Peter Limbourg, director general of Deutsche Welle (DW), and Marie-Christine Saragosse, CEO and chairwoman of France Médias Monde (FMM), met at the DW headquarters in Bonn for their third annual seminar to discuss new ways of strengthening their editorial cooperation regarding European media projects.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, DW, RFI (Radio France Internationale) and France 24 are planning multilingual digital co-productions for social media aimed at young people. Other events such as the second edition of the Paris Peace Forum in November or the Munich Security Conference in February next year, will be used to explore new ways of collaborating, for instance by sharing editorial teams on the ground.

DW Director General Peter Limbourg: “We like to deepen our successful collaboration because together we can reach even more people around the globe with high quality journalism from Europe.”

France Médias Monde CEO and Chairwoman of Marie-Christine Saragosse: “Because our role as international media is increasingly important in a global context of tensions, because on European news France Médias Monde and Deutsche Welle have expertise and multilingual editorial forces that no one can match, this cooperation between our two groups is essential.”

Cooperation at the heart of the public service missions

One successful joint project was the coverage of the latest European elections in May, including several TV debates co-produced by France 24 and DW in Brussels and in Berlin, as well as a major investigative report “European elections: when Russia interferes” and a series of videos about first-time voters from every European country. These videos were tailored for social networks and were all co-produced by DW, France 24 and RFI.

This cooperation at the heart of the public service missions of the two international media groups in the EU, led FMM and DW to continue developing a key project temporarily named “Enter!” which seeks to deliver multilingual digital information to European youth. This project, which meets one of the objectives set out in the Franco-German Treaty of Aachen (Aix La Chapelle), could be preceded by a pilot tested and running in 2020. The idea has already been positively assessed by the European Commission which deemed it feasible and praised its innovative strength.

These projects come on the heels of the success of “InfoMigrants.” Launched in March 2017 by FMM, DW and Italian news agency Ansa, with the support of the European Commission, “InfoMigrants” delivers reliable information to migrants wherever they are, in five languages (Arabic, English, French, Pashtoun and Dari) on all online platforms they may use (mobile site, Facebook, Viber etc). 37 million users were reached last year. This accomplishment has led the European Commission to renew its trust in “InfoMigrants” and to commit to funding it for one more year.

Another shared effort is “+90”, a Turkish-language YouTube launched in April by the international broadcasters DW, Voice of America, BBC and FMM. France 24 provides stories which are then adapted in Turkish by DW. Just five months after its launch in the Turkish-speaking market, the “+90” content was viewed more than 500,000 hours in total and the channel has close to 140.000 subscribers.

France Médias Monde and Deutsche Welle reaffirmed their ambitions to continue achieving success on these different fronts and joint projects aimed at European citizens and the rest of the world. In a context of widespread competition and the global information battle, the two groups are more than ever determined to join forces to fight the spread of fake news and all forms of manipulation by providing free, independent and balanced information for the benefit of every generation.

To watch the video on joint media projects of DW and FMM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LP8FsLab6c&feature=youtu.be

(Source: DW press release)