Media freedom – Page 13

Radio Sagarmatha wins global award – now that’s real people’s radio!

On 23 May 2007, I wrote about Radio Sagarmatha (RS) of Nepal, South Asia’s first ever public radio station that completed 10 years on that day.

I called it Kathmandu’s beacon of hope. The pioneering radio station, entirely owned and operated by the journalists’ collective Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), has stood by the people of Kathmandu valley — its listeners — through an eventful, sometimes turbulent decade.

And now, more recognition has come — this time in the form of an international award.

Last evening (June 14) in London’s Porchester Hall, the One World Broadcasting Trust (OWBT) presented its Special Award to Radio Sagarmatha.

I join Radio Sagarmatha’s friends and admirers worldwide in congratulating them on this latest honour.

RA Station manager, Mohan Bista, who accepted the award on behalf of his team, said: “We would like to dedicate this award to the Nepali people who fought for freedom of expression and democracy in the country, and thank them for their support through the good and bad times. We welcome the challenge and responsibility of the future.”

Announcing the selection, OWBT said:
“Based in the heart of the Kathmandu Valley, Radio Sagarmatha has irreversibly changed the landscape of broadcasting in the country. Originally built from water pipes and tested by staff driving around the streets of Kathmandu on motorbikes clutching radios, this bold venture gave momentum to the pro-democracy movement, which eventually led to the restoration of parliamentary democracy in April 2006.”

Earlier, Lord Young of Norwood Green, Chairman of OWBT, had said in a letter sent to Radio Sagarmatha: “The Trustees received a large number of nominations from as far apart as Guatemala, Zambia…. and it was inevitably a very difficult choice for them, but Radio Sagarmatha stood out because of its long-standing reputation as one of the first independent public-interest radio stations in South Asia, and the continued efforts to bring credible information to the audiences in an engaging and interactive way. The Trustees were unanimous in their choice.”

OWBT

OWBT’s official press release announcing the award said:
When Radio Sagarmatha launched in May 1997 – after five years of lobbying – it was a milestone not just for Nepal but for the whole of South Asia, marking the end of the government’s radio monopoly. The station blazed a trail for broadcasting in the country, and in its wake hundreds of commercial FM and community-based stations were set up.

When the King’s regime banned all independent broadcasters from carrying news in April 2005, the station continued its daily output. Seven months later, police raided the station, seizing all technical equipment and arresting five staff. But within days, public pressure led the Supreme Court of Nepal to issue an order to the government allowing Radio Sagarmatha to go live again.

RS employs 40 staff and 29 freelancers, and has recently gained government approval to double its transmitter capacity from 500 to 1,000 watts. RS has established a network of eight community radio stations across the country and offers technical support and in-house training for newcomers to Nepal’s radio sector. The station receives sponsorship from local organisations including Eco-Himal, as well as international agencies. It also runs a Friends of Radio Sagarmatha scheme which has so far raised over $10,000.

The One World Media Awards is one of the foremost Awards events in the UK encouraging excellence in media coverage that supports a greater understanding of the vital issues of international development. The awards recognise the unique role of journalists and film makers in bridging the divide between different societies, and communicating the breadth of social, political and cultural experiences across the globe. The 11 award categories cover television, radio, new media and print journalism.

Radio Sagarmatha is well and truly people’s radio. It’s not a government-controlled, donor-propped charade like Sri Lanka’s so-called community radio, about which I wrote earlier this month.

Full list of OWBT award winners 2007

One World Media Awards jury panels for 2007

Lions and community radio: part of Sri Lanka’s mythical lore

Even well-meaning, usually balanced media organisations can occasionally slip, and fall for traps that damage their credibility.

I have always had the highest regard for Inter Press Service (IPS), the news agency of the majority world that presents the Southern voice and perspective. In the early days of my career, I shared an office with IPS bureau in Colombo, and still count many good friends who work or report for IPS from different parts of Asia.

Imagine my dismay and surprise, then, when this news story was carried by IPS earlier today:

MEDIA-SRI LANKA:
Building Ethnic Harmony With Community Radio

KOTHMALE, Jun 4 (IPS) – In this tea-growing hill country, about 150 km from Colombo, a state-run community radio station is creating harmony among the country’s Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups by broadcasting from the villages and opening up the airwaves to people’s participation.

”People all over Sri Lanka are talking about peace, but this community radio has been doing it from the beginning,” P. Pavitheran, an announcer at the Kothmale Community Radio (KCR) told IPS.

“We don’t have any community divisions here,” added the Tamil broadcaster who also speaks fluent Sinhalese and switches smoothly between the two languages on air. “All my (assisting) staff are Sinhalese, but we’re all working together as a team.”

KCR on FM band was set up by the government-owned Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) in 1989 with 3 hours of transmission three days a week. Today, it broadcasts 12.5 hours a day on weekdays and 8 hours on weekends in both Sinhalese and Tamil. It covers a modest 20-km radius that includes 60 villages and 3 rural towns and reaches a population of 200,000. Read the full story here

IPS

This is one of those feel-good stories that news agencies like to publish once in a while, so that it counter the mainly negative stories that they carry as mirrors of society.

But in this instance, IPS has – perhaps inadvertently – peddled a pervasive myth that has been fabricated and distributed by UNESCO for over two decades about there being community radio stations in Sri Lanka.

I have lived and worked in Sri Lanka all my life, and never once come across a community radio station. In fact, this is a rare instance where successive governments for the past 20 years stand united: all have stubbornly refused to license any community radio.

There has never been, and there isn’t, any community radio in Sri Lanka in the sense the rest of the world understands that term. The fully state-owned and government-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) has several rural transmissions which masquerade as community radio, hoodwinking gullible development donors and naive foreign journalists.

As I have written in many places over the years, local communities have no control over content or management of the station. And no political content is allowed in the programming — try criticising the government in office and the jackboot of the Big Bad Babus of SLBC will come down with thunderous effect!

Let me quote from one of my published articles:

“SLBC broadcasts from all corners of the country, including stations located in remote areas. The channel involves local people in programme production, and it maintains a strongly agrarian audience. But listeners have no say in running the stations – these are managed by a tight bureaucracy in the capital Colombo, whose rigid guidelines control content: strictly no politics, and nothing remotely against the government in office.

“But, although touted as such, SLBC is not community radio, which is supposed to promote access, public participation in production and decision-making and listener-financing – where each listener contributes a small amount towards the running of the radio station.”

Read full article in Panos Features: Radio in Sri Lanka suffers as Colombo bosses call the shots

Despite all this, if someone still insists that there is community radio in Sri Lanka, I can argue that by the same token, lions roam free in Sri Lanka’s remaining jungles. After all, the Sinhalese have a folk lore suggesting they descend from a lion.

Both prospects are equally fantastic. At least there are a couple of lions in the zoo.

Individuals are free to believe in fabrications coming out of that Paris-based myth factory called UNESCO. But responsible news organisations like IPS need to fact-check their stories lest they legitimise these dubious claims that contribute to suppressing genuine media freedom and media pluralism in Sri Lanka.

Community Broadcasting: A way forward in Asia

In an earlier post, I wrote about what I presented to the workshop on community broadcasting and ICTs during Asia Media Summit 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last week.

The workshop on ‘Connecting Communities through Community Broadcasting and ICTs’ gave us a chance to clarify key issues and concerns, and to agree on a common understanding for future action.

On behalf of our workshop, dynamic young Manisha Aryal, broadcast activist from Nepal who currently works for InterNews in Pakistan, presented our recommendations to the Summit plenary.

Here, for the record, are the recommendations. I don’t hold my breath on this, but it’s good to synthesize a long and hard day’s work — over nine hours of talking! — into a few short paras.

Connecting Communities Though Community Radios and ICT

Recognizing the importance of community media in economic, political and social development, in promoting good governance practices, and in empowering marginalized groups and communities in participating fully in society in urban, rural as well as remote areas; and

Understanding the importance of encouraging community media initiatives that are owned and managed by communities and with material produced predominantly by, for and about communities,

We, the participants at the workshop on Connecting Communities through Community Radios and ICTs at Asia Media Summit 2007:
• Advocate for the recognition of community radio and other community media as a distinct tier of legislation and regulation, alongside public service and commercial broadcasting, thus, contributing to the promotion of “air diversity”
• Advocate for the recognition of community media practitioners as valuable, professionally competent resources who can be involved in both peer training and training of other media professionals
• Organize awareness building and sensitization programs on community radio and other ICTs’ potential in development for legislators and community broadcasters
• Invite community media practitioners and include the topic of community broadcasting prominently in regional and global meetings (for example: a plenary session on community media at AMS 2008, World Electronic Media Forum later this year, etc.)
• Organize training and mentoring sessions for Community Broadcasting practitioners with special recognition of the role of younger generations on how community radio can capitalize on the development in the ICT sector, on new ways of addressing financial and organizational sustainability, etc.
• Include Community Media practitioners in the documentation and sharing of local and indigenous knowledge, as well as other discussions on global themes (for example the discussions on GM, MDGs, etc.)
• Look for ways to ground community media initiatives to initiatives in other sectors (health, agriculture, education, etc.)
• Facilitate partnerships between efforts to promote community broadcasting and efforts to promote newer ICTs among communities such as Community Multimedia Centers, etc.
• Recognize community broadcasting stations as an effective entry point to take ICTs to the grassroots both in rural as well as urban settings.
• Document and disseminate best-practices and learnings in community broadcasting

Photo courtesy Manori Wijesekera, TVEAP

Promote AirDiversity, Asian broadcasters urged

Protect and promote AirDiversity!

Just like bio-diversity and cultural diversity, we need to value and support diversity on the airwaves. Not just government or corporate voices, but the fullest range of citizen and community voices must also be included in that diversity.

That was my call to a group of Asian broadcasters gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for a workshop on ‘Connecting Communities through Community Broadcasting and ICTs’ in the run-up to Asia Media Summit that opens on May 29.

I was speaking during the second session on ‘ICTs – Bringing Added Value to Community Radio’. ICT stands for information and communication technologies. As I reminded my fellow participants, radio broadcasting itself is very much an ICT – it is a more established form of ICT along with the telephone and television. Newer ICTs include computers, Internet, mobile phones and other hand-held data processing devices such as i-pods and PDAs.

For more details, see these blog posts:

The ‘rural romance’ lives on in the ICT age: Urban poor need not apply

Communities are not what they used to be…so let’s get real!

By the way, I think I have just made up that term – AirDiversity. I asked Google, which can’t track down any previous use…

Read post-delivery text of my remarks to the workshop:
ams-2007-connecting-people-via-icts-ng-remarks.pdf

Broadcasters: can you ‘future-proof’ your viewers?

I have just arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, to participate in and speak at Asia Media Summit 2007.

It’s Asia’s largest annual gathering of broadcast media’s movers and shakers — for the next few days, TV and radio network CEOs and managers will hobnob with programme producers, researchers and a few, carefully invited media activists. They will discuss many issues of common concern – from media freedom and copyrights to keeping up with new technologies.

TVE Asia Pacific is once again co-sponsoring the Summit, which is one of the most important events of our calendar. Among the development issues to be addressed in plenary sessions or pre-summit workshops are ICTs, community radio and effective communication of HIV/AIDS.

Here’s our promo advert for the event:

TVE Asia Pacific to co-sponsor Asia Media Summit 2007

I will be reporting from AMS 2007 for the next few days.

Radio Sagarmatha: Kathmandu’s Beacon of hope on 102.4 MHz turns 10

Today, 23 May 2007 is a very special day for broadcasting in South Asia.

Radio Sagarmatha, the first independent community broadcasting station in South Asia, completes 10 years on the air today. It’s certainly a moment to reflect and rejoice for all of us concerned with broadcasting and the public interest in Asia.

Image courtesy Radio Sagarmatha

Here’s how the station introduces itself on its website:
Broadcasting daily from the center of the Kathmandu Valley on FM 102.4 MHz from 5 am to 11 pm, the pioneering radio station has earned a name as a free, independent and highly credible radio station in keeping with its objectives of producing a cadre of professional journalists, addressing the information needs of audiences, stimulating awareness and participation in public issues, and facilitating democratization and pluralism.

The Sagarmatha story is of particular interest to me personally.

Firstly, many involved in founding and running this station are good Nepali friends whose resolve and professionalism I salute on this 10th birthday.

Secondly, this radio station exposed to the whole world a persistent myth that was fabricated and distributed globally by Unesco and its local cronies: that community radio has been thriving in Sri Lanka from the early 1980s. I’ve lived all my life in Sri Lanka, and I’ve spent the past 20 years working in the media, but I have yet to find a single community radio station there — simply because no government has allowed any to be set up! I’ve been writing about this for years, but I’m a lone voice against Unesco’s well-funded ‘myth factory’ working overtime! Read my Panos Feature: Radio suffers as Colombo bosses callthe shots (October 2003).

But enough of that old hat. Today is Sagarmatha’s Day! Happy birthday to the courageous public radio station and everyone involved, past and present.

Recently, supporting the radio station’s nomination for an international media award (to be announced soon), I wrote a brief account about Sagarmatha. It has not been published until now, so here it is, with minor edits:

Kathmandu’s Silent Revolution

Almost a decade ago, a silent revolution started in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. One day in May 1997, a senior official of the Ministry of Communications handed over a piece of paper to Raghu Mainali, representing a group of Nepali journalists and civil society organisations. It was the broadcast license permitting the first-ever citizen-owned, non-commercial, public interest radio broadcasting station anywhere in South Asia. Soon afterwards, Radio Sagarmatha (RS) was on the air, using the FM frequency 102.4 MHz.

The airwaves will never be the same again in the world’s most populous sub-region, where governments had a strict monopoly over broadcasting for decades.

The broadcast license did not come easily: it was under consideration for over four years, and entailed considerable lobbying by Nepali journalists and civil society groups. At the forefront in this quest was the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), a non-governmental organisation and a collective of journalists strongly committed to sustainable development, human rights and media freedom.

The senior and highly respected Nepali journalist Bharat Koirala provided advice and leadership for setting up RS, which was cited when he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award — ‘Asia’s Nobel Prize’ — in 2002.

Read a brief history of Radio Sagarmatha on its website

As a long-standing partner of NEFEJ, we have had the opportunity to observe the evolution of RS from humble beginnings to what it is today. Remarkably, NEFEJ colleagues had laid the groundwork for the radio station in anticipation of the license: the hardware, manpower and institutional framework were ready to go on the air soon after official sanction. Beginning with an initial two hours of broadcasts, RS gradually increased its transmissions, providing a mix of music, news and current affairs, sports and cultural entertainment to the Kathmandu city and valley — home to nearly 2 million people. While broadcasting primarily in Nepali, it also carries programming in minority languages and English. In recent years, RS has also rebroadcast selected programmes from BBC World Service Nepali transmissions.

Image courtesy BBC Online Image courtesy Radio Sagarmatha

RS blazed a new trail in broadcasting in Nepal, and in its wake a large number of commercial FM stations and other community broadcasting stations have been set up. The Kathmandu valley’s hills are alive with a cacophony of voices, offering the people a greater choice than ever before. Across Nepal, RS has inspired a plethora of community-owned, community-based radio stations, who are enjoying different degrees of success. RS has also trained a significant number of radio professionals – from announcers and producers to technicians – some of who have moved on to employment with other channels. This commitment to capacity building continues.

In today’s multi-channel environment, RS retains its strong commitment to the public interest, good journalism and high production values. Among others, the following distinguishes this station:

• RS increases people’s participation in debating important day-to-day issues that directly affect their lives and jobs. Roaming producers talk to not just city dwellers but to people living in the most remote areas of Kathmandu.

• RS serves as a people’s forum to examine the merits and demerits of various development policies, efforts and approaches in Nepal, undertaken by government, development donors, civil society and others.

• RS has played its part to bridge Nepal’s digital divide. Suchana Prabidhi dot com (meaning ‘Information technology dot com’) is a popular programme that browses the Internet live on radio, connecting the unconnected radio listeners with information available online.

• In spite of being supported by a large number of development donors, including some UN agencies, RS has maintained its editorial independence, without allowing itself to become a propaganda outlet for any entity.

But it was in Nepal’s recent pro-democracy struggles that Radio Sagarmatha’s commitment to the public interest was truly tested and reaffirmed. The station joined human rights activists, progressive journalists and civil society groups in the mass movement for political reform, including the restoration of parliamentary democracy suspended by the King’s autocratic rule. The regime – seeking complete control over Nepalis’ access to information and independent opinions – imposed a blanket ban on private broadcasters carrying news. Soldiers were posted inside and around Radio Sagarmatha for eight days. Even after they withdrew, the spectre of absolute monarchy hung over all media for months.

Read BBC Online story: The Muzzling of Nepalese Radio (22 April 2005)

Read IPS story: Nepal plunged into the Dark Ages, cry dissidents

Soldier outside Radio Sagarmatha station - bad old days, now gone

That seige continued for much of 2005. On 27 November 2005, I was with some NEFEJ colleagues at a regional media workshop in Siem Reap, Cambodia, when the disturbing news reached us that RS had been forced off the air after police raided the station, seized its transmission equipment and arrested five journalists and technicians. The incident had happened while RS was relaying BBC Nepali Service live from London.

Fortunately, the judiciary intervened. Two days later, responding to a massive outcry from within and outside Nepal, the Supreme Court ordered the authorities to allow RS to continue its transmissions. The station started broadcasting news and current affairs again, and other stations soon found their courage.

The next few months leading to April 2006 were crucial for all associated with the pro-democracy movement. During this period, amidst various pressures, threats and obstacles, the managers and journalists at RS played a pivotal role in ensuring the free flow of information and plurality of views in Nepal. When broadcasting news was banned, RS resorted to innovative ways of getting information across while getting around the jack-boot of bureaucracy.

One method: singing the day’s news — as there was no restriction on broadcasting musical content!

The unwavering resolve of RS, other independent media and pro-democracy activists led to the restoration of parliamentary democracy in April 2006 and the subsequent marginalization of the monarchy. Now the pioneering radio station is working hard to ensure that Nepalis would make better use of their ‘second chance’ in democracy in less than two decades.

As Radio Sagarmatha now enters its second decade, there is much unfinished business: Nepal is one of the most impoverished countries in the world, held back by a decade of civil war. A free, independent and responsible media – epitomized by Radio Sagarmatha – will be essential for Nepal to break from the past and usher in a new era of peace, prosperity and equality.

Listen to Radio Sagarmatha Online

World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC) Asia Pacific website

Press freedom in the digital age: Seeing beyond our noses and tummies

See later post on 3 May 2008: Who is afraid of Citizen Journalists?

On 3 May 2007, we mark another World Press Freedom Day.

This day is meant to ‘raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’

Read more about the Day on the Wikipedia and World Association of Newspapers. (Ah yes, that cartel of governments called UNESCO also puts up a show every year to mark this day, but it’s no better than the mafia bosses coming together to pontificate about the rule of law and justice for all. So let’s completely ignore the irrelevant UN behemoth and its meaningless hot air.)

The essay I wrote two weeks ago about saving our (electro-magnetic) spectrum to safeguard media freedom and media pluralism has been widely reproduced on the web.

That’s precisely the kind of insidious, hidden dangers to media freedom that don’t receive sufficient attention at many events to mark World Press Freedom Day.

I found this out the hard way when the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka invited me to address their observance of the 2001 World Press Freedom Day in Colombo. In the audience were over 250 Sri Lankan journalists and editors, and my topic was global trends and challenges to press freedom.

I decided to talk about ICTs – information and communication technologies – and how they were impacting the profession and industry of journalism. I recalled how technologies like mobile phones and satellite television had completely revolutionised the nature of news gathering and dissemination during the 1990s. The Internet was once again turning the whole media world upside down, I said: sooner rather than later, the impact of these developments would be felt in little Sri Lanka.

I argued that by being well informed and prepared, we could adapt better to the new challenges posed by the Internet, and we will be able to seize the many opportunities the new medium offers to consolidate press freedom. I mentioned some examples from the Asia Pacific and elsewhere how social activists, indigenous people and political groups – including separatist organisations – are using the power of the Internet to disseminate information and opinions at a low cost to a worldwide audience, and how states and their censors were increasingly unable to control such flows across political borders.

Unfortunately, a section of the audience felt very strongly that I was talking ‘pie in the sky’ when journalists in Sri Lanka were grappling with much more urgent issues of survival – such as low salaries, poor working conditions, and threats of physical harm or even death in the line of duty.

I was told — firmly — not to talk about computers and Internet when some media organisations did not even provide sufficient seating or (book) library facilities for their journalists. “Internet is good for pampered western journalists. We have survival issues,” one ardent critic said.

Now, it’s far more interesting to talk to a room full of disagreeing people. I took these comments in that spirit.

In the ensuing discussion, I readily agreed that all immediate factors mentioned by my detractors were indeed major concerns. My point, simply, was that we could not afford to ignore the bigger trends and processes that shape our industry and redefine how we reach our audiences.

Cartoon courtesy WAN

Just as terrestrial television broadcasters had to adjust and reorient themselves when faced with challenges from satellite television in the 1990s, the entire media sector – print and broadcast – has to come to terms with the Internet and World Wide Web.

I added: It doesn’t do any good to bury our head in the sand and wish it to go away. The much better option, as Sir Arthur Clarke has suggested, is ‘cautious engagement of the new media, so that we can exploit the inevitable’

Exploiting the inevitable is precisely the pragmatic approach we need. The globalisation of economics, media and information is taking place regardless of our individual opinions and reactions. By positioning ourselves for cautious engagement and to take advantage of tools and opportunities ushered in by the digital age, we can promote both media freedom and media pluralism.

Three years later, I expanded these ideas into a semi-academic paper (that is, as academic as I can ever get!) presented to the Annual Conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) held in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2004. I titled it: Media Pluralism in the Digital Age: Seize the Moment

It was later published in AMIC’s quarterly journal, Media Asia. Here’s how I ended my paper:

Newer ICTs can strengthen the outreach, quality and inclusiveness of the mass media. The true potential of this change can only be tapped when all stake-holders of the media play their part. A particular challenge to the ICT4D community is advocating the policy and legislative reform agenda that will enable this process.

There is an interesting post script to my experience with the Sri Lankan media on World Press Freedom Day 2001 quoted at the beginning.

During the past three years, more journalists, producers and their gatekeepers have begun using the Internet as a tool, information resource or alternative medium for expression. The initial apprehensions that some professionals harboured about this new medium have been replaced with growing enthusiasm and a recognition of its utility.

The vindication of my initially disputed seminar remarks came sooner than I expected. My most vehement critic that day was a fire-breathing young reporter then working for a Sinhala newspaper. Less than a year later, this avowed sceptic of the Internet launched his own website to disseminate news and commentary on social, political and economic issues that he felt he could not freely cover in the mainstream print outlets. The fact that his initiative did not last more than a few issues is another matter; clearly, he has been converted.

He would be happy to hear that I have been among regular visitors to his website.

Media Helping Media website

Banned in the USA, Al Jazeera now online at YouTube

“The world’s first English language news channel to have its headquarters in the Middle East; covering the world, bridging cultures and setting the news agenda.”

That’s the marketing line of Al Jazeera International (AJI), launched on 15 November 2006.

It’s been slowly building up an audience, which it now claims to be around 90 million households.

But not in the United States of America: it was shut out of most American homes because cable companies have refused to carry their signal.

Elsewhere, commerce – not politics – was at play: some cable operators and hotels, already locked into various deals with the established global news channels of BBC World and CNN International, weren’t easily carrying AJI either.

Undeterred, AJI started this week to post some of their content on YouTube.

Well, things are getting more interesting now!

When AJI started less than six months ago, I wrote an op ed published on Both Media Helping Media (UK) and MediaChannel.org (USA). I argued that to make a real difference, AJI needs to not only analyse and present the news differently, but also gather news more ethically in the developing countries of the global South.

BBC World and CNN International have an appalling track record of doing this. “They epitomise a disturbing belief in international news and current affairs journalism: the end justifies the means.”

I added: “If products of child labour and blood diamonds are no longer internationally acceptable, neither should the world tolerate moving images whose origins are ethically suspect.”

I ended my essay: “We will be watching. And not just what’s shown on AJI, but how those pictures get there.”>

Well, it’s now become easier to follow AJI. I still keep an open mind about their English channel, even if it shows every sign of aping the BBC and CNN. Already we need to look hard to find a real difference.

Let’s give them one year to prove if they mean what they say — or not.

Read my full essay on Media Helping Media, with some reader comments

Read the version that appeared on MediaChannel.org

SOS: Save Our Spectrum for media freedom

I’m strongly committed to promoting media freedom, but have never been the placard-carrying, slogan-shouting type. Street activism is necessary — but not sufficient.

I’ve been more interested in studying trends and conditions, trying to anticipate what the next big threats, challenges and opportunities are, and how best we can respond to them.

For years, I’ve been writing and talking about the need for proper spectrum management as a pre-condition for media freedom and media pluralism. Last week, I once again spoke about these core issues at OUR Media 6 Conference in Sydney.

I’ve just adapted my Sydney panel remarks into an op ed essay, just published by the UK-anchored media website, Media Helping Media.

Here are the first few paras:

On May 3, the annual World Press Freedom Day will once again be observed worldwide, focusing public attention on a multitude of threats to freedom of expression through the mass media.

But amidst the extremely relevant and necessary slogans, we are unlikely to hear this one: Hands off our spectrum!

Yet saving our spectrum is critical for ensuring media freedom.

The electro-magnetic spectrum has been called the ‘invisible wealth of nations’ — conventional broadcasting relies on the fair, equitable and sound management of this common property resource.

And as economic and cultural practices move more and more into the digital realm, the spectrum’s value is only set to increase.

But few people -– even within the media profession and industry -– appreciate our dependence on this finite resource. Out of sight does seem to push it out of most people’s minds.

Therein lurks a danger: what we don’t see and value can be quietly taken away, without many of us realizing it.

Read full article and leave your comments

Added on April 18: MediaChannel.org anchored in the US has also just re-published the article. Read their version here

Added on April 19: Free Press.Net has also reproduced the article.

Added on April 20: FreePress.Net in the US reproduces the essay

Added on April 21: Bytes4All South Asian ICT wevsite reproduces my essay

Added on April 21: Reclaim the Media website also publishes the article
Thanks to everyone who considered it worth amplifying to their audiences — we need to spread the word! – Nalaka

Let’s resolve analog anomalies before going fully digital…

At the last minute, I was invited to join a forum on Community use of digital spectrum at OUR Media 6 Conference here in Sydney.

I agreed because I have written and spoken for years about how we in developing Asia are blissfully ignorant about the gross misuse and abuse of our electro-magnetic spectrum by its custodians – our governments.

I was the odd one out on this panel, as all others were from Australia -– I don’t even live in a country that has set a timeframe for transition from analog to digital spectrum in broadcasting.

Only a few countries in Asia have as yet announced a timeframe for this -– Japan, Korea and Malaysia among them. Some have not even thought of this issue – they are dealing with more basic concerns in broadcast regulation and policy formulation. Yet I found this discussion instructive: sooner or later, all countries will have to go through this transition. It certainly helps to know the issues you are debating and grappling with.

Cartoon Stock

An extract from my remarks:

We should address fundamental reforms in broadcast policy, law and regulation before embarking on the high-cost, tedious and slow process of moving the entire production and distribution process to digital. We who haven’t derived and shared the full benefits of analog broadcasting must get our fundamentals right before going digital.

And therein lies the challenge for all of us who want to safeguard media freedom and promote the freedom of expression and cultural production. In my view, many activists in our region are not paying enough attention to how the electro-magnetic spectrum has been mismanaged and abused by various governments. Activist attention has been held by the more tangible, physical threats to media freedom: issues such as censorship, media ownership and political economy of the media.

All these are worthwhile and necessary — but not sufficient on their own.

During discussion, I also made the points:

The spectrum has been called the ‘invisible wealth of nations’. As economic and cultural practices move more and more into the digital realm, we’re going to increasingly feel the value of this common property resource. All our gains in the physical world would be undermined if we find the spectrum has been irretrievably allocated to a handful of privileged users ignoring the public interest. We need to wake up to this reality.

Perhaps it’s just as well we in developing Asia don’t have tight timeframes to switch from analog to digital spectrum use. We’ve got a good deal of cleaning up and streamlining to do in the analog realm.

This window will be open only for a few years. If we don’t act, we run the risk of making an equal mess in the digital spectrum, only far worse.

In terms of action, I suggest three simple yet important steps:

For us in the developing countries – or emerging economies – in Asia, I suggest three actions:
• Look forward to the transition from analog to digital spectrum
• Look sideways to see how we’re currently doing in the analog domain
• Look back to reflect on the mistakes we’ve made along the way (and learn)

Read the cleaned up text of my panel remarks plus responses
om6-forum-on-digital-spectrum-nalaka-remarks.pdf

Wikipedia on Open Spectrum