Bombs, budgets and broadcasters: three reflections from the LMF conference in Ukraine

Editor’s note: this article is published as part of The Fix’s partnership with LMF. Held annually in Lviv (Ukraine) by NGO “Lviv Media Forum”, LMF has been the biggest media conference in Central and Eastern Europe since 2013. A version of this article first appeared in The Fix’s weekly newsletter – subscribe to get everything you need to know about the European media market every Monday.

Last week Ukraine hosted LMF, the largest media conference in Central and Eastern Europe – gathering 500+ participants from across Europe and the world in what The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum called “the most elegant bomb shelter she’s ever been in”.

We’ll feature more insights from the conference in the coming weeks, but in the meantime here’s a rundown of three quick reflections from the event.

1. A decade into American journalists covering Trump as a politician, there’s seemingly no way for mainstream media to make a real impact covering his crimes and transgressions. Reaching new audiences where they are is the go-to advice, but most traditional journalists haven’t figured out how to do it without the “how do you do fellow kids” vibe.

(Anne Applebaum pointed out one person who has: Ezra Klein, a New York Times opinion columnist and prominent podcaster who’s pivoted from nerdy audio podcasts to powerful video essays and interviews that reach wide-ranging audiences).

2. For many CEE media, philosophical questions on how to cover Trump better pale in comparison to the financial crisis brought about by one of his first moves while back in office – cutting America’s international aid.

Publishers know what to do in theory – diversify their budget, attract meaningful reader revenue, work on partnerships and consolidate resources – but few can actually get there.

As Jakub Parusinski wrote for The Fix back in April, in a year from now “it’s unlikely we will face a shortage of quality news content. But we might need to pay a bit more for it”.

3. Public broadcasters are not always appreciated but play a critical role.

Speakers pointed out that in Ukraine public broadcaster Suspilne is critical to keeping the country’s media sector strong and robust.

British historian Timothy Garton Ash argued that the existence of the BBC has spared Britain from some of the maladies that have engrossed the United States and suggested that democracies quadruple their public broadcasters’ budgets to save themselves from populism. (Strangely specific but not unreasonable).

Source of the cover photo: courtesy of Lviv Media Forum