The Media Provenance Summit brought together leading experts, journalists and technologists from across the globe to Mount Fløyen in Bergen, Norway, to address some of the most pressing challenges facing news media today.

Hosted by Media Cluster Norway, and organised together with the BBC, the EBU and IPTC, the full-day summit on September 23 convened participants from major news organisations, technology providers and international standards bodies to advance the implementation of the C2PA content provenance standard, also known as Content Credentials, in real-world newsroom workflows. The ultimate aim is to strengthen the signal of authentic news media content in a time where it is challenged by generative AI.

“We need to work together to tackle the big problems that the news media industry is facing, and we are very grateful for everyone who came together here in Bergen to work on solutions. I believe we made important progress,” said Helge O. Svela, CEO of Media Cluster Norway.

The program focused on three critical questions:

1. How to preserve C2PA information throughout editorial workflows when not all tools yet support the technology.
2. When to sign content as it moves through the workflow at device level, organisational level, or both.
3. How to handle confidentiality and privacy issues, including the protection of sources and sensitive material.

“We were very happy to see a focus on real solutions, with some great ideas and tangible next steps,” said IPTC’s Managing Director, Brendan Quinn. “With participants from across the media ecosystem, it was exciting to see vendors, publishers, broadcasters and service providers working together to address issues in practically applying C2PA to media
workflows in today’s newsrooms.”

Speakers included Charlie Halford (BBC), Andy Parsons (CAI/Adobe), François-Xavier Marit (AFP), Kenneth Warmuth (WDR), Lucille Verbaere (EBU), Marcos Armstrong and Sébastien Testeau (CBC/Radio-Canada), and Mohamed Badr Taddist (EBU).

“The BBC welcomes this focus on protecting access to trustworthy news. We are proud to have been founder members of the media provenance work carried out under the auspices of C2PA and we are delighted to see it moving forward with such strong industry support,” said Laura Ellis, Head of Technology Forecasting at BBC Research.

Participants travelled to participate in the summit from as far away as Japan, Australia, the US and Canada.

“We’re pleased to collectively have taken a few hurdles on the way to enabling a broader adoption of Content Provenance and Authenticity”, said Hans Hoffmann, Deputy Director at EBU Technology and Innovation Department. “The definition of common practices for signing content in workflows, retrieving provenance information thanks to soft binding, and better safeguards for the privacy of sources address important challenges. Public service media are committed to fight disinformation and improve transparency, and EBU members were well represented in Bergen. The broad participation from across the industry and globe
smooths the path towards adoption. Thanks to Media Cluster Norway for hosting the event!”

The summit emphasised moving from problem analysis to solution exploration. Through structured sessions, participants defined key blockers, sketched practical solutions and developed action plans aimed at strengthening trust in digital media worldwide.

About the Summit
The Media Provenance Summit was organised jointly by Media Cluster Norway, the EBU, the BBC and IPTC, and made possible with the support of Agenda Vestlandet.

For more information, please contact: helge@medieklyngen.no