Content monetisation platform Steady backs RSF’s Journalism Trust Initiative
Journalism is losing its competitive edge in the face of rampant disinformation, opaque algorithms and powerful tech companies that deprive it of its visibility, reach and revenue worldwide – which the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) aims to overturn. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is pleased to announce that European digital content monetisation platform, Steady is backing the JTI.
A Berlin-based company created to defend media pluralism and enable journalists to fund themselves independently through their own communities, Steady began last month to support the JTI, a mechanism designed by RSF to promote quality journalism by providing those who practice it with a competitive advantage, and thereby rebuild the public’s trust in the news media.
From now on, Steady’s nearly 1,700 content creators, who are followed by more than 200,000 paying members and subscribers, will be encouraged to begin the certification process according to the JTI benchmark.
“We are very pleased that our cooperation with Steady helps to make the Journalism Trust Initiative more attractive to smaller media outlets and independent journalists. Adhering to professional journalistic standards and guaranteeing trustworthy content are not a privilege reserved for major news organisations. They are a challenge that we should all take up."
News aggregators, membership and subscription platforms or content monetisation platforms at large can point to the JTI standard in their guidelines to the publishers, media and content creators they host. Steady plans to begin drawing attention to the JTI at once, with a training workshop in mid-July for the publishers that are available on Steady.
“Many media professionals use Steady to publish or monetise their journalistic content, including those at Krautreporter, Übermedien and Volksverpetzer,” Steady managing director Tina Dingel said. “I am very proud that our association with the Journalism Trust Initiative will now enable us to help journalists and publishers to strengthen media professionalism and public trust in the media, and to encourage more digital creators to adhere to the JTI.”
An independent, stand-alone mechanism that is in the process of being adopted all over the world as a way to guarantee the quality of journalistic content and news reporting, the JTI was created at RSF’s initiative with support from the European Broadcasting Union and the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). Developed by a group of international experts under the aegis of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), the standard was published in December 2019.
More than 600 media have begun or completed the process of self-evaluating their compliance with the JTI standard and nearly 100 of them have published the results in the form of a transparency report on the JTI app platform. Sixteen media have obtained full JTI certification, including GMX News and Web.de News in Germany, the French public broadcaster France Télévisions and the Swiss news site Swissinfo.ch.
