Building Bridges – Journalistic Initiatives
(Re)establishing Trust between World Regions

News reporting in any given country tends to focus on the host country and its neighbours. In Germany, the Global South is dramatically underrepresented in mainstream programmes. Entire world regions, especially Africa and
South Asia, are mostly featured in German news as scenes of war or victims of disasters.

However, reporting on the Global North in countries of the Global South can also be simplistic. This leads to a situation where distorted images of the respective “other” are prevalent in all world regions. In a time of increasing geopolitical tensions, this contributes to a dramatic loss of trust, aggravated by an increasing level of disinformation spreading online.

Around the world, innovative journalistic initiatives are trying to (re)establish trust between different world regions, by delivering a more nuanced representation of reality. How successful have they been and what are their major challenges? In short: How can quality journalism help to build bridges between world regions?