, there was a wonderful reception for about a year. And then it got very, very ugly," Engel says. He attributes the increasing animosity to mistakes made by the American administration and lingering resentment by the Sunni Muslim community. This led to a dangerous and hostile environment that "changed the dynamic" of the region.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
Richard Engel on Iraq, Ukraine, and the danger of 'wars of choice'
Richard Engel, NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent, was one of the few US TV journalists on the ground in Baghdad when the US-led invasion of Iraq began in 2003. Engel joins GZERO World to reflect on his experience covering the Iraq War as a freelance journalist, and what lessons he took away as he covers other global conflicts, like the war in Ukraine.
Engel recounts the lead-up to the war in 2003, when it was very difficult to enter Iraq, and how he ended up getting into the country on a "human shield" visa. Once inside, he found a population that was beaten down by years of dictatorship, and a chaotic, disorganized government. While many Iraqis expressed their joy that "Americans were coming in and getting rid of Saddam," it got ugly very quickly. The Bush Administration made a lot of mistakes, and there was lingering resentment from the Sunni Muslim community, which led to anger and animosity.
Engel reflects on the state of Iraq 20 years after the war began. While the country is safer now, the Iraq War led to the emergence of ISIS and a three year civil war. There's ongoing instability and political violence following massive protests in 2019 against corruption and sectarianism. "They're much freer," Engel says, "They're better than they were under Saddam, but they haven't been embraced as a fully-functioning country yet."
Engel cautions against engaging in a “war of choice,” drawing parallels to the invasion of Ukraine, which he views as a war of choice for Russia. "Don't do a war of choice," Engel emphasizes, "War truly must be the last resort."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
Blowback on MBS from Khashoggi murder saved many other journalists, says expert
US-Saudi relations were strained after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA says was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS. And he knows it was a risky move.
"I don't think that they will ever do anything like that again," says Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and MBS insider.
Still, he tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, the regime will continue to be very repressive and authoritarian, doing things like mass executions of convicted terrorists from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State but also dissident Shiites.
Haykel says no one in the US will shed a tear for the former, but the latter "certainly did not deserve execution."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
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