"The international development community needs to spend less time training journalists and more time on efforts to build country level leadership for a strong and independent media as a key institution of development. This means longer-term programs, facilitating carefully planned and rigorous appro
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aches to multi-stakeholder engagement, and South-South knowledge exchange led by local champions. Building broad consensus on the important role of the media is a job that will require concerted action not only by local governments, activists and opinion leaders but also donors and the major international organizations engaged in development. As shown by the successful cases, donors and partner countries need to work together to consider the media environment in governance and public sector reforms, in reforms of the business environment, and efforts to improve the judiciary and rule of law. Our work has also demonstrated how much we don’t know about the media, particularly in the developing world. This lack of data and information about developing media markets is a significant barrier to building successful media enterprises, as well as an obstacle to donors and others who wish to support media development. New efforts should be made to expand data collection on the media in developing countries, and in particular, to help local media participants get access to data on audiences and advertising that are critical to building successful media enterprises." (Executive summary)
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"The capitalization gap for independent news media businesses in impact arguments to extend support to independent news media businesses. There are also convincing arguments that providing finance capital has a significant impact on independent media sustainability, as proven by recent successful pu
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blic-private initiatives that have mobilized funding to independent news media businesses around the world. This paper assesses the capitalization gap, identifies entry points for philanthropic capital and prepares a compelling case for developing existing initiatives and exploring new ones that can bridge the gap and channel necessary funding to the sector." (Abstract)
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"According to this paper, many media businesses lack management skills and experience in developing effective business models. "Compounding this is a lack of media development assistance targeted to media managers, the expansion of economic constraints on media businesses, and a lack of access to in
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vestment capital", says the executive summary, and concludes that "this naiveté about the business side poses a significant risk to the sustainability of independent news media. At the same time that audiences are growing, they are also increasingly decoupled from advertising, traditionally the largest and most easily accessible form of revenue supporting news media. Whether a market is growing or declining, this trend threatens to undermine the ability of independent media to fund news reporting." (commbox)
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"This report investigates the relationships between media freedoms, financial sustainability of media in emerging markets, and international media support. It is based on a survey of more than 220 newspapers and media executives in more than sixty countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas,
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and on five in-depth country studies: Egypt, Georgia, Guatemala, Mozambique and Vietnam. Research results indicate that media executives see the greatest opportunities in three principle areas: investing in new technology and multimedia operations; developing journalists’ skills; and enhancing the skills of staff in commercial departments to improve revenue and efficiency." (Publisher description)
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"International media development and media support is often structured and planned without taking into account the current and future position of media as economic subjects and their long term sustainability and development opportunities. Sida’s policy to engage and involve private sector actors i
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n international development efforts and WAN-IFRA’s unique position as a media trade organisation with a human rights mandate, has resulted in a partnership between Sida and WAN-IFRA to work together in advancing media development and press freedom worldwide [...] This event is the beginning of an initiative to establish a systematic and holistic approach to assistance to financially viable independent media in developing markets." (Foreword)
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This study is based on the experience of the public-private development partnership for independent media, a joint initiative between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Media Development Loan Fund, responsAbility Social Investments AG and Bank Vontobel.
"Large parts of media development work have focused on providing support to create privately owned, independent media in transition and developing countries. The accepted logic of many donor organisations has been that creating external pluralism, i.e. having many different private media companies o
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perating in one country, is the best way to build democracy and to provide access and voice to citizens. Often the model of choice was the one that has dominated the media landscapes of the United States and Europe since the Second World War: privately owned media funded through advertising and sales revenues. But as advertising income dwindles for traditional media and as newspapers close at alarming rates, the question arises whether promoting this business model in the developing world is the right way forward. In developing a response to this question, this article explains how media assistance has developed, identifies the main characteristics of the current crisis in journalism in the developed world and indicates how some of the experience gained in media development can help to provide answers to the current crisis. Media development itself has come a long way in recent years and today adopts a more holistic approach that focuses not only on building private media but recognises the need for legal reform, civil society involvement, enhanced professional capacity, strengthened institutions that support media freedom and development of technical media infrastructure." (Abstract)
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"This report provides an assessment of U.S. international media development efforts, both public and private, and calls on future efforts to be more long-term, comprehensive, and need-driven. Recommending a more holistic assistance approach, the report looks at the international media development fi
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eld from a number of perspectives: funding, professional development, education, the legal-enabling environment, economic sustainability, media literacy, new media, and monitoring and evaluation. The report's recommendations include: establishing media development as its own sector of international assistance rather than only as a part of other development efforts as is the current trend; taking longer-term approaches to projects; engaging the local media community more in project designand implementation; improving journalists' professional skills and ethical standards; providing greater support to improve the legal-enabling environment; emphasizing media literacy; building stronger media management skills; integrating new technology; refining monitoring and evaluation methods; improving coordination among donors and implementers; integrating communication for development strategies in overall media assistance efforts." (CAMECO Update 5-2008)
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"Media centres around the world are facing the same challenges in ensuring long-term sustainability after “start-up” funding from donors ceases. In order to overcome these challenges, a number of centres have pioneered innovative approaches for ensuring financial and institutional viability and
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credibility, thus allowing them to successfully evolve into stable expert institutions within their media landscapes. It is in this context that in October 2006 International Media Support (IMS) invited a number of media centres and other institutions from Southeast Europe, West and East Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East to a workshop to share lessons learnt and identify approaches for addressing common challenges. These centres were asked to join the workshop because they represent perspectives and experiences from all over the world, thus offering the chance to pool diverse knowledge and experiences. In undertaking this workshop, it was recognised that all media centres are unique. The participating institutions represented media centres at differing stages in their development and performing varied roles, from lobbying for media policy reform to providing training opportunities and producing media publications. Nevertheless, despite these differences, there are considerable similarities and therefore scope for sharing knowledge. As an outcome of the workshop, the best practices discussed and defined by the participants have been collated in this handbook, which is being published jointly by IMS and the participating media centres. I hope that this publication is a useful tool for media centres of all designs and orientations, in further strengthening their options for achieving financial self sustainability." (Introduction, page 5)
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"Expérience heureuse de l'aide apportée par deux experts de l'I.I.P. à deux journaux indiens régionaux, le « Decan Herald » et le « Prajavani »." (Jean-Marie Van Bol, Abdelfattah Fakhfakh: The use of mass media in the developing countries. Brussels: CIDESA, 1971 Nr. 2411, topic code 163.21)