2024 Preview

Media coverage of the Olympic Games with Paris Médias 2024

At the 17th Agora for Journalism in Tours, CFI announced the launch of Paris Médias 2024, a new project dedicated to the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Paris Médias 2024 will enable more than 50 journalists from Africa and the Arab world to undertake training on how to cover major sporting events, and travel to Paris to report on the 2024 Games from pop-up editorial offices. This project will support journalists from 17 countries across Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to Lebanon, and Benin to Madagascar, to provide inclusive, real-time media coverage of the world’s biggest sporting event.

Supporting coverage of the Francophonie Summit in October

In 2024, CFI will celebrate a second year-defining global event: the 19th Francophonie Summit, on 4 and 5 October 2024. CFI will be running, with France Médias Monde, a pop-up editorial office, coordinated by the École publique de journalisme de Tours (Tours School of Journalism – EPJT) association, which will enable 20 students from five French-speaking international journalism schools to attend and report on the Summit. Members of the Théophraste Network, these schools are located in Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, France and Romania. Finally, as part of the Francophonie Festival, CFI will continue to support the development of the French-language fact-checking platform, Factoscope.

Welcoming journalists in exile with Voices in Exile

In June 2024, CFI led a consortium bringing together the association SINGA, Reporters sans frontières and the Maison des Journalistes to launch an ambitious project to support journalists and media in exile. This three-year project, funded by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, will welcome successive cohorts of 18 journalists to Paris from countries around the world where the security situation and lack of freedom of expression prevent them from practising their profession in tolerable conditions. They will benefit from an incubation programme at La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, covering editorial, administrative, technical and economic aspects. The journalists will also be provided with accommodation and support while they get settled and set up in France.

Countering misinformation via the Desinfox Network

At the end of 2024, CFI will launch a new project – the Desinfox Network – to continue supporting its partners to setup and operate the African Platform for Francophone Fact Checkers (PAFF), launched during the Desinfox Sahel project. The project will comprise three types of activity: advanced training in Open Source INTelligence (OSINT), peer-to-peer exchanges on the challenges of artificial intelligence, and technical and financial support for collaborative investigations into the manipulation of information in Africa.

Encouraging local media development with MediAOS

In 2024, CFI will launch a new project in sub-Saharan Africa, MédiaOAS, financed by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). This project will support the production and distribution of content in national and local languages, reflecting the real concerns and aspirations of young people in Benin, Togo and Chad. Spanning 5 years, the project will strengthen the editorial, technical and managerial capacity of around 40 radio stations and online media outlets operating in challenging contexts. It will also enable other local actors in the media sector to design and produce innovative gender-sensitive editorial projects, through calls for proposals and collaborative regional initiatives.