KATHMANDU: The first-ever Khabarhub Media Summit conducted on 17 to 19 December 2021 brought together leading local, regional and global media professionals to explore the compelling issues of digital media virtually.

This enabled 82 speakers from 11 different countries and deliberated upon the theme of the summit- “Digital Media for Accountability”.

The summit held 11 sessions spread across three days, where the panelists discussed and deliberated upon a wide array of media-related subjects.

The objectives of this summit involved studying the evolving trends of the media landscape, finding solutions to create an authentic media industry, and most importantly, creating a space for knowledge/experience-sharing of experts to understand the news quotient.

The inaugural session included speakers like Naresh Shrestha, Chairman of Khabarhub; Dr. Baikuntha Aryal, Secretary at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology; Kalyan Shrestha, Former Chief Justice of Nepal; Bhaskar Raj Rajkarnikar, Chairman of Media Alliance Nepal; and Balkrishna Basnet, Chairman of the Press Council.

In the panel moderated by Dr. Pramod Jaiswal, Strategic Affairs Editor of Khabarhub, Pavilion Media Chairman Shrestha extensively laid out the main objectives of KMS and welcomed the panelists and the participants.

Likewise, Dr. Aryal highlighted the issue of how in a race to be the first to publish any news, media houses tend not to authenticate or corroborate their sources of information.

Similarly, Former CJ Shrestha spoke about how the internet and the information available on it have empowered individuals to make informed decisions and how the nature, scope and quality of human relationships have changed due to the advent of digital media technologies.

Likewise, Rajkarnikar brought attention to the ethical problems of digital media in Nepal which makes it difficult to find the right path in the dissemination of information.

The second session on Digital Media and Social-Media was chaired by Shivanee Thapa Basnyat, Senior News Editor, Nepal Television.

Basnyat laid out the four themes of discussion- New media and Social media; New possibilities in Digital media; Digital media and the use of new technology in newsgathering and Transformation of news and its Credibility.

The speakers in the panel shared their insights on the impact of digital media in the context of news production and how social media has become a prime source of information.

The materialization of digital media by China in Pakistan and the use of social media in education also became points of discussion in this session.

The panel on Investigative Reporting/Fact Check comprised of several prominent speakers- Fact-Checking in Digital Content & Fake News, Fighting Misinformation and Accuracy check, were the main themes discussed by the panelists.

The fifth session dealt with the very significant topic of Media and Gender & Inclusion. The panel was chaired by Gagani Weerakoon, Deputy Editor, Ceylon Today. The panelists largely spoke about the need for Organizational Diversity and Inclusiveness in Media.

Likewise, the sixth session of the summit chaired by Dilrukshi Handunnetti, Center for Investigative Reporting Sri Lanka was on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Media.

The panel comprised of Gagani Weerakoon, Deputy Editor, Ceylon Today, Tridivesh Maini, O.P Jindal Global University, Anuttama Banerji, Freelance Features Writer and Political Commentator and Shreejita Biswas, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The speakers shared their understanding and analysis of the post-Covid challenges faced by the media and how the pandemic impacted the media industry in general.

The seventh session on the Role of the Media to Address Climate was moderated by Dr. Anna Nath, Amity University.

The speakers discussed the valuable contribution that can be made by the media in addressing the climate crisis through climate coverage.

The panel on Media and Democracy was the largest panel of the summit; the session hosted fifteen eminent media personalities from different countries.

The names included Kapil Shrestha, Human Rights Activist Vipul Tamhane, Editor in Chief, Diplomacy Direct, Preeti Raghunath, Lecturer-Communications and media studies at Monash University, D.G. Niruka Sanjeewani, Lecturer, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University et al.

The last and final session of the summit was on the Challenges for Foreign Correspondents.

Speakers, Kamal Dev Bhattarai and Akanshya Shah shared their challenges of being foreign correspondents.

Likewise, Dr. Anna Nath Ganguly discussed the challenges through an academic lens. The session was chaired by Dela Prasain, Radio Nepal.

More than 7000 participants benefited from the three-day summit.