A democratic society listens to the voices of minorities and marginalised groups – it hears their concerns and respects their human rights. Democracies are by nature a product of social and political diversity. A free marketplace of ideas ensures competition between these media content suppliers and is essential to ensure a choice of media content and the availability of a wide variety of opinions and ideas.

For private independent media companies, a diversity of financing options is also critical. In some European countries, independent media companies seeking financing have no alternative but to accept capital from non-media businesses with commercial interests in unrelated sectors. To flourish and carry out their social role, these companies need mission-aligned capital that respects their editorial independence and is backed up by state-of-the-art media expertise to support economic growth.

ERSTE Foundation has recently become one of the investors of PLŪRĀLIS, a Dutch-based fund investing in Central and Eastern European media which are in danger of media capture. We are excited to discuss this new form of impact-oriented investment for independent media, together with a group of leading experts in Vienna:

Welcome

Daniela Kraus, Managing Director Presseclub Concordia

Panel

Patrice Schneider, Chief Strategy Officer Media Investment Development Fund and General Secretary PLŪRĀLIS

Boris Marte, Chief Executive Officer ERSTE Foundation

Beata Balogová, Editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily SME

Oscar Bronner, Founder and former publisher of the Austrian magazines “Trend”, “Profil” and “Der Standard”

Clemens Pig, Managing Director Austrian Press Agency, Author of the book “Democracy Dies in Darkness”

Moderation

Tessa Szyszkowitz, Journalist and Chair of the Committee for Editorial Independence of Economia Media House

The debate will be followed by a reception.

Due to international participation, the event will be held in English.

We look forward to this important discussion and hope you will be able to join us.

PLŪRĀLIS - A new way to secure media pluralism and editorial independence