Brussels 03.10.2025 The General Assembly of the International Press Association (API) endorsed a correspondent of the non-news media to preside over the journalisits’ organisation. Although officially Dafydd ab Iago @dafyddabiago (David Ferguson) has been “elected”, in reality he was endorsed because there were no competition for the position.
The situation is remarkable because he is the first chairman in half a century, who presides over the EU press corps, while working for non-news media, which means the UK company he represents as a Brussels correspondent has the following fields of endeavor: “advertising material publishing; On-line publishing of statistics and other information; On-line publishing photos and engravings; Photo and engraving publishing; Postcard publishing; Poster publishing: Printed matter publishing; Publishers (other than of newspapers, books and periodicals”. In its own words Argus Media (previously known as Petroleum Argus Ltd) is an independent provider of price information, consultancy services, conferences, market data and business intelligence for the global petroleum, and other types of energy.
šConference | We invite you to take part in the #ArgusOilProducts. Caspian and Central Asia Markets Conference taking place in Dubai, UAE on 4ā5 February 2026!
The event will bring together more than 500 senior executives from across the global value chain, with a specialā¦ pic.twitter.com/PgXthxTYWE
— Argus Media (@ArgusMedia) October 2, 2025
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But where is journalism? Where is the construction of public discourse?
Where is prime target of journalism: serving as a forum for public criticism and search for a fair compromise, facilitating discussion and collective action for positive change?
How Argus “price information”, and “global petroleum data” ensures journalismās watchdog function, in fact, the news mediaās main role in political system? How does it increase accountability in the EU democratic governance systems? Obviously the non-news media are unrelated to journalism, while pursuing purely commercial purposes.
Subsequently the endorsement of non-news actor as the president of a the international journalist’s Association (API) manifests the state of Brussels press corps, drifting away from its original mission of Democracy’s Watchdogs.
Nowadays API unites 400 members among a thousand of the EU institutions-accredited journalists, being a specific organization for Brussels-based foreign correspondents. API claims to be first organization since 1975 to unite non-Belgian journalists of all categories and expertise based in Belgium and working for international media. The membership is open to journalists employed by one or more media outletsāwhether as staff or freelancersāwhose headquarters are located abroad, or who can demonstrate that their work is targeted at a non-Belgian audience, reads the introduction on the API site.
@apibrussels First non-news media correspondent endorsed as president by Brussels Association of International Press @dafyddabiago @ArgusMedia former Petroleum Argus provides commodity data on Oil, and other Energies. Times are changing!
So are the correspondents) pic.twitter.com/pb09rUN84U— Anna van Densky (@AnnaVanDensky) October 5, 2025
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As the representative group of non-Belgian journalists in the Kingdom of Belgium, API was created to facilitate connection between the foreign correspondents and the EU institutions on issues relevant to professional activities of the members. This includes the established set of rules, opening access to information, ensuring adequate working conditions at the EU press events, and equal access to the sources, and documents.
However during Ursula von der Leyen presidency of the European Commission which is the EU institution granting accreditation for the journalists, the access for the press-events and information has been severely restricted. The bunker mentality of Madame President is widely known, reflected in replacing press-conferences by read out of statements, “family” photos, and other photo-ops as shake hands, shifting from dialogue, answering to the questions of press to production of public relations material, and policies promotion.
This shift signifies a clean break with the previous presidencies of the European Commission, engaged in dialogue with press, and explanations of the initiatives, or decisions. The von der Leyen Commission has been systematically replacing them with advertising of the Commission’s activities, and public relations.
Quajanac, dear Prime Minister Nielsen.
Europe and Greenland will always be each otherās trusted and reliable partners.
We want to deepen our cooperation. Thatās why we aim to double our financial support to Greenland.
So we can deliver clean energy and create the technologiesā¦ pic.twitter.com/oufGyKLHVu
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 2, 2025
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Undoubtfully Brussels journalists are experiencing the global trends of transition from legacy media to digital multimedia, the process which has multiple implications. With the Digital revolution a Homo Sapiens, a product of written culture, is transforming into a Homo Videns for whom the word has been dethroned by the image. The image plays a decisive role, floating away from a text as an abstract form of thought to a visual representation. As a result the complexity of political process, democracy, and rule of law is substituted by shake hands, red carpets, and broad smiles of politicians, attempting to convince citizens that they are guided to a brighter future. Benefiting from the Digital technologies, the beau monde of politics is increasingly reliant on power of colorful, and often doctored images.
Within this global trend, while genuine discussion through traditional mass communication channels is replaced by the mosaic of optimistic edited images, the EU Commission does not miss opportunities to shape public debate upon its agenda. The Ursula von der Leyen Commission has successfully flooded the information field with the self-advertising, and promotions, while the gap between the Institutions, and regular citizens broadens daily.
In an exclusive new report for MCC Brussels ā Brusselsās media machine: EU media funding and the shaping of public discourse ā the author Thomas Fazi – revealed a vast, previously under-scrutinized system through which the European Union annually disburses nearly ā¬80 million to media projects across Europe and beyond.
“The report contends that the EUās financial leverage creates a āsemi-structural relationshipā with major media outlets, particularly public broadcasters and news agencies, blurring the lines between independent journalism and institutional communication ā and seriously compromising the mediaās ability to hold power to account” Thomas Fazi writes.
The European Commission and European Parliament collectively disburse close to ā¬80 million annually to media projects, including major news agencies, who are used by the other types of media as a prime source of news distribution. The MCC report concluded a conservative estimate of one billion euro (ā¬1 billion) in funding during the past decade. This figure doesnāt include indirect funding streams ā for example, advertising or communication contracts awarded to marketing firms who then redistribute funds to major media outlets.
The European Commission system of replacing journalism by public relations, and advertising was shuttered by Brexit, which revealed the immunity of a large part of the electorate to the efforts of the EU institutions to promote their agenda, disguised in “independent” media discourse. However it after the departure of the Brits, the EU institutions’ methods became more aggressive, adding active censorship. The EU citizens have especially felt it during the pandemic, and beyond, when the battle for freedom of speech climaxed in EU Commissioner Thierry Breton clash with Elon Musk. The owner of X (formally Twitter) platform dabbed former European Commissioner for Digital Affairs a “tyrant of Europe” for his relentless efforts to impose censorship on social media via the EU regulations of the digital platforms.
Brusselsā new toy š¤š¶
A project called āPrebunking at Scaleā – an AI that censors you before you even speak.
The gravest threat to expression in Europe isnāt hate – itās the elites policing thought.
Listen @Norm_Lewishttps://t.co/C8TgmGslbv
— MCC Brussels (@MCC_Brussels) October 3, 2025
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The public battles for freedom of speech, and censorship are shifting Overton window, so do the other, less noticeable, but not less significant actions, for example including non-news agents into journalistic communities, and then promoting them to lead. The endorsement of non-journalist as a president of the Association of the International Press is one of these Overton shifts. The replacement of journalists by advertising, and other commercial publications agents is not only a precedent, it is decisive vector of development, which will allow to ditch the role of press as democracy watch dogs to favor the European Commission lap dogs, without attracting much attention of the general public to the surrogate.
“This latest episode simply confirms the disgraceful state of the EU press corps, and Brussels-based journalists more in general, which have forsaken their role of watchdogs a long time ago and today largely act as PR agents for the corporate-political interests which fund their operations, which happens to include the Commission itself, which funds a large number of media outlets across Europe, as I show in my report, – Thomas Frazi wrote, commenting on the situation.-With the non-news media agent, leading the Association of International Press. – The result is that there is basically zero real scrutiny from the Brussels media of the Commission and von der Leyen’s policies, as the latter’s embarrassing press conferences attest to. The good news is that more and more people are starting to realise just how corrupt the traditional media are, and no longer give much credit to what they have to say. So as the propaganda becomes more pervasive and blatant, it also becomes less effective”.
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Anna Van Densky blog 