Open & Disclose

Open & Disclose aims to provide a platform for media organisations, journalists, columnists, and commentators to make public their interests, with the aim of strengthening institutional credibility, accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness.

Active

South Africa

In a time of increasing scrutiny of the media, it is critical that journalists and media houses adhere to best practices, which will also serve as an essential means of self-defence. The platform aims to: \- Strengthen media’s institutional credibility, accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness. \- Encourage a media environment built on transparency, credibility, accuracy and facts, thus improving the levels of trust between media/journalists and the public. \- Ensure a media that continues to hold the powerful (politicians and corporations) to account, applying the same standards to their own organisation, allowing their audiences to hold them accountable, ultimately creating a relationship built on transparency, credibility, trust and accurate information. There is currently no similar system that will meet the requirement of a simple, centralised place for local media organisations, journalists and media practitioners to declare their interests. Some media organisations disclose some interests on their websites, but this is largely organisationally focused and lacks individual (journalist) based disclosure. Due to this gap, it is difficult for an organisation or individual to easily disclose this information to the public.