On Monday, 14.3, was the first session in the Late Night Diplomacy format. It reflected the war that is currently taking place in Ukraine. The session was led by Mr. Ondřej Soukup, editor of a Czech-based outlet Hospodařské noviny.
The session was aimed at differences in the media structure, both in Russia and Ukraine, the discourses in the two countries, and the necessity to filter information that one gets from any source. The critical thing was a huge empathizing on what can be claimed as "true news" by utilizing various OSINT techniques.
In the second part of the session, participants were involved in a comprehensive role-play of a land dispute between two fictionary countries - Souverland and Jarritostan. The simulation was inspired by actual land disputes in Kashmir, Kosovo and Ukraine, for example. It exploited various indicators, such as the level of economic prosperity, human rights, media liberties, population, and of course political situation inside each country. 30 participants were divided into 3 groups that represented 2 countries, as well as a journalist, that had to analyze the conflict and come up with a story based on interviews with representatives of both countries.
The proposed goal was to explore, how to work with a massive amount of data in a squeezed time, how to negotiate, speak in public and form a national political agenda of the country, which is dragged into a conflict.