#FightForFacts : RSF’s new campaign video
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is unveiling its new international awareness-raising campaign video entitled #FightForFacts. Produced by the French advertising agency BETC, it aims to help viewers appreciate journalism’s importance in enabling people to understand issues that are decisive for their future and to take action.
State violence, human rights violations, public health tragedies, the difficulties of migrants, discrimination against women – they all disappear without free and independent journalists to report the facts. And without their reporting, the people and their representatives cannot organize an appropriate response.
RSF’s new campaign video shows several scenes resembling news events, but the critical angle gradually disappears and gives way to superficially similar scenes that are nonetheless lacking in any meaning.
“At a time when journalism is being criticized from all sides, populist discourse is gaining ground, violence against journalists is growing and reliable information struggles to be visible on social media, RSF wants to make people aware or remind them that none of humankind’s major problems could be solved without free and independent journalism,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
Aimed at the general public, this video will be broadcast on TV channels, shared on social media and available to all websites that want it. And it will be available in 10 languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, Turkish and simplified Chinese).
The video has been produced thanks to support from the French Development Agency (AFD).
“Associated for the past ten years with RSF’s defence of the freedom to inform, AFD is proud to support its #FightsforFacts international campaign video, whose dramatic images forcefully illustrate journalism’s key role in making people aware of such issues as governance, inequality and climate change,” AFD director-general Rémy Rioux said. “With ten years left to the Agenda 2030 deadline, this ‘fight for facts’ can encourage public support for the Sustainable Development Goals with help from free and independent media.”
The production company BIRTH and studio MATHEMATIC collaborated with the advertising agency BETC in producing this video.
About BETC
Founded in 1994, BETC is the leading French advertising agency systematically ranked among the most creative agencies in the world. In 2019, it was named Adweek’s International Agency of the Year as well as the Effie’s Agency of the Year for the second consecutive year. BETC looks to renew the relationship between brands and creation. Through desire, curiosity and commitment, BETC creates new synergies and produces its own content in the fields of music, film, publishing and design. BETC is at the heart of the Magasins Généraux project in Pantin, where the agency moved to in July 2016. It is a new space for creation, innovation, production and sharing located in Greater Paris.
About AFD
Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Group implements France’s policy on development and international solidarity. Comprised of AFD, which finances the public sector and NGOs; Proparco, which finances the private sector; and soon, Expertise France for technical cooperation, the Group finances, supports and accelerates transitions towards a more resilient and sustainable world. We are building – with our partners – shared solutions, with and for the people of the Global South. Our teams are active in more than 4,000 projects in the field, in the French overseas departments and some 115 countries, including areas in crisis. We strive to protect the common good – promoting peace, biodiversity and a stable climate, as well as gender equality, health and education. It’s our way of contributing to the commitment that France and the French people have made to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals. Towards a world in common.
