July 2008

In a previous job, I was asked to organize media training for senior technocrats in international development who would, in the course of their jobs, have to face the media from time to time to answers questions about their areas of responsibility. As I set about doing a learning needs assessment and organizing the training, I noticed a dynamic I had not reflected on before. It is this: when working in headquarters most senior technocrats working in bilateral or multilateral development organizations are really anonymous bureaucrats. In fact, in bilateral donor organizations they tend to be part of the civil service; as a result, they are not meant to be seen or heard. That is the job of Ministers. Thus, although they take decisions that affect millions of lives, these technocrats are not used to public questioning by the media. 

When you're advocating for a better understanding of the media's role in policy making and governance reform, nothing is as disheartening as a well done study that questions the media's role on the basis of sound evidence. Even when you can make a good argument that the study doesn't tell the whole story - you just know that experts in policy making and in academia will buy into what that study argues. That is why I found reading John Kingdon's excellent book Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies rather less enjoyable than the book deserves.

I was fortunate yesterday to attend the launch of a report by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA). Funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), CIMA has assessed U.S. efforts to support media development worldwide. The launch was for its augural report, “Empowering Independent Media: U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Media Around the World.” 

In the developed world, radio is a more or less dying medium. In the age of iPods, who needs to switch on a radio to listen to music? Much less to listen to political talk, which you get anywhere from your local newspaper (preferably online) to cable television (also online, of course). Nevertheless, radio has a curious position in the political realm, in particular in developing countries, and to some extent also in the Western world.