Breaking through Russian propaganda, supporting independent media in Eastern Europe – insights from The Fix Foundation’s event

Editor’s note: The Fix Foundation was born out of The Fix Media’s efforts to support Ukrainian media during the ongoing war. The Foundation aims to build a more connected and resilient media space in Eastern Europe, including via support for innovation and systemic change. Read more in the Foundation’s open letter. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped Eastern Europe – and its media market. Ukrainian news outlets are trying to survive while reporting on the most important event of their lifetime, the few remaining independent media in Russia are struggling to break through the wall of state propaganda, and reverberations are felt throughout the region.

On Sept. 19 The Fix Foundation, an organisation created to build upon The Fix Media’s work to support independent media in Ukraine, organised its first knowledge sharing session to share insights and ideas within the media development community. 

The speakers included Laurent Dochy from creative agency Lucy, Mariia Leonova from independent media sales house Infopoint, and Dariusz Szreter from indy Polish regional media Zawsze Pomorze.

The Fix Media prepared a summary of key insights from the event. 

Laurent Dochy, from creative agency Lucy, presented the reCaptions project, which uses subtitles of popular films to inform Russians about the war.

• Due to the Russian war against Ukraine, many big streaming platforms like Netflix left the Russian market. This drove Russian audiences toward pirated versions of popular films (even more than before the war).
• This presented an opportunity to break through Russian censorship: by inserting news about the war into movie subtitles. The advantage is reaching an audience that isn’t necessarily big on news consumption, thus breaking through an information bubble. 
• The reCaptions team finds and translates news pieces from established media that are emotional, terrifying, impactful, and easy to understand for Russian citizens.

• The data is limited but the team knows that downloads of their subtitle files are in the thousands. It says a lot about the possible impact. “We don’t have any feedback from Russians yet, but I’d love it”, Laurent Dochy said.
• The team plans to continue and develop this initiative and share more subtitles, reaching even wider audiences.

Mariia Leonova, independent media sales house Infopoint that helps independent media in Ukraine and Belarus.

• Infopoint is a creative agency that operates in Eastern Europe. They help independent media – such as The Kyiv Independent or Hromadske – which need support in selling and creating advertising content.
• Many independent media don’t have enough experience to be financially sustainable. “We are the first agency which covers Eastern Europe and works for the sake of independent journalism, not pure business”, Mariia Leonova said.
• The agency supports those who don’t have enough resources to create quality commercial content. They save brands time managing and controlling the process, developing a strategy. Infopoint has creative expertise to ensure ideas are relevant.
• Big companies such as L’Oreal Ukraine or AJAX want to publish ads on important social topics, not just promote their product. They communicate on the topics such as the position of women during the war, help for displaced people, and psychological assistance for Ukrainians. Today, the agenda of businesses coincides with independent journalists’ agenda. 
• The project faces challenges such as a long sales cycle, the media not knowing how to work with commercials, and a local market that is still struggling economically.
• Infopoint wants to expand to other countries in the future. One driver is an exodus of brands from Russia, which creates opportunities for media in other countries across the region.

Dariusz Szreter from Zawsze Pomorze, an indy Polish regional media, about how they left their jobs to fight back against propaganda and successes to date

• The media market is highly centralised and increasingly influenced by the government. For example, publishing house Polska Press was bought by Orlen (a state-controlled oil company). 
• Despite promises that editorial independence would be respected, many experienced editors and journalists were fired or left with complaints about being forced to toe the line. The media became state-government oriented and the criticism of the opposition was visible. 
• Mariusz Szmidka, formerly of Dziennik Ba?tycki (a publication covering the Gdansk metropolitan area, owned by Polska Press), left with a team to launch a weekly magazine to broadcast objective information. They created a foundation with five donors which allows the magazine to be a non-profit organisation and collect funds in different ways. 
• Despite obstacles, they started a paper magazine and internet portal in December 2021. In just 9 months, they are close to being self-sustaining and cover close to 10% of the region’s audience. However, they are struggling to ensure further growth, as one of the planned donors had to pull their support.
• Zawsze Pomorze has materials about the Kashubian language and Kocievie dialect, Polish-Kashubian phrasebooks, educational quizzes, and materials showing the tourist attractions of Pomerania and subregions. The main categories are business, tourism, local government, culture, and health.

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