31-08-25
MEDIA RELEASE
The M20 initiative, an independent joint programme of Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), will host the M20 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa from the 1st – 2nd of September 2025.
The Summit will bring together journalists, policymakers, academics, and civil society with the aim of placing media, information integrity and the role of journalism at the centre of the G20 agenda.
The Summit will provide a platform to unpack the critical challenges affecting the media and information integrity ecosystems today. These include, but are not limited to, climate change dis-information, artificial intelligence and deepfakes, journalist safety, media viability, and cyber misogyny.
The Summit programme will explore the policy briefs compiled by the M20 team and partner organisations, as well as feature leading voices from the sector through high-level panels and dialogues. As the world faces rising authoritarianism, shrinking media freedom and freedom of expression, and an information disorder fuelled by algorithms and digital platforms, the M20 Summit is a call to action.
A Johannesburg M20 Declaration is being drawn up as a result of a collaborative global discussion in advance of the Summit that calls upon media and partners, and then upon G20 leaders, to take urgent steps to respond to the information integrity crisis, its causes and its impacts.
It affirms that information integrity is essential to sustaining democracy and advancing the G20’s 2025 goals of international solidarity, equality and sustainable development.
The draft declaration states that our call is an injunction to everyone to do more to protect press freedom, support the role of journalism, and a human rights-based media ecosystem in its contribution to the public good. It calls for media to commit to reinforcing the highest standards of journalism ethics, to act as a counterbalance to attacks against information integrity, and to uncover disinformation campaigns, including AI mistakes and deepfakes, and provide access to reliable information to the public.
The draft declaration urges G20 leaders to recognise that severe threats to trust and the digital economy arise when information integrity is damaged by coordinated disinformation campaigns, AI errors, biases, and undisclosed deepfakes. It also calls for shared solutions to the “perfect storm” of the challenges ranging across information integrity, media capture and capitulation, journalists’ safety and targeted attacks, media viability, platforms and AI, children’s and young people’s rights and the climate emergency.
The declaration text will be finalised at the Summit and presented to delegates for endorsement and transmission to the G20 platforms. While registration for the Summit is closed, the proceedings can be viewed live on SABC Plus.
For more information contact: Reggy Moalusi (SANEF): reggym@sanef.org.za or +27 71 682 3695 William Bird (MMA): williamb@mma.org.za or +27 82 887 1370
About M20 The M20 is an independent initiative to ensure issues relating to media integrity and healthy information ecosystems are reflected in the G20 policy agenda.
The M20 mirrors official G20 engagement groups for business, think-tanks, civil society among others, and includes participation in G20 events, convenings of media and information ecosystem role players, hosting of webinars on G20-related issues and publishing policy briefs. It draws on the participation of researchers, experts and networks of international media development organisations and relevant think tanks, civil society, and media organisations among G20 members, as well as from across the African continent.
More info: the M20 Summit programme and speakers, policy briefs and who is involved in the M20, including the international advisory group.
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