Questions for Publix residents: MedyaN
In each issue of our newsletter, we introduce people who are moving into their offices at Publix House. This time: Nalan Sipar, founder of MedyaN and the first "Civic Journalism Fellow" of the Allianz Foundation and Publix.
Nalan Sipar wants to change the German media landscape. Her motto: Diverse journalism on behalf of the community. And in the interests of society as a whole. Since May 2024, 40-year-old Kurdish journalist and political scientist Nalan Sipar has been the first Civic Journalism Fellow sponsored by the Allianz Foundation and Publix. She and her team from MedyAn use the workstations and studio infrastructure in the Publix building.
You can find out more about the new fellowship here.
What is the core of your work?
We are a digital publishing house and produce German-Turkish journalism. We specialize in video productions and are currently cooperating with SPIEGEL in the area of video content.
What are your main goals?
We want to inform and educate the German-Turkish community about political events in Germany. Our medium-term goal is a private, German-Turkish ARTE that is financed by memberships, advertising and sponsorship. We want to enrich the German media landscape with migrant perspectives and build a bridge between the majority society, migrants and their countries of origin. Once this has been achieved, we would like to found a migrant journalist academy to prepare aspiring media makers with a migrant background for a traineeship.
What gives you a headache?
Migrants, i.e. 27 percent of the population in Germany, pay broadcasting fees and are hardly offered any formats that interest them. It gives us a headache that there are only around 6 percent journalists with a migration background, even though 38 percent of people under the age of 20 have a migration background. Also the fact that no media company is aware that the new citizenship law will give 17 percent of the population in Germany the opportunity to become German citizens and thus eligible to vote. We will all see the consequences of this development in the 2025 federal elections. At MedyaN, we believe that democracies are only strong with well informed citizens. And that is why we take responsibility for our own community, which has been ignored by the media for the past 60 years.
What has been your biggest success in recent months?
Our startup was founded in November 2023. So we are a very young medium. During this time, we have received funding from the independent NGO "Project Together", which will enable us to produce a "migrant Maischberger" in the summer. Our "German-Turkish Klimakanal" format on TikTok and Instagram was also supported by the GROW grant from Netzwerk Recherche and the Schöpflin Foundation. From September, I will be able to spend nine months researching as a Knight Fellow at Stanford University in California: How can we make the German media landscape more diverse? Which business models are suitable for this?
What is the best read on the current situation?
„Defying Hitler: a memoir“ by Sebastian Haffner
Who or what absolutely deserves more attention?
Prof. Dr. Kai Hafez's criticism of current reporting on the conflict between Palestine and Israel
What should you listen to or watch now?
The panel discussion entitled "Let this be our topic! A change of perspective for the migration discourse“, which I was invited to join at re:publica together with Isabel Schayani, Yağmur Ekim Çay, Julia Boxler and Elena Kountidou.
More about MedyaN
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