6 June, 2017. THE COUNTDOWN IS RUNNING! Only 6 days left to apply for this year's M100 Young European Journalists workshop! Deadline is next Monday at 00.00 'clock.
Titled "How to finance independent journalism – education, platforms, business models”, the M100 Young European Journalists Workshop (M100YEJ) is inviting 15 Eastern Partnership and Russian journalists between the ages of 18 and 27 to Potsdam and Berlin, Germany, from 8 to 14 September. The workshop is supported by the Federal Foreign Office and the ZEIT Foundation. Please find the application call here.

6 June, 2017. We are pleased to announce that OZ | CAPITAL supports this year's M100 Sanssouci Colloquium! OZ | CAPITAL Founder and CEO Olaf Zachert has worked in the media industry, for instance, for the TV channel RTL as well as Bloomberg TV in London.

A big thank you to the Federal Foreign Office and the ZEIT Foundation for supporting this year's M100 Young European Journalists Workshop!

The workshop provides 15 young journalists from the countries of the Eastern Partnership and Russia the opportunity to get introduced to various financing options for journalism, which will be considered together on the basis of concrete examples. This also includes analysing which models work in the specific conditions of individual countries, and which do not.
Application deadline is 12 June! Please find here the application call.

We are pleased to call the journalist association Netzwerk Recherche an cooperation partner of this year's #M100YEJ on "How to finance independent journalism – education, platforms, business models” (please click here for more information). Netzwerk Recherche has launched a founding initiative in the area of non-profit journalism in 2016 and is currently planning further training opportunities for initiators of journalistic projects. The cooperation includes the provision of suitable lecturers, knowledge transfer and exchange of experience, networking with research journalists and consulting future founders of journalistic initiatives. The focus will be, among other things, on securing journalistic independence for the founders and developing sustainable financing models. Workshop participants can also train to be trainers themselves, so that they can teach what they have learned to those seeking journalistic education and ongoing training in their home countries.

15 May 2017. At the board meeting of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium on 12 May, Dr. Christian Rainer, editor-in-chief of the weekly polit magazine "Profil", Sabine Schicketanz, editor-in-chief of "Potsdamer Neuesten Nachrichten", and Dr. Sylke Tempel, editor-in-chief of the magazin "International Policy", were appointed to the board and officially welcomed by Jann Jakobs, Chairman of the M100 board. We are very pleased about their support!

3 May, 2017. Today is the World Press Freedom Day. It acts as a reminder of the importance of a free press in a functioning and safe society and serves to commemorate the journalists who have lost their lives in support of free press.

Titled "How to finance independent journalism – education, platforms, business models”, the M100 Young European Journalists Workshop (M100YEJ) is inviting 15 Eastern Partnership and Russian journalists between the ages of 18 and 27 to Potsdam and Berlin, Germany, from 8 to 14 September. The workshop is supported by the Federal Foreign Office and the ZEIT-Stiftung. Please find the application call here.

Angus, Bjerager, Brennan, Brinkbäumer, Casdorff, Diekmann, Dündar, Föderl-Schmid, Gösmann ... the preparations of this year's M100 Sanssouci Colloquium are in full swing and we are pleased to announce the first confirmed participants!

Here we go:
Jamie Angus (Editorial Director BBC Global News, London), Angelos Athanasopoulos (Senior Foreign and EU affairs Editor To Vima, Athens), Erik Bjerager (Editor-in-Chief Kristeligt Dagblad, Copenhagen), Prof. Jason Brennan (Professor for Strategy, Economy, Ethics, Public Policy, Georgetown University, Washington), Klaus Brinkbäumer (Editor-in-Chief Der Spiegel, Hamburg), Kai Diekmann (former Publisher BILD, Berlin), Can Dündar (Editor-in-Chief Özgürüz, Berlin), Dr. Tobias Endler (Heidelberg Center for American Studies, Heidelberg), Dr. Alexandra Föderl-Schmid (Editor-in-Chief Der Standard, Vienna), Sven Gösmann (Editor-in-Chief dpa, Berlin), Lauri Hussar (Editor-in-Chief Postimees, Tallinn), Xenia Kounalaki (Head of Foreign Desk, Kathimerini daily, Athens), Mark Leonard (Director ECFR, London), Peter Limbourg (Director Deutsche Welle, Cologne/Berlin), Yannis Mastrogeorgiou (Director DIKTIO, Athens), Sebastian Matthes (Editor-in-Chief Huffington Post Germany, Munich), Wenzel Michalski (Germany Director Human Rights Watch, Berlin), Sonia Mikich (Editor-in-Chief WDR, Cologne), Mathias Müller von Blumencron (Editor-in-Chief FAZ.net, Frankfurt), Arkady Ostrovsky (Russia and Eastern Europe correspondent The Economist, London), Stephan Scherzer (Managing Director Association of German Magazine Publishers, Berlin), Harun Simavi (Founder Diken, Istanbul), Daniel Smilov (Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia), Maria Stepanova (Editor-in-Chief Colta.ru, Moscow), Eduardo Suarez (Founder Politibot, Madrid), Sergij Sydorenko (Editor-in-Chief European Pravda, Kiev), Vazha Tavberidze (Editor-in-Chief Georgian Journal, Tblisi), Maxim Trudolyubov (Editor-at-Large Vedomosti, Moscow), Dr. George Tzogopoulos (Founder Chinanadgreece.com, Athens), Ursula Weidenfeld (Economical Journalist, Berlin), and Dr. Uwe Vorkötter (Editor-in-Chief HORIZONT Group, Frankfurt).

Check the picture gallery here.

DEMOCRACY OR DESPOTISM?
The Renaissance of Dark Powers

Thursday, 14 September 2017, Sanssouci Orangery, Potsdam/Germany

“Before, the question as to whether the West will survive would have invited accusations of hyperbole and alarmism,” Republican politician John McCain remarked at the Munich Security Conference: suddenly, he said, it had become the key question of the 21st century, “with a deadly seriousness.” Western cohesion is only possible if it is based on shared values.

Sixty years after the foundations were laid for the Europe that we know today with the Rome Treaties, the search for these common values is proving difficult, however, given the current political situation. As early as 2003, sociologist Zygmunt Baumann, who died in January, described over-emphasis on the market, unfiltered communication and a lack of common ground as the dark sides of postmodern society. There is little to be found of cohesion and common values in Europe today, with growing populism, anti-Europeanism, nationalism, autocratism and racism on the rise. Great Britain is on the brink of Brexit, a Greek “Grexit” might still be a possibility, and if Marine Le Pen becomes the French President, an immanent “Frexit” would destroy Europe’s foundations completely. (continue)