2011 has been, for many nations, a year of transition. Protestors hit the streets, governments were removed, some leaders were appointed and this has also been the year that saw a new country, South Sudan, created.
In times of change, especially in the Arab region, the media has also seen some developments. Press freedom is no longer a complete stranger to countries where dictators, who had imposed strict censorship and control, were deposed.
Revolutions have an effect on people’s minds though, and although tangible change came quickly in the cases of Egypt and Tunisia, where leaders were forced to leave, social and cultural concepts like press freedom require patience.
At the 4th United Nations Alliance of Civilizations forum in Qatar, a group of industry professionals gathered to discuss ‘media development at a time of transition.’
Speakers, including the Doha Centre for Media Freedom’s (DCMF) director Jan Keulen, used their experience and recent work in transitional countries to collectively agree on how to develop the media during times of change.
Think local, act global
Guy Berger, the director of Freedom of Expression and Media Development at Unesco, made a strong case for companies and organisations who set up training courses for journalists to adopt a local approach but apply global principles of media freedom.
“When it comes to transition, it’s important for Unesco to say the experience of countries is (for example) ’this’. The principle is universal but the application is different,” he said. “When a government changes, the media doesn’t always change. It is used to singing the praises of government. It’s very difficult to learn a different kind of journalism.”
He coined the phrase ‘be local, reference the global,’ when talking to the participants, a mixture of trainers and journalists, about media development.
Before the Arab Spring gained significant momentum, people in many states were forced to digest state media. Government ownership of news outlets and the imposition of censorship meant that many were left voiceless in the media. Berger advised that one antidote to this kind of media development was pluralism.
“Media development means more media choices,” he said. “If it’s involving government funds, that needs to have some criteria…Pluralism of funding means pluralism of media.”
The need for speed
The speakers noted that in times of transition, expectations, as well as emotions, run high.
Having witnessed the power of the people in removing long-time dictators, many expect similarly extraordinary results when it comes to media development, training and quality.
Sinclair Cornell, a senior media advisor at the USAID office of transition initiatives said training programmers need to understand that long term media development strategy must be put aside.
“Media development needs to be product oriented,” he explained, so that it fulfills the needs of people who are hungry for urgent change.
Using the example of Libya, where the DCMF has an ongoing training programme, Keulen noted that the journalists, experienced and new, recognised the need for assistance and wanted to be guided in the profession immediately.
“They wanted to engage with us,” he said. “They wanted training and they wanted it now or even yesterday.”
New media, new rules?
Amid the discussion, there was some talk of social media and whether it should be recognised as professional journalism.
“What we saw during the Libyan revolution was that journalism was reinvented by people who weren't professional journalists,” noted Keulen.
It is and will be a complicated task separating those who gather news, agreed the speakers, and understanding would be needed when issuing guidelines and codes of conduct.
Some 30 percent of Arab journalists are under the age of 30, according to data gathered by Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of the Edward R Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Fifty percent are aged between 31 and 39. Pintak’s data was presented during the session, which included some other alarming details about the state of media in the region. For example, almost 20 percent of respondents said that it was 'sometimes okay' to accept payment for favourable stories.
Walter Dean, the director of training for the Committee of Concerned Journalists, said the combination of young reporters mixed with old rules might be an obstacle to media development.
”This used to be about old guys passing down the rules,” he said. “Now it’s more about which of the old rules are more appropriate. Which should we keep? Which should we disregard? And how should we do it?’
He added that the internet has significantly increased the number of independent journalists, which often leads to poor judgment.
But journalists, observers, trainers and those who are hoping for better journalism in the region do not need to fear. These were, said speakers, simply teething problems.
As Amy Selwyn, the managing director at News Xchange and the group’s moderator, put it, there are two main positions. More training is certainly needed, but so much is already being accomplished.
