Media Re:public

I thought I might lose my Trader Joe’s Blueberry Muesli this morning, listening to Adam Davidson chat with Morning Edition co-host Ari Shapiro about free trade, Colombia and the US election. Their 4-minute conversation is ickily chatty (”Hey Adam, hey Ari”) and unbearably arrogant and US-centric. Adam contends that making a big fuss over trade agreements with Colombia is, in his words, “nutty” because Colombia is just too small to matter: “I did the math and… the entire Colombian economy is the size of Hollywood, Florida, not Hollywood, California” They both laugh. Indeed, what could be more entertaining than living in a country where the per capita gross domestic product is less than $20 a day?

So, Ari persists, why do US politicians care about this silly little country, since only “some people here and there” (Adam’s words) will be affected by any trade deals? Well apparently, unions are upset because a lot of union leaders get killed there, but as Adam goes on to observe in the same cheerful “gosh-how-silly” voice, “a lot of people get killed in Colombia, it’s a very violent society.” Wow, that’s even funnier than being poor!

The hilarity continues as Davidson notes that in some states “trade is a big, big deal” even though those foolish voters are just wrong about trade being the reason they lost their jobs. Davidson presumably thinks that American voters in those states may be almost as stupid as the people who choose to live in poor, violent Colombia.

I’ll leave union members and residents of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio to defend themselves against Davidson’s flip dismissal of their concerns. On behalf of the rest of the world, though, I urge NPR to make both Ari Shapiro and Adam Davidson spend a few hours learning something about Colombia. Wonderful place to start is on Global Voices, which will steer them to a heart-breaking series of short videos on the struggles of a brave group of women to fight back against the violence and economic hardship in the Barrancabermeja region, home to the country’s biggest oil refinery. Hey, did Davidson really fail to mention that petroleum accounts for almost 30% of Colombia’s exports? Yup, I listened one more time to be sure.

This offensive piece of “analysis” (perhaps that’s just another word for “filler” at Morning Edition?) added nothing to our understanding of trade issues or the election politics it was supposedly about, while actively encouraging the worst sort of American closedmindness. Which public is public radio aiming for?

Photo: Bogotá
2600m + montañas paisas…
Uploaded on December 27, 2006
by One*mandarino
Some rights reserved

I continue to ponder the interesting discussions at a 2.5 day conference put together by the World Bank’s CommGap (that’s COMMunication for Governance and Accountability Program, not “communication gap”) and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Definitely read Charlie Beckett’s thoughtful 5-part summary for a real roundup, I’m only highlighting a few things that struck me.

The focus was on international development, specifically on how to convince the good people who fund international development that media is important to good governance* which in turn drives human development. To this end, the organizers had gathered a great group of folks (present company excluded, I begged to come when I learned who would be there). There were three tribes: academics, World Bank people and then a motley group of “practitioners” that included people working in media, media development, and media for development.**

Highlights:
Finally meeting the terrific Sheila Coronel, whose presentation (do read the real thing) on the role of investigative journalism was thoughtful, historical, passionate and practical all at once. Conclusion: watchdog journalism is not always heroic or perfect, it can even be counterproductive sometimes and its effectiveness depends on many factors but we need watchdog journalism no matter what, in fragile states and stable, to remind us how democracy could and should work.

Learning (in the lunch breaks) about Media Tenor, a fascinating international media analysis group that’s been around for 15 years monitoring high-profile mainstream media, with all the data freely available. Only 30% of their work is done for paying clients; those fees support the other 70%, which is all available for free. CEO Roland Schatz explained that they do not hide this fact from their clients; everyone accepts it. (speaking of business models, Ethan!) Moreover, they are careful not to let any one client dominate their revenue so they can remain independent of any political or business agenda. Can’t wait to dig through their stuff.

Cheering on Warren Feek, head of the Communication Initiative Network, as he called on us to correct some of the limitations he saw in the papers and discussions. I hope he will post the slides he showed, meanwhile, my takeaways:

– remember that media is part of society: we need to understand its place in each country, which requires close collaboration with local experts in research, program design,
–get beyond traditional media either in the sense of delivery mechanisms or in the narrow paradigm of “objective” journalism. New media is playing a growing role, advocacy media is vital.
– rephrase our work more positively: we are promoting enhanced political participation, dammit, we are not the poor cousin

Listening to the presentation by Ibrahim al Marashi and (my long-time pal) Monroe Price of their work together with Nicole A. Stremlau on media in conflict societies. Their paper-in-progress, examining media in Iraq, Uganda and Ethiopia, is well worth your time. No simple soundbites here; as the conclusion says of the three cases: “Each is a messy, nonlinear project.” (I hope Ibrahim will post the riveting images from Iraqi TV he shared at the conference somewhere.)

Being reminded by the Open Society Foundation’s Marius Dragomir about the importance of broadcasting through his research on the many incarnations of “public broadcasting.”

The more I learn about what’s happening in new media in the “developed” world, the more eager I am to integrate it with the work in other countries, to the benefit of both.

Image: Glowing Globe,
originally uploaded by Trooper3d

* The term “democratic governance” turned out not to be popular with all the World Bank’s partner-states.

** “Media Development” is when people support the creation or improvement of local media as a good in its own right. “Media for Development” is  when media is used as a vehicle to promote other aspects of human development, through ads promoting condom use or radio dramas about the free market. In recent years, the two tribes have forged an uneasy peace.

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A cautious hooray! The Russian Constitutional Court has ruled unconstitutional the law under which Russian authorities had been threatening my long-time colleague and dear friend Manana Aslamazyan with jail time. Manana spent 15 years creating and leading a terrific organization originally called Internews Russia and later renamed Educated Media Foundation (EMF), where I was privileged to work for several years. The organization’s mission was to help the non-state media outside Moscow, especially the several hundred private local TV stations that sprang up in the early ’90s, develop and grow.

Year by year, during the Putin administration, everyone supporting independent thinking among journalists came to feel that they were viewed as an enemy of the state. In the xenophobic atmosphere that Putin cultivated, the fact that many of the grants that supported the work of EMF/Internews Russia over the years came from the US Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation and other suspect groups, multiplied the effect. So when an excuse was found (or manufactured) to bring criminal charges against Manana for accidentally violating a customs regulation (it could and should have been an administrative issue with a small fine at most), Russian authorities launched a massive investigation not only of Manana but of the EMF.

In April of last year, 20 police officers arrived at my old office, and, in a search that was clearly illegal, seized the organization’s every financial and administrative document and all the computer servers. Shortly afterward, journalists in Tomsk launched a campaign to have Russian journalists sign a letter of protest to Putin, and impressively more than 2000 of them did, but the Kremlin didn’t even respond. Last May, as the investigation showed no signs of letting up, Manana left for Paris rather than risk arrest and the board of the Educated Media Foundation voted to close the organization.

Meanwhile, since the ordeal began, Manana’s legal team has been fighting the charges in every way and in court they could, including preparing to submit a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Each time there was another court date set, those of us following the case closely felt there was hope. Friends who sat in the session would report that Manana’s lawyers had been perfect, the investigator’s team disorganized and clearly in the wrong. The judge would promise a decision the next day (always the next day). And each and every time, the judge would use some contorted logic in order to find for the prosecution. Sometimes observers noted that the judges themselves seemed embarrassed.

Despite the ruling, it is clear that the Educated Media Foundation will not be allowed to re-open any time soon, and Russia’s broadcast media will continue to feel all kinds of pressure to demonstrate their “loyalty” and “patriotism.” So today’s decision feels like a victory, but a small one. We can only hope it’s a sign of better things to come.

May 15th is Blog for Palestine Day. 20,000 protesters in Nazareth were met with tear gas a couple days ago. If you missed these stories, or if you’d just like to broaden your perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is a good time to check out a partnership highlighting Middle East news between three terrific non-profits: Global Voices, LinkTV, and NewsTrust.net. (Full disclosure, I have friends in all three organizations.) The first two focus on highlighting new sources of news of the world, NewsTrust helps discover high-quality journalism on all topics. If you have only four and a half minutes to spare, start with Jamal Dajani’s Mosiac Intelligencer Report: Your Independence is our Nakba. But it’s worth diving in to the materials on all three sites, and encouraging any journalists you know covering the story to do the same.

Tags: Palestine, Israel, Middle East, Global Voices, LinkTV, NewsTrust.net, nonprofit journalism

Sad photos of the post-cyclone devastation in Myanmar, (warning: including dead children), are on this Burmese blog  (my browser doesn’t even display the fonts, have no idea what it’s called) which I found thanks to Ivan Sigal’s thoughtful Burning Bridge Blog. Also fascinating that the author ends the series with a cartoon which I was able to identify as  Singapore cartoonist Heng Kim Song (translation or publication info welcome). Meanwhile, Global Voices provides fascinating insight into what Burmese themselves are saying about the slow arrival of relief for the survivors. One blog says an anonymous government official believes the death toll might be as high as 600,00. Another hopes the government will find a way to accept foreign aid so as not to lose the trust of the people.

Tags:  burma, blogs, globalvoices

How to improve the media in Eurasia? About 150 people from local and international media development NGOs working in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as funders and others interested in the region have gathered in Paris to talk about their common problems. It’s a regional subsection of the Global Forum for Media Development. We’re winding up now with a fun training on creativity.

There have been some lively discussions about whether or not to work with governments, how to convince donors that media is important, what we’ve learned about what works and what doesn’t, the perennialy painful question of how to evaluate the success of media development. Today several of us discussed new tools and how they might help this work.

I tried to encourage my former colleagues to consider the work that is being done with various forms of participatory media to enhance their own work and the work of the traditional media they support. I tried to encourage them to look at projects that offer platforms for both citizen and professional reporting from their region, like Global Voices, Transitions Online, and Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Also some of the sites where stories from around the world are discussed, such as allvoices, ground report and topix. And briefly touched on examples like Everyblock, Public Insight Journalism

New media is a hard sell in this group. The countries they work in don’t have very high Internet penetration, there is lots of work to do with traditional media, most of the people in the media in these countries and the media support organizations are not of the digital native generation. I’m not at all sure I convinced anybody, probably only confused them. But perhaps the confusion will lead them to look at new media again.

Tags: GFMD, Eurasia, Media Development

Catching up on my Global Voices reading, got to this disturbing reminder of the international stories that go quickly back to being local after the crisis fades. A blogger called Buddhist Warrior

publishes a statement from the All Burma Monks’ Alliance and the 88 Generation Students under the unambiguous title “The United Nations is a Failure“. Naturally this plea to the UN Secretary General was picked up by mainstream media everywhere, (if everywhere is India, Thailand and Norway, and Burmese-focussed media is mainstream).

1, 2, 3, 4, … , 2217 (Bagan, Myanmar),
originally uploaded by jmhullot.

One more mini-milestone in my blog education: after months of looking for a widget and being afraid to ask, I figured out how to add tags to my blog. Hoping to spend a chunk of today folksonomatizing the blog archives.

While I’m doing that, you can read Christine Gorman’s recent post about Zimbabwe that is not about the elections or the media.

Zimbabwe 1
Originally uploaded by babasteve
Tags: folksonomy Zimbabwe tags

In Russian Organized Crime v. American-Russian Law Institute the Russian-American Law Institute explains what they believe to be the reasons for the continued detention of their director Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary Vladena Funk.

Meanwhile this site and this one have been set up specifically to support the campaign to free Zeltser and Funk. A demonstration in support of the pair is planned at the Belarus Consulate in NYC this Wednesday, April 2.

Note: The American Russian Law Institute is a little hard to parse. I only recognize one name on their advisory board but it’s a damn good one:Boris Kuznetsov who until he found himself under attack by the Russian government was helping defend my colleague Manana Aslamazyan and the Educated Media Foundation. Background and current news on that ongoing case is at the Internews Netork site.

Tags: Zeltser, Belarus

A few days ago I posted a press release about the detention in Minsk of Emanuel Zeltser, described as a human rights lawyer. The story was later reported in Forbes and elsewhere.

Now, Russian oligarchi-in-exile Boris Berezovsky tells Georgian TV station Rustavi2 Emanuel Zeltser is a swindler who is trying to seize the assets of Berezovsky’s former partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, who died suddenly in February.

“they [Joseph Kay and Emanuel Zeltser] presented themselves as people authorized to manage Badri’s assets. Shortly after that it became absolutely clear that they were swindlers, who have falsified documents and as far as I know Mr. Zeltser is now in prison in Belarus, where they also tried to seize Badri’s assets through faked documents “ Details and lots of other interesting tidbits about Georgian politics in the full English transcript of the interview.

Meanwhile, someone posted a long comment on my earlier post titled
BEREZOVSKY AND BELARUS KGB PLOT AGAINST US LAWYER EMANUEL ZELTSER

This is what we call an информационная война (”information war”). Make your own decision about what to believe, I’m just the messenger here.