Information integrity is essential to sustaining democracy and
advancing the G20’s 2025 goals. Photo: Supplied
A global media alliance has sounded an acute alarm about escalating threats to information integrity, calling on powerful G20 leaders to act in the interests of democracy.
The fledgling, independent M20 initiative held its inaugural Summit in early September. It drew up a “Johannesburg Declaration” that outlines multiple assaults on the information ecosystem and on independent journalism and issues recommendations for global leaders to respond responsibly.
In the firm belief that journalism is a public good, the M20 builds on the UN’s Global Principles for Information Integrity, which states that information integrity cannot be achieved without an “independent, free and pluralistic media”. Further, the UN notes that “robust and urgent responses are needed to support public interest journalism around the world.”
The declaration affirms that information integrity is essential to sustaining democracy and advancing the G20’s 2025 goals of solidarity, equality and sustainable development.
It calls on “everyone to do more to protect press freedom and support the role of journalism and a human rights-based media ecosystem in its contribution to the public good”.
The Declaration is the result of a collaborative global discussion that provides a foundation for further information-sharing to ensure that the G20 integrates information integrity with press freedom, media sustainability, safety of journalists, and other pressing media-related concerns.
In an accompanying policy brief, the M20 notes that the crisis is growing as the news media and civic space landscapes are shrinking. “This imbalance threatens the interests of the 2025 G20 priorities of combating climate change, inequalities and dangerous debt levels, as well as addressing issues of disaster resilience and critical minerals. Current trends foresee an increase in low-quality and false information, with increasing AI ‘hallucinations’ and deceptive deepfakes being produced and circulated. These outputs are reintegrated as training data for AI development in a further downward spiral for quality information,” it warns.
The M20 has welcomed the AITF chair’s recent statement, which recognises the “importance of optimising the benefits of AI, whilst mitigating risks” and calls for AI systems to respect local ownership and intellectual property rights. This call echoes a key recommendation of the M20, as does the DEWG statement, which recognises the role of media in alerting the public about deepfakes and promoting online safety.
Some of the recommendations to the G20
The M20 Declaration provides specific recommendations to ministers and G20 leaders on the following issues: information integrity (including a subsection on the Climate Crisis), Media Viability and Media Freedom, Artificial Intelligence (including a subsection on AI in Africa), the Safety of Journalists, the Rights of Women journalists, Children and Young People.
It calls for the G20 Leaders’ Declaration to include wording that recognises that integrity is damaged by coordinated disinformation campaigns, AI errors, biases and undisclosed deepfakes “and that a supportive environment for journalism can help counter these risks”.
It recommends that G20 leaders should commit to the creation of public funding models for journalism, “comparable to those that support other public goods, while ensuring strong guarantees of editorial independence and universal access to reliable information. Supporting media viability in this way is not optional – it is foundational to the health of our democracies and economies.”
It recommends protecting intellectual property rights to ensure fair compensation.
It also called for recognition of media-led efforts to develop culturally and linguistically inclusive AI tools tailored to Africa’s needs and recognition that sustainable AI development in Africa requires “robust accountability mechanisms that prevent the entrenchment of technological dependencies”.
It makes several recommendations around the safety of journalists, including wording in the G20 declaration that recognises “deep concern at the unprecedented rise in physical and online assaults on journalists and condemnation of these acts as violations of international law and fundamental human rights”.
Way Forward
The SA National Editors’ Forum, Media Monitoring Africa (now Moxii Africa) and partner organisations led M20 activities this year.
In preparation for the G20 to be hosted by US President Donald Trump in 2026, the M20 is being restructured to ensure a sustainable, robust impact beyond 2025.
- For the full Johannesburg Declaration and details about the M20, visit www.m20.org