Meet Marianne Bahl SND Board of Directors

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SND Statement

Credibility in visual journalism 

SND is an amazing community of creative people with visions, missions, and skills to make the world turn and transform in the most positive and innovative way possible through tools of visual journalism. 

As a visual journalist, you have an editorial responsibility to strive to tell stories as accurately, nuanced and as impartial as possible. People outside the media industry are not aware of how powerful the media is in the dissemination of content. They shouldn’t have to consider how trustworthy the content is. 

But many factors make media brands take sides today and that confuses the recipients. It disturbs our credibility and accountability in general. I think we need to keep that in mind and talk about it in every step of the dissemination phase.

Credibility is crucial for the survival of journalism and will be one of the themes I will focus on if I get the honour of entering the SND Board of Directors. 

Diversity and equality 

Diversity and equality should be at the top of the agenda regardless of professional area and industry. The SND community is a fantastic platform with enormous potential of supporting a more diverse industry. 

Statistics prove that companies that actively promote a multi-cultural and diverse organization deliver better financial results. Millennials want to work for organizations where diversity is actively promoted and seek out employers with a strong record on equality and diversity. 

So, the mindset of a workforce build on diversity of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation is a need to have, not only within the media industry but in any industry and in the way the media conveys content. I find this awareness extremely important to discuss especially as a visual journalist conveying stories to people about people around the world. 

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Bio

Marianne Bahl is a freelance visual strategist, a digital storytelling innovator, and a visual journalist. She has her own studio in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. 

She is heading cross-functional teams working with innovative experience design and visual communication. Marianne is working with Media Groups communicating and developing visual strategy and identity, visual journalism and cross media communication on all platforms and channels. 

She is an analytical innovator and pragmatic esthetician. She is a cross-organizational thinker who is focusing on refining leadership by e.g., improving workflows, to enable people to do what they do best. Marianne is a very strong believer in diversity and it’s top of mind at all levels. The goal is to diversify the workforce, to radically increase the number of ideas, opinions, outlooks, and experiences available within any organization.

Marianne graduated from the Danish School of Design/Royal Danish Academy as a Graphic Designer and Visual Communicator specializing in Magazine Design. She has 20+ years of digital, print, product, and team management experience in the fields of education, digital transformation, and journalism for some of the largest media groups in Denmark. She is committed to leadership, heading change management and large-scale development of visual journalism on all platforms. She has been Head of Design departments and Photo Editor in Chief at three of Denmark’s largest media groups, Politiken, ALL for The Ladies, a Lifestyle Magazine at Egmont Publishing and at Børsen (Boersen) the biggest Financial Daily in Denmark. 

Marianne is Appointed censor for the Censor Corps for Artistic higher education of Architecture, Design and Conservation under the Danish Ministry of Education and Research. 

Marianne is also appointed censor at the Danish Professional Colleges’ external examiner corps for professional bachelor, diploma and academy programs within the subject area Media and Communication.

For the last 10+ years she has been a juror in The European Newspaper Award and Chairperson of Danish Media Design Awards.