Strengthening professional standards and support for serious and critical journalism is key in combating fake news, an international conference on countering misinformation in an era of digital journalism was told in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The head of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), Hrvoje Zovko, said that the phenomenon of fake news as information used to gain an economic or political advantage was not associated just with big countries.

“We can say that the last presidential election in Croatia was also characterised by misinformation. As things stand, the current presidential campaign will not be immune from it either. The big economic crisis has caused a flood of populism and resulted in what we call fake news,” Zovko said, adding that the consequences were most visible on social media which had become a powerful tool to spread misinformation.

Kresimir Partl, state secretary at the Ministry of Culture, said that quality journalism was one of the basic requirements for strengthening professional standards in journalism and a way of combating the creation and dissemination of fake news.

The director of the Electronic Media Agency (AEM), Josip Popovac, stressed the importance of regulating this matter and promoting media literacy, engaged journalism and fact checking.

The conference was also addressed by the French and German ambassadors, Gael Veyssiere and Robert Klinke respectively.

The conference was organised by the French Embassy, the AEM, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the HND.