Media leaders, policymakers and civil society actors from across the world are set to gather in Johannesburg this week for the inaugural M20 Summit in a bold initiative aimed at placing journalism and trustworthy information at the heart of the G20 agenda.
The M20 is an independent initiative to ensure issues relating to media integrity and healthy information ecosystems are reflected in the G20 policy agenda.
Hosted by Media Monitoring Africa and the South African National Editors’ Forum, the two-day summit will run from 1-2 September and serve as a strategic platform to address the growing crisis in media ecosystems.
According to organisers, the summit will spotlight issues such as climate disinformation, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, journalist safety, media viability and cyber misogyny.
The M20 initiative mirrors official G20 engagement groups and seeks to elevate media and information integrity as foundational pillars of democratic governance and sustainable development.
A key outcome of the summit will be the release of the Johannesburg M20 Declaration, a global call to action urging G20 leaders to confront the erosion of public trust caused by coordinated disinformation campaigns, algorithmic bias and undisclosed AI-generated content.
High-level panels and dialogues will feature leading voices from journalism, academia, and civil society, with policy briefs presented to inform future G20 deliberations.
The declaration will be endorsed by summit delegates and transmitted to G20 platforms ahead of the main summit scheduled for South Africa in November.
JN/APA