Proudly founded and annually hosted by Moxii Africa (formerly Media Monitoring Africa), the Media Freedom Festival has become a cornerstone event in South Africa's information ecosystem. For the past nine years, it has served as a vital platform for dialogue, collaboration, and advocacy, bringing together policy makers, journalists, academics, civil society, and the general public.

The 2026 Media Freedom Festival will take place from the 14th to the 16th of October 2026 at the Gothe-Institut in Johannesburg, directly addressing the critical role of media freedom during periods of intense democratic activity such as the upcoming 2026 Local Government Elections. As South Africa prepares for LGE2026, the Media Freedom Festival will aptly focus on the theme ‘Elections and Accountability: News, Digital Media and Information Integrity. This theme reinforces Moxii Africa’s commitment to upholding media freedom as a pillar of a healthy and resilient democracy, while addressing the pressing challenges of mis- and dis-information and accountability in a localised electoral context.

We gather this year at an inflection point for South Africa and for democracies across the globe. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2026 has named mis- and dis-information among the most severe risks facing the world today. Mis- and dis-information is a force capable of destabilising democracies, eroding social cohesion, and deepening the very crises we can least afford to worsen. It is not a distant, abstract threat but rather is playing out in real time on the phones in our pockets and the timelines we scroll through every day.

Across the globe, 2026 has brought fresh, sobering evidence of how quickly the information ecosystem can be weaponised. Generative AI now makes it possible to produce convincing deepfakes of political figures at a scale and cost unimaginable. Encrypted messaging platforms, where ordinary citizens increasingly get their news, complicate efforts at oversight and accountability. Regulators in the European Union and beyond are racing to catch up, introducing new transparency requirements for AI-generated content precisely because the technology has outpaced our collective safeguards. These are not hypothetical concerns. These are challenges that South Africans face as we head to the polls for LGE2026.

This is precisely why the Media Freedom Festival exists. For nine years, it has been a space where South Africa's media community comes together to not just diagnose these challenges, but to build the collaborative, cross-sector solutions our democracy needs. When democratic processes worldwide are being tested by disinformation, platform power, and the erosion of public trust, our commitment to a free, fair, and accountable media and information ecosystem has never mattered more. An informed citizenry is the bedrock of a healthy democracy and defending its right to trustworthy information is a duty we carry together.

Moxii Africa is proud to announce our diverse partners who will be helping to ensure that multiple issues, perspectives and voices are heard. Our partners this year include the Association of Independent Publishers (AIP), Amnesty International South Africa (AISA), the Campaign for Freedom of Expression (CFE), the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, Defend our Democracy (DoD), the Embassy of Germany, the Information Regulator, the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Sub-Saharan Africa Media Programme, the Press Council of South Africa, the South African Human Rights Commission, the SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Thomson Reuters Foundation, the University of Johannesburg Department of Communication and Media, We the People SA, and the Wits Centre for Journalism.

We invite the media, our partners, and the public to join us from 14 to 16 October at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg, in the spirit of Black Wednesday and the generations of journalists who came before us, and to protect and strengthen the free flow of trustworthy information that our democracy depends on. RSVP here.

For more information contact:
Noor Ahmad - Communications Manager
noora@mma.org.za | +27 11 788 1278
https://moxiiafrica.org/ | @moxiiafrica

About Moxii Africa

Moxii Africa’s vision is to strive for open and trusted information and to build an accessible, accountable, and transparent information ecosystem we can trust. We aim to ensure accountability, open information, promote safety, empower the public, and instil information integrity in South Africa and the rest of the continent.

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