Journalists from the World Press Institute held a public panel to discuss the political climate and how the U.S. presidential election is impacting their countries’ political situations on Wednesday at the University of St. Thomas.
All 10 of the 2024 WPI fellows attended the panel to discuss their journalistic experience from diverse global backgrounds, with the main four speakers being from Brazil, Bulgaria, Finland and India.
Alexis Rogers of KARE 11 moderated the conversation, starting by saying, “We’re gonna get a little bit smarter.”
Luciana Dyniewicz, business and financial reporter for O Estado de S. Paulo in São Paulo, started by speaking about political polarization in Brazil.
The polarization is especially notable regarding the environmental state of the Amazon, which makes up 60% of the country, according to the Rainforest Foundation.
“Politicians from the left can talk about it,” Dyniewicz said, “If a politician from the right talks about that, no one from the right will vote for them.”
Drawing similarities to the political environment in Brazil, Ralitsa Ficheva, a political reporter for Dnevnik.bg in Sofia, said it was not surprising that her country of Bulgaria was also divided between two sentiments.
“The division is pretty clear nowadays in the society,” Ficheva said. “The Russian influence is very very strong.”
She said that this influence comes from “Russian propaganda that is spread mostly through the media.”
Additionally, “90% of the media is privately owned,” so “people just don’t believe in the media anymore,” Ficheva said.
Differing from the conversation on media distrust, Anando Bhakto, senior assistant editor of Frontline, and contributor to The Wire, The Globe Post and Open Democracy, talked about the impact of disinformation campaigns in India.
Narendra Modi has been serving as India’s prime minister for 11 years, and during this time, Bhakto said there has been “hostility toward minorities under the current state.”
Additionally, Bhakto said he thinks the journalism field is not as objective as it should be and that it pushes one-sided beliefs on people.
“It is not that people do not believe in media, but in India, whether it is the traditional or digital media, they spin out narratives and sell news, which caters to people’s ideologies and people’s prejudices,” Bhakto said.
Sanna Raita-aho, a political journalist for the Finnish News Agency in Helsinki, ended the main conversation by talking about Finland’s progressive social policies.
Finland has free university, schools and daycare – a society made possible through maintained worker competency.
“We cannot lose any person,” Raita-aho said. “Every person has to be capable and to work.”
This system has its faults as the population ages and the birth rate decreases, Raita-aho said.
“We have now healthcare prices because we simply do not have enough people to maintain our public healthcare system,” Raita-aho said.
To combat this change, Raita-aho said Finland needs to attract “talent” to “keep and maintain their welfare state.”
This will be a challenge, however, as a far-right group called the “True Finns” is working to stop immigrants from entering the country.
To close out the panel, Rogers opened the floor to questions.
“Do you guys have any advice on what we can do to be the change?” a St. Thomas student asked.
The audience received many answers, including one from the moderator herself.
“You will not get excellence in journalism if it’s not people-first,” Rogers said.
Cecilia Wallace can be contacted at wall1238@stthomas.edu.