On the 21st of November 2021 journalists, artists and students from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Germany, Moldova and Ukraine arrived at the venue for the second live panel of the Media Dialogue 2021 for conflict sensitivity and research in Lviv, the city of lions.
After an extensive city tour of the historic university city, the participants arrived at the Faculty of Journalism in the Ivan Franko national University of Lviv, where the workshops of the stage will take place and were welcomed by Andrii Yatsenko, Deputy Dean of the Faculty.
During the opening conference, Wolfgang Ressmann, chairman of the national association for citizen media in Germany and organizer of the Media Dialogue project, thanked the participants for their numerous attendance as well as their interest and commitment to date, and reviewed the beginnings of the project. He then noted that Lviv, which throughout history has been part of many different empires and a witness to many conflicts, is an ideal venue for the upcoming talks on the frozen and ongoing conflicts and confrontations in the respective partnering countries.
In his opinion, much of the aggression is a reaction to the democratic aspirations for freedom of speech and it is a time for scientists, artists and journalists to fight on behalf their professions as a counterpoint to disinformation and propaganda. In this sense, the project is a good opportunity to interconnect with professional journalists and approach young journalists at eye level, to determine together with them the evolution of freedom of the press and its journalistic integrity.
