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The M20 Summit, an initiative jointly orchestrated by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), convened in Johannesburg on September 1–2, 2025, bringing together journalists, global leaders, policymakers, academics, and civil society. Its purpose? To place media integrity and journalism at the core of the G20’s 2025 agenda.
At its heart, the summit served as a platform to dissect and address the most pressing challenges facing today’s media and information ecosystem. Key themes included:
- Climate change disinformation
- The rise and danger of AI-generated deepfakes
- Journalist safety
- Media viability
- Cyber misogyny
Discussions were structured around policy briefs prepared by the M20 team and its partners, alongside high-level panel talks and dialogues featuring thought leaders across sectors. The summit’s tone underscored an urgent call to action amid rising authoritarianism, shrinking space for media freedom, and algorithm-driven information disorder.
A central outcome of the summit was the collaborative drafting of the Johannesburg M20 Declaration. This document urges both media stakeholders and G20 leaders to recognize and act on the severe threats to information integrity, press freedom, and democracy driven by coordinated disinformation campaigns, AI bias, and deepfakes. It also calls for media to uphold ethical journalism, protect reporters, and bolster public access to trusted information.
Beyond the political arena, the summit emphasized how information integrity underpins democracy, aligning with the G20’s broader goals for international solidarity, equality, and sustainable development.
For those outside the summit venue, proceedings were accessible via SABC Plus, enabling real-time engagement with the discussions.
In sum, Johannesburg’s M20 Summit demonstrated how urgent collective efforts are to safeguard the media’s role as a democratic safeguard. Elevating media integrity to global leadership tables, it offered a compelling blueprint for how journalism can support resilient, informed societies in an era of unprecedented challenges.
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