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Importance of Communication Emphasized

The second Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) opened Dec. 7 in Athens under the motto, Quality Information for All with energetic discussions about quality journalism and media development. The conference, to run through Dec. 10, is being attended by more than 450 people from 106 countries. Three years ago, the first GFMD in Amman, Jordan, gathered local and international media NGOs from 97 countries. David Hoffman, president of Internews Network and chair of Global Forum for Media Development, opened the conference and Paul Collier, professor of economics at Oxford university and the author of The Bottom Billion, was the day’s keynote speaker on the subject, is media development making a difference for the Bottom Billion?
Before the official opening ceremonies, the conference presented two simultaneous sessions that discussed quality journalism – creating confidence in a globalised world, and media development: information on issues that affect
people’s lives.
Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, moderated the session on quality journalism with a panel that consisted of: Stephen Pritchard, president of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen, United Kingdom; Andres Gomez, executive director of ERBOL, Bolivia; Luis V. Teodoro, deputy director of CMFR, Philippines; Bambang Harymurti, editor-in-chief of Tempo Weekly Magazine and Tempo Daily Newspaper, Indonesia; Jose Buendia, executive director of PRENDE, Mexico; and Jeanette Minnie of Zambezi FoX, South Africa.
White said the conference came at “a really important moment” and that it is
time that “the issue of media development is taken seriously.”
He said “there is a deep and profound crisis … in the way we operate,” adding
that in Western Europe and North America newspapers are experiencing “shrinking
audiences” and thousands of journalists are losing their jobs and employees “are jettisoning quality journalism.” He added that in countries where the media is expanding, such as China and Japan, there is a detachment to journalistic quality and in countries overwhelmed by conflict or extreme poverty, the media are very often in very polarized roles.
Pritchard said that in the United States newspaper ombudsmen are losing their jobs. Editors, he said, have taken the attitude who needs ombudsmen. “The idea of accountability is shrinking in the United States,” Pritchard said.
In the session on media development, the moderator, Mark Wilson, executive director of The Panos Institute, London, said, “Good politics is about getting
communication right.”
Access to media “needs to be improved,” Wilson said, adding that better access to the media and better content in the media “are critical.”
The panel included Diana Senghor of Panos, West Africa, Kunda Dixit, editor-in-chief of the Nepali Times, Nepal, and Maria Pia Matta, of AMARC, Latin America.
Dixit said at times the media “is actually becoming part of the problem,” adding that some of the coverage of the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai,
India, the mass media almost became mass hysteria. Dixit encouraged the use of entertainment in the media has been useful in driving a message through and that it has been “extremely effective in spreading democracy.”
He warned that controls on press freedom “is becoming more sophisticated.”
Dixit said the challenges facing the media include being much more vigilant to intimidation, which, he said, is covering a whole spectrum of tactics, including death, bribery and over-commercialization. He said there also must be an upgrade in media education, adding that journalism schools are still teaching the skill from textbooks from the 1960s.
“Communication is the first line of defense against communicable disease,” Dixit said.
Dixit also urged decentralization of the media. “The Internet,” Dixit said, “needs to be tackled as a decentralizing force.”

David Rosso
USA Journalist