Public Affairs and Media Policy

WAN-IFRA is a global resource centre and a knowledge-sharing platform that allows policy experts and publishers to come together to contribute their views on where the industry is headed.  More than ever, technical concerns are becoming political and civic challenges. No technology is immune from ethical and regulatory questions.

WAN-IFRA helps publishers and their representative bodies to build a common understanding of the many challenges ahead the industry. It provides a voice to news media across the various global platforms where debate on regulation and policy take place.

The strategic agenda and activities of WAN-IFRA’s Public Affairs and Media Policy work are guided by the members of WAN-IFRA’s Association Directors Committee.


Strategic Focus

Internet governance discussions are shaping the digital publishing environment of the future, and newspapers need to be present where the talks take place. Net neutrality in particular has sparked heated debates throughout the world, from India to Latin America, to the US and in Europe. WAN-IFRA represents the views of news media publishers at the Internet Governance Forum and EURODIG.

Intellectual Property and related Rights. WAN-IFRA represents the world’s press at WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

Relationship between platforms and publishers. For the last few years WAN-IFRA has represented a repository of up-to-date information on the dealings between publishers and platforms across the world. Our members benefit from regular Media Policy Briefings that provide unique access and insight into the negotiations underway, the agreements signed and the legislation process in the different markets.   

News Literacy. Thanks to a dynamic consortium and the generous co-funding of the European Commission, WAN-IFRA has recently re-started working on news literacy programmes.    


What We Do

MONITOR  We provide our members with the policy news that are essential to their business through our blog, the Media Policy Briefing newsletter, our social networks. We publish original research aimed at documenting our members’ advocacy efforts.

ENGAGE We organise Media Policy Briefings to enrich public debate through an analysis of the ongoing transformations in the regulation of news media, and their impact on the business.

ADVOCATE National member associations representing news publishers task WAN-IFRA with being the global voice of the news media industry. This role is conducted in coordination with our regional and national member associations. WAN-IFRA also holds associate status to represent the newspaper industry at UNESCO, consultative status at the United Nations, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Council of Europe and other major international bodies.

SERIOUS GAMES. NewsArcade is a project that aims at tackling the challenge of the legitimacy of traditional media among youth and improve news literacy by closely bringing together journalism and news consumption through gamification. NewsArcade-Seriously Play the News project is co-funded by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency as part of Creative Europe- Media and involves eight partners from five European countries.