On a Thursday in Baku, where the Caspian wind carried the sound of languages from across Asia, an experiment in trust began. Officials and media leaders from some of the world’s most dynamic and diverse societies gathered for the first media forum ever held under the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, better known as CICA. The choice of venue was deliberate: Azerbaijan, as CICA chair, wanted to show that media cooperation is not a side event in regional diplomacy but a central pillar. The forum’s theme—’Building Trust through Media in a Polarized World’—could have been written from today’s headlines. Everywhere, audiences are losing faith in institutions, social media rewards outrage, and disinformation has become a cheap weapon of war. The people in Baku came to ask whether journalism could be turned into a tool of connection instead. They represented broadcasters, regulators, government ministries and international secretariats. They did not always agree with one another. But they shared a common assumption: that the crisis of trust is not inevitable, and that media professionals can do something about it. The event was organized by the Azerbaijani chairmanship with support from the CICA Secretariat, and its halls were filled with panel discussions, bilateral meetings and quiet conversations over tea. Beneath the official agenda lay a deeper question. If Asia is to remain stable and peaceful, can its countries learn to talk to one another honestly? The answer from Baku was a tentative but determined yes. It was a yes spoken not only by diplomats, but by editors, broadcasters and fact-checkers who know that a story can heal or divide a community in the time it takes to press publish.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev set the tone with an address that was both urgent and reflective. He described a world in a complicated phase—one where geopolitical realities shift faster than institutions can adapt, where security challenges multiply in unexpected ways, and where the media environment itself has been turned upside down by digital disruption. In such a world, he insisted, media should be treated as an important instrument of public diplomacy, mutual understanding and regional cooperation. His words carried particular weight because Azerbaijan holds the CICA chairmanship and has made media partnership a priority of its tenure. Aliyev was not simply praising journalists. He was asking them to accept a bigger responsibility: to inform without inflaming, to scrutinize without demonizing, to tell the truth without tearing communities apart. His vision of public diplomacy is one in which countries talk to each other not only through formal diplomatic notes but through the stories they share and the news they trust. For the audience in Baku, many of whom have watched their own media systems struggle with propaganda, hate speech and foreign manipulation, this was a welcome challenge. It acknowledged that the information crisis is not a side issue to geopolitics; it is part of the same storm. If countries cannot trust the words they hear from one another, no ceasefire, trade deal or security pact can feel solid. That is why the president’s appeal to see media as a bridge, not a weapon, resonated far beyond the conference hall. It offered a way forward for a region that has often been caught between Western and Eastern information wars—a middle path based on professional standards, mutual respect and the conviction that truth, even when uncomfortable, is better than comfortable lies. Aliyev’s speech was not a lecture. It was an invitation to imagine what Asian diplomacy could look like if media did not merely cover events, but helped build the confidence needed to solve them.
Kairat Sarybay, the CICA Secretary-General, took the argument a step further. Promoting constructive, fact-based dialogue, he said, has become a global priority. But for Asia, it is also a neighborhood necessity. Cooperation among member states, he argued, should go hand in hand with stronger ties among their media professionals. Governments can sign agreements, but journalists keep those agreements alive in the minds of ordinary people. Without a shared professional culture, even the best diplomatic intentions can be drowned out by misinformation. Salkyn Sarnogoeva, Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Information and Youth Policy, made this point even more concrete during a panel session. She said building trust across Asia is a shared responsibility of CICA members—not a task that can be delegated to officials alone. In an age of disinformation and information warfare, she argued, government institutions, professional journalists, bloggers and opinion leaders should all work together to produce high-quality content that promotes unity. That is a striking phrase in a media landscape where “content” is often designed to divide audiences and drive clicks. Sarnogoeva was calling for a different kind of content: patient, accurate, human storytelling that can compete with sensationalism precisely because it is rooted in reality. She also called for regular professional exchanges and shared experiences. Her comments were a reminder that trust is not built in a single summit. It is built through repeated, sometimes unglamorous cooperation—training programs, joint investigations, exchange visits, editorial guidelines—that eventually becomes a habit. That kind of trust is harder to fake and harder to destroy. It does not depend on the mood of a leader or the latest algorithm. It depends on people who know each other, respect each other and have learned to correct each other without turning every mistake into a diplomatic crisis.
While the plenary sessions drew most of the attention, some of the most important work in Baku happened away from the cameras. Ahmad Ismayilov, chairman of Azerbaijan’s Media and Broadcasting Council, used the sidelines of the forum for a series of face-to-face meetings with counterparts from across the region. He sat down with Mehmet Daniş, chairman of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation; Wajiha Qamar, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Federal Education and Professional Training; Kairat Sarybay, the CICA Secretary-General; and Kobuljon Akhmedov, director of the Center for Media Content Production under Uzbekistan’s Presidential Administration. The list itself says something about the breadth of CICA’s network—Azerbaijan, Turkey, Pakistan and Uzbekistan in one room discussing journalism. According to the Media and Broadcasting Council’s statement, the participants agreed that rapidly changing communication trends demand closer cooperation and a continuous exchange of experience among media institutions. That may sound like diplomatic boilerplate, but it reflects a genuine problem: no single country has solved the puzzle of digital media. Platforms change their algorithms overnight, audiences fragment, and old business models collapse. In such conditions, media institutions that refuse to share lessons are condemned to repeat each other’s mistakes. The bilateral meetings were therefore not just about friendship. They were about practical survival—learning how regulators, public broadcasters and state media can keep audiences without becoming propaganda machines. The participants stressed the value of building ties in the media sector and pursuing joint projects in various formats. They did not specify every format, but the possibilities are wide: co-productions, news exchanges, training workshops, fact-checking networks, even joint coverage of major regional events. All of these require trust; all of them build it. In a region where media systems are often seen as instruments of national power, this kind of quiet technical cooperation is a reminder that journalists also share a professional identity that crosses borders.
The concerns that surfaced in the bilateral meetings echoed through the forum’s main sessions. Participants exchanged views on maintaining trust in the global information space—a phrase that sounds abstract until one thinks about the daily flood of manipulated images, fake headlines and deepfakes crossing every border in seconds. They spoke about media literacy, which is no longer a luxury for students but a survival skill for entire societies. They talked about reducing the impact of disinformation, especially in regions where false news can trigger ethnic tensions or even violent conflict. They discussed improving the quality of media content, recognizing that accuracy and depth are themselves antidotes to distrust. And they examined how to adapt to the challenges posed by digital platforms, which have made every smartphone user a publisher but have not taught them the ethics of publishing. These are not new problems, but they have become more urgent because the speed of information now outruns the speed of correction. A lie can travel around Asia before the truth has put on its shoes. The participants in Baku seemed to agree that no country can fight this battle alone. A disinformation campaign aimed at one CICA member can destabilize its neighbors, because false narratives do not respect borders. That is why media literacy programs need to be regional, why fact-checking initiatives need cross-border networks, and why journalists need common standards that allow them to correct one another without becoming enemies. The tone in the room, as described by those present, was not defensive or ideological. It was practical. People were looking for tools, partnerships and methods that could actually make a difference in a polarized world. In that way, the media forum became not just a conversation about journalism, but a laboratory for the kind of cooperative problem-solving that CICA was created to support. It also became a space for empathy, because every delegation brought its own scars from information wars—and every delegation realised it did not have to heal them alone.
To understand why this event mattered, one has to remember what CICA is. The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia brings together 28 states that together cover more than 90 percent of Asia’s territory. That means its members include some of the world’s most populous nations, ancient civilizations, oil-rich states and emerging digital powers. It is a multinational forum for cooperation aimed at promoting peace, security and stability in the region. Yet CICA has always recognized that security is not only military. It is also informational, cultural and psychological. The first media forum in Baku was a step toward making that wider vision concrete. It created a space where Asian media leaders could look at each other not as rivals or enemies, but as partners in a common enterprise—the search for reliable information in unreliable times. The forum did not solve the region’s problems in one day. It did not produce a binding treaty or a universal code of conduct. But it did something just as important: it opened a door. It reminded everyone that media institutions, despite their differences, share a basic obligation to tell the truth and a basic interest in being heard. It also humanized the diplomacy. Behind the national statements and official titles were actual people—editors, broadcasters, ministers, fact-finders—who had to sit together, listen to one another and imagine a different media future. That human contact is the seed of confidence. Whether this first forum becomes a regular tradition will depend on the will of member states. But if the energy in Baku is any guide, the demand for more such meetings will only grow. In a world where polarization thrives on distance, the act of bringing people together is itself a quiet act of resistance. Asia, through CICA, may be learning to do that with media as its bridge—and with every verified fact, every shared story and every honest conversation, the bridge grows a little stronger.