In 2016, Arianna Ciccone and Christopher Potter embarked on a visionary mission, founding the International Journalism Festival (IJF). Held annually in Italy, the event features a prestigious lineup of keynote speakers and covers a wide array of topics related to media and journalism, drawing participants from far and wide, including Nordic scholars. Eager to capture the essence of IJF 2024, we reached out to some of these scholars and asked to share their key takeaways.
If you’ve attended the festival or know someone who has and would like to share their insights, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We would be delighted to showcase your key takeaways.
At the International Journalism Festival, I was particularly focused on the subject of Artificial Intelligence. Here are some insights from the IJF regarding AI:
- Generative AI was one of the most talked-about topics in Perugia. It was described as “an epochal development – less like social media and more like the advent of the Internet itself”.
- GenAI is sweeping across every sector without asking journalistic entities if they like it or not. On the contrary, “AI is an unignorable force around which journalism must organize itself”.
- If you are particularly good at something, artificial intelligence may not help you there. However, it can provide valuable assistance elsewhere.
- Prompting with natural language and conversational style democratizes the use of AI, but this does not mean that anyone can master prompting right away. The art of prompting is the key!
- Artificial intelligence is not a single entity but a variety of tools. And as cliché as it may sound, imagination truly appears to be the only limit to its applications.
Journalism appears deceptively straightforward, its essence easily distilled. For what is journalism if not “stories about people, for people”? It is this latter aspect that captivated me most at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia 2024. As the challenge of connecting with audiences becomes increasingly formidable, our time becomes a battleground, public aversion to news rises, and trust in media wanes. Within the rich tapestry of sessions, debates, and presentations, I therefore selected those that challenge conventional approaches to journalistic storytelling. I seek out emerging trends, innovative perspectives, and unconventional narrative techniques aimed at delivering our journalism to the hearts and minds of those for whom we craft our stories. For without an engaged audience, journalism loses its purpose. Without compelling narratives, journalism risks becoming dry statistics on a spreadsheet. Therefore, I endeavor to distill some of the most inventive methods of conveying facts into a concise list – a testament to what I gleaned about the art of storytelling in journalism at this year’s Perugia journalism festival.
At times, journalism calls for a performer
Adam Kuzycz-Berezowski, a Polish theater, television, and film actor, has played a pivotal role in producing theatrical works that circumvent governmental censorship, thus effectively reaching audiences in ways conventional journalism often cannot. In collaboration with the acclaimed journalist Janusz Schwertner’s investigative work on gender rights, homosexuality, and the constraints on same-sex marriage, entitled “Love in the Time of Plague”, a unique theatrical piece emerged. Rooted in Schwertner’s journalistic narratives, this production provided an unconventional platform where individuals previously denied the right to marry found themselves exchanging vows amidst the audience. As the actor onstage provocatively ponders: Was this a piece of theater, or a celebration of union?
“Theater possesses a potency that written articles often lack, and this potency amplifies when actors not only interpret real-life events but also strive to present news in a theatrical form”, explains Kuzycz-Berezowski. “Is it then fiction or fact? Perhaps both”, he muses. “This, I believe, is the most meaningful contribution I can make from a theater stage in Poland today”, declares the actor, pointing to the constraints on freedom of expression faced by numerous journalists in Poland. Despite this, Kuzycz-Berezowski asserts that theater enjoys greater liberty and is less censored than mainstream news media in the country.
At times, journalism needs a full ensemble
“Everything is fact-based. Everything is true,” asserts founder and CEO of of the Paris-based Live magazine. Florence Martin-Kessler has spent years refining the dissemination of journalism through live shows. Through Live, various journalistic narratives have been brought to audiences across eleven countries. In Live magazine productions, journalism intertwines with readings, dance performances, and photographic art, creating a platform where journalistic work is presented alongside fictional or non-narrative elements. Additionally, factual content is bolstered by film screenings, theatrical performances, and live music. The aim is twofold: to reach new audiences with journalism and, equally importantly, to engage people more effectively than traditional mediums such as newspapers, radio, and television. To date, Live magazine has sold over 122,000 tickets to journalistic showcases, attracting a younger and more diverse audience than traditional media outlets”, explains Martin-Kessler, the magazine’s founder. One of Live magazine’s latest endeavors involves incorporating fact-based stand-up comedy into its repertoire.
At times, journalism needs a comic book hero
In 2021, Serhii Kolesnikov founded the comic book publishing house Inker Magazine to deliver news, including stories from Ukraine, through a format he believed was apt for the times: comics. Inker Magazine publishes longer journalistic narratives that combine in-depth reporting with artistic comic creators. They present documentaries and other narrative journalism where the collection of journalistic facts may be traditional, but the presentation, the narrative solutions, are definitely not.
In highly aesthetic and meticulously crafted comic books, people receive stories from war and daily life. All are journalistic in their gathering of facts, but stand in an aesthetic balance because the comic book format is immediately associated with fictional characters and universes.
The uniquely blended approach can indeed make certain aspects of the gathering process easier. For instance, acquiring live footage and press photos from the occupied regions of Ukraine might pose challenges, whereas illustrating them based on descriptions from sources could be more feasible. However, Serhii Kolesnikov emphasizes that the primary concern is the audience. Because at Inker Magazine they aim to reach out to the younger generation and also connect with those who harbor strong distrust toward traditional media, they have opted for fiction as a narrative aesthetic tool. Nevertheless, the narratives remain fact-based and true. “All of our comic artists have artistic freedom, but the stories must maintain their documentary precision”, states Kolesnikov, speaking via a Zoom link from Kyiv.
In the book Run, we encounter a well-known national marathon runner who begins organizing sabotage actions against the Russian invasion forces, leveraging his expertise in running. Ultimately, he is captured and killed by the Russians, who take a photo of his body and use it as a trophy on social media. Inker Magazine incorporates this image into the book, thus reclaiming his story. “Semi-fiction ultimately serves as a tool to disseminate news to those who resist traditional news, a problem that can be as prevalent in Ukraine as it is in the rest of Europe, despite the country being at war”, states Kolesnikov from Kyiv to the audience in Perugia.
Several other presentations also focus on various ways to combine fiction and journalism, or different methods of reaching audiences by delivering news, or utilizing narrative techniques that are typically associated more with fiction than with facts. These solutions are not necessarily the sole salvation and solution for narrative journalism. Nor is it the case that such fusions have never been attempted before. However, it is certainly one of the trends at this year’s festival in the verdant heart of Umbria.
(All images are screenshots from presentations at https://www.journalismfestival.com)
Photo: Francesco Cuocio via https://www.journalismfestival.com