‘Together, we’re stronger. Much stronger’ – Branko Brkic on uniting news publishers, because #JournalismMatters

The co-founder and editor in chief of award-winning online news outlet Daily Maverick is known for his campaigning efforts to get South Africans to support serious journalism and democracy. It is a mission that transcends competitive lines. Now he has set his sights on doing the same globally.

Brkic’s diverse publishing background extends across two countries with tortured political histories, and includes an array of notable book collections and iconic magazine titles over the course of his 40-year career. 

He started publishing science fiction in the former Yugoslavia. By the time he immigrated to SA in 1991, he had published 62 books, among them Shakespeare’s complete works, Complete Greek Tragedies and Miroslav’s Gospel – which upon republication was included in Unesco’s Memory of the World Register of documentary heritage of global significance. 

In South Africa, he ventured into reproduction before returning to publishing; this time, magazines – launching four notable titles from 1998-2008.  

In 2009, a year after the last two magazines folded, Brkic partnered with Styli Charalambous to launch Daily Maverick, an online news site that has ignited independent publishing with an innovative community-driven membership model. 

Its investigative journalism has garnered several prestigious awards, including South Africa’s Nat Nakasa Award for Media Integrity (2018) and the 2019 Global Shining Light Award, shared with Maria Ressa of The Rappler (Philippines).

He chats to the World Editors Forum about the challenges facing journalism today, and why he offered his creative work for this year’s World News Day campaign.

You are the architect of the Choose Truth Campaign for World News Day 2024. What prompted you to go global with your campaigning for greater public support for news media?

Around the world, the news media is fighting for survival. The Choose Truth campaign aims to inspire media houses from as many countries as possible in order to reaffirm the role we play in our close communities and broader societies, and at this volatile moment in global history. 

In a nutshell, together we’re stronger. Much stronger. 

There are so many challenges facing the news media these days, everywhere you look. Some, but definitely not all of them, are:

• A crushing media market failure and the demise of established business models
• Resurgent global authoritarianism and the incoming alliance between Big Tech and authoritarians
• AI as both business tool and weapon of war
• Climate crisis that is now well and truly upon us

You’ve been active in the media in South Africa and Yugoslavia – both countries battling to maintain democratic values: can you share your experiences with each; how that has shaped your news values and what you are trying to achieve now?

I was a book publisher in Yugoslavia during the ’80s and early ’90s, a turbulent time that saw the demise of an ideology and the entire political structure – together with a tremendous upheaval that needlessly uprooted millions and ruined so many lives. 

It was horrifying to witness an attack on basic values like truth and decency and genuinely depressing to me for being unable to confront it in a meaningful way.

My South African journey eventually took me to a point where I was a part of the media community that actually contributed to solving some of the major, and existential, problems that our society was facing during the so-called State Capture period. 

It was a great, exhilarating and humbling experience at the same time. 

‘Learning from these two consequential periods in my life came with a steep price tag, of course, but also with understanding that, when done powerfully and with a sense of higher purpose, journalism can truly be a force for good.’ 

Daily Maverick styled itself as a guardian of democracy, with its tagline ‘Defend Truth’. What is the best journalism that has come out of Daily Maverick to Defend Truth – and has it had the impact you hoped for?

We have become known in our country through our investigative work, with the #GuptaLeaks, Marikana massacre, VBS and Digital Vibes being some of the more infamous scandals we uncovered and exposed to our readers and the broader South African public. 

Much of our investigative work underpinned the later real life investigations, but it is still frustrating to know that the majority of our coverage – and we exposed literally hundreds of corrupt and just plain criminal people – has not even been investigated. The humbling element from the previous question is the overwhelming sense that nags me: the sense of our investigative work only being impactful when there is a political will to act on our findings. That must change.

Daily Maverick’s membership model has been widely recognised as one of the pioneers of the community- and revenue-building trend, that invites audiences of news publications to pay to become part of a member community. Is this enough to fund the journalism you need to defend democracy?

Everywhere in the world, the news publishers are trying to establish the best way to gain some reader revenue. For a media house of the Daily Maverick type, in a small market in a poor country where media houses are struggling to make ends meet, it does not make sense to erect a paywall. 

With more than 30-million South Africans surviving on government grants while the entire country enjoys full voting rights, we see it as our duty to our own democracy to extend our work to every citizen for free, regardless of their financial status.

Our membership model, where we built a community of Insiders who support us according to their means, is a major point of pride for us. 

But it is a long road to sustainability, however, and a model that is not easy to follow by everyone. We are still some years aways from being able to sustain a thriving newsroom that is supporting our democracy, unfortunately.

True to its name, DM has always approached things differently, sometimes experimenting boldly: launching a print title in 2020, for instance; you’ve published books, launched podcasts, used music for dramatic climate-related storytelling, hold regular events (The Gathering), even shut down your website for 24 hours to bring home the reality of the financial struggles experienced by the news media everywhere – and now, Project Kontinuum… What is it, and what is the focus for DM now?

Project Kontinuum is an effort that aims to reaffirm news media’s positive role in the global community. Choose Truth campaign is its blueprint for future collaborations – and we plan to contribute much more in the coming months and years. I know I repeat myself here, but together we’re stronger – much stronger. 

WATCH: Daily Maverick’s  20Twenties: Eve of Destruction featuring Anneli Kamfer

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