Themes

Main festival theme

Beyond Bubbles

Media and information bubbles are comfortable places to be. We live in them, create them and dislike leaving them. These bubbles are not just a digital phenomenon; they are the filters through which we select information, ignore other voices and cease to understand the reality around us. So how can we report on topics that people don’t want to hear about? How can we practise journalism that tests our assumptions rather than confirming them? And how can we recognise that our newsrooms often operate within a bubble?

Red flags

Red flags are signals that something is wrong. In journalism, we create some of them ourselves – when we replace accuracy with speed, when editorial compromises slip into self-censorship.

Others come from outside – intimidation of reporters, economic pressures on editorial offices, algorithms that decide what we see. The World Between the Lines 2025 festival maps these warning signs.

Five days of discussions about ethical dilemmas and professional failures that we openly admit. But also about pressures on press freedom and polarization through social networks.

We are also preparing these events

Escape Game: Disinformation

Manipulation in action: can you recognise it when you see it? This interactive challenge demonstrates how quickly false information can appear legitimate, and how easily we can be fooled by it when we are under time pressure or overwhelmed by content.

Sensitive Photography

Sensitive photography is not just a matter of aesthetics; it is also a matter of ethics and power. In this workshop, you will learn how to engage with emotions in a way that does not exploit them, and understand the responsibilities that photographers have towards the people they portray.

Bratislava through the eyes of foreign reporters

What impression of Bratislava do those who write about it for major global media outlets have? It’s not just politics that attracts foreign correspondents – they are also looking for stories that are often overlooked by the Slovak public.

Women in the media

Attacks, harassment and questioning of competence. What do female journalists experience today, and why is this not discussed openly? This discussion will explore the specific forms of pressure faced by women in journalism.

Student media: How young people see journalism

Student media is not just “practice” journalism – it is often the first place where boundaries are tested, formats are experimented with, and future investigative journalists are born. Student media will be presented to you and will also answer these questions: When and how did they originate? Where do they get the money to operate? How do editorial processes work?

Media Bubbles

We read the same sources. We follow like-minded people. Algorithms show us news that confirms our views. And then we can’t understand why the other half of society sees the world completely differently. A discussion about how media bubbles work, how they influence our work – and whether we can break out of them.

How journalism was done in the 1990s

How was journalism practised in the 1990s, and are there any similarities with the present day? Aggression, a divided society and physical attacks on journalists. We discuss these issues with people who experienced them firsthand.

Defining Moments of Television

Television shaped the way we perceived landmark events in Czechoslovak and Slovak history. How did it cover August 1968, November 1989, and the dissolution of the state in 1993? A meeting with people from the television industry who will show you what journalism looked like in times when a single shot could make a career – or end one.

StoryLabs: Overlooked Stories

Mainstream media keeps covering the same topics and the same people. How do you find stories that have fallen off the radar of newsrooms? How do you give space to voices that nobody usually listens to? A practical workshop with journalists specialising in human rights and social issues, on how to find and develop underreported stories.

Working in Difficult Terrain

Conflict zones, authoritarian regimes, places where journalism is dangerous. How do you work there while staying safe and still bringing back a relevant story? A workshop with Hungarian journalist András Földes, who specialises in crisis regions, on security, ethics, and journalistic practice under pressure.

How to Write a Great Reportage

A reportage is not just a list of facts – it’s a story that absorbs you and stays with you. A workshop with Polish reporter and sociologist Ludwika Włodek. How do you choose the right scene? Where do you begin and where do you end? How do you build a pace that doesn’t wear the reader out? The chair of the jury of the prestigious Polish Ryszard Kapuściński Award for the best reportage book will show you how facts become the art of reportage.

V4 Media Audit

Owners interfere with content, politicians attack journalists, legislation is tightening. What does this look like in practice — in Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia? An interactive workshop where participants from across the V4 region jointly map the forms of media capture in their countries. In international groups, you identify real cases, compare mechanisms, and present your findings. A discussion with Peter Hanák, an expert on media capture, who wraps up the entire process with a lecture on the state of media freedom in Central Europe.

Media and Polarization

People increasingly don’t believe the same facts, don’t read the same news, and can’t understand how someone else can see the world so differently. Where does the journalist stand in this environment? Is their role to inform — even when information itself can deepen the divide between camps? A discussion with psychologists and a media sociologist about the mechanisms of polarization and what it means for journalism today.

The Business of Lies

Disinformation isn’t just a byproduct of the internet — it’s also a business. Social networks have created the ideal environment for it: algorithms that reward emotional content, platforms that prioritize their own commercial interests, and space for coordinated influence campaigns. Does fact-checking even work — and if so, for whom? A discussion with experts from Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia about how the disinformation ecosystem works and what it means for journalism that wants to maintain trust.

The Polish School of Reportage

Poland has a tradition in reportage that has few parallels in journalism — from Kapuściński to authors who treat form as both craft and literature. What from this tradition remains alive, and what can journalism draw from it today? A discussion about how to build a scene, pace a story, and navigate the boundary between reportage and literature. With Polish reporter Ludwika Włodek and Slovak journalist Lukáš Onderčanin, whose documentary novel Utopia in Lenin’s Garden follows the story of a Czechoslovak commune in Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Moderated by Zuzana Kepplová, author of the literary investigation The Tvarožka Family: A Private History of Democracy.

Blind Spots: Minorities in the Media

The media decide who we see — and who we don’t. How do they portray minorities, how much space do they give them, and what does media research say about it? An interactive event combining a lecture, a group exercise, and an open discussion. Renata Sedláková, an expert on media research and the portrayal of Roma in the media, begins with an introduction to the topic — including how media research actually works. This is followed by a workshop segment where participants in groups examine how the media portray people outside their bubble. The session concludes with a conversation with a journalist covering minority issues and an open debate.

Intensive Investigative Journalism

Two workshops, one day — and two journalists who will show you where to find what someone doesn’t want you to find. Ross Higgins from Bellingcat — an organization whose methods have been cited by the British Parliament as well as the Times and the Guardian — leads an online workshop on OSINT techniques and open-source information verification. Martin Turček from Aktuality.sk demonstrates what the land registry, commercial register, and central contract register can reveal — and how stories with real impact are built from publicly available data.