Open Minds!

Al Jazeera English is one: Getting better at imitating its rival BBC World!

Al Jazeera English (AJE), the world’s newest global news and current affairs channel, completed one year on the air on 15 November 2007.

This in itself is a commendable accomplishment, and we extend heart-felt first birthday greetings to the channel that entered the highly competitive arena of global newscasting offering to ‘balance the information flow from South to North, providing accurate, impartial and objective news for a global audience from a grass roots level, giving voice to different perspectives from under-reported regions around the world.’

AJE wanted to revolutionise English language TV in the same way Al Jazeera turned Arabic TV world upside down, ending the monopoly of the airwaves by state broadcasters.

First, the good news. AJE has done well on some fronts, adding to the diversity in international news and current affairs television, and enriching the often endangered media pluralism in a world that is, ironically, having more broadcast channels than ever before in history. It has brought to us stories ignored by other news outlets, while offering us somewhat different takes on widely covered stories.

In a self-congratulatory note and video clip posted this week on YouTube, the channel says: “A year ago Al Jazeera English was launched, marking the start of a new era in international journalism. In the last 12 months we have brought a fresh perspective to world events and shed light on many of the world’s little reported stories.”

Here are some of the highlights compiled by AJE.

In another post on its own website, AJE offers a selection of exclusive video stories from its correspondents to show how it ‘continues to set the news agenda’.

We also salute AJE for withstanding the unofficial yet widespread ‘block out’ of its distribution by North American cable operators, depriving most viewers in the US and Canada the opportunity of watching it on their TV screens. In a nifty move, the channel started placing some of its more consequential content on YouTube, making it available to anyone, anywhere with a sufficiently high speed Internet connection.

Image courtesy Al Jazeera

And now, on to the not-so-good news…

If AJE in its first year somewhat stood apart from the other two global newscasters – BBC World and CNN International – that was occasional and superficial, and not quite consistent or substantial. In fact, the only thing that AJE has consistently done is to under-deliver on its own lofty promise of doing things differently.

As I wrote in a blog post in August 2007: “I’m looking long and hard for the difference that they (AJE) so emphatically promised. Instead, I find them a paler version of BBC World, at times trying oh-so-hard to be just like the BBC!”

Of course, AJE – or any other broadcaster, for that matter – is fully entitled to set a trend or follow a model already set by another channel, even that of a rival. But to so blatantly imitate the BBC while all the time claiming to be different is simply not credible.

And credibility is the most important virtue for a news and current affairs media operation. Earn and sustain it and the world will be on their side. Lose it, and they will be the laughing stock on the air.

I’m not suggesting that has happened yet. But as I cautioned in an op ed written days after AJE started broadcasting in November 2006, “unless it’s very careful and thoughtful, AJE runs the risk of falling into the same cultural and commercial traps that its two rivals are completely mired in.”

Here’s a simple test. If viewers were to watch AJE, BBC World and CNN International without logos and any other tell-tale branding, how many would be able to tell the channels apart?

To me, CNN is in a league of its own for a variety of positive and negative reasons. Their offering is technically and professionally superior, even if I have objections to some of their editorial choices and analysis.

However, it’s harder to discern differences between the often befuddled BBC World and its enthusiastic imitator, Al Jazeera English. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the latter has a significant number of former BBC reporters and presenters, many of who have been poached. While that again is a choice for AJE’s management, they must realise that we the viewers in the global South do not want a global channel rooted in our part of the world to dress up in the BBC’s increasingly discredited clothes.

And then there is the whole question of ethical sourcing of content — an important consideration which most global, regional and national TV channels continue to ignore. Many roaming news journalists’ key operating guideline seems to be: get the story ahead of rivals, no matter what — or who gets hurt in that process.

That business as usual must end. As I have argued in this blog and elsewhere: “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.”

Aug 2007 blog post: Wanted: Ethical sourcing of international TV news

Nov 2005 op ed on SciDev.Net: Communication rights and communication wrongs, by Nalaka Gunawardene

In August 2007, I critiqued some Sri Lanka related stories appearing on AJE’s People & Power strand, pointing out some ethically questionable practices in how their reporter got the story, possibly placing some of her sources and interviewees at personal risk. To her credit, the reporter Juliana Ruhfus engaged me in this blog, explaining her side. Read the full exchange here.

But there are other key areas where AJE needs to very carefully guard its image and credibility. In the past year, the world’s assorted development and humanitarian agencies have realised that it’s ‘cool’ to be seen on Al Jazeera than on BBC and CNN. Some of their propagandists (sorry, public information officers) had beaten a path to AJE offices in London, Doha and Kuala Lumpur, seeking to cut various deals to get coverage.

Yes, the development and humanitarian communities certainly have worthwhile messages and issues to communicate, many of which need urgent, wide dissemination. Tragically, what most agencies seek is self-promotion and ego-massaging, not issue based discussion. It is precisely this alarming trend of paying media outlets to carry agency propaganda that I have labelled ‘cheque-book development’.

Aug 2007: ‘Cheque-book Development’ – paying public media to deliver development agency logos

It’s no secret that BBC World has shamelessly allowed its airwaves to be sold for cash by assorted ‘touts’ claiming to have privileged access to the once-respected broadcaster. In the past year, some of these touts have extended their tentacles to AJE. We don’t yet know if these are entirely pro bono acts of goodwill by AJE, or if money has exchanged hands somewhere along the line.

If the latter has happened, we ardently hope that someone within AJE would blow the whistle in their own collective self interest. Or perhaps AJE wants to be too much like BBC World in every respect — including the corruption part?

Meanwhile, the real challenge to Al Jazeera remains exactly what I said one year ago: to usher in real change, it needs to transform not just how television news is presented and analysed, but also how it is gathered.

Despite having a code of ethics for its conduct, the well-meaning, south-cheering channel has yet to rise to that part of the challenge. Let’s hope that in its second year, Al Jazeera English would spend less time imitating its rivals, and more time in living up to its own promise.

Personal note: Some readers have asked why I continue to hold AJE to higher standards in a world where media ethics are being observed in the breach all the time. It’s simply because I still see AJE as the best hope for the majority world to tell its own stories in its own myriad voices and accents. I desperately want AJE to succeed on all fronts, not just in audience ratings, signal coverage and market penetration. For that, it must fast find its identity and stop defining itself by its rivals.

Protect journalists who fight for social and environmental justice!

In June 2007, I wrote about the late Joey R B Lozano, a courageous Filipino journalist and activist who fought for human rights and environmental justice at tremendous risk to his life.

For three decades, Joey survived dangerous missions to defend human rights using his video camera in the Philippines, a country known for one of the highest numbers of journalists killed in the line of duty. Joey went into hiding numerous times, and he dodged two assassination attempts.

Last week, a leading Filipino academic and social activist called for greater protection for local level journalists who cover social and environmental justice issues risking their life and limbs.

“Things are pretty savage at the grassroots level in some of our countries. Journalists who investigate and uncover the truth take enormous personal risks – the vested interests hire killers to eliminate such journalists,” said Professor Walden Bello, executive director of the Focus on the Global South (photo, below).

He was speaking at the Greenaccord Media Forum on 10 November 2007 in Frascati, Rome, where several dozen journalists covering environmental issues had gathered for a four-day meeting.

He delivered an insightful survey of social movements across Asia on environmental and public health issues, where he questioned the role of elites in the global South in standing up for what is right and fair for all people.

During question time, I asked him how he saw the media playing a role in social movements that he’d just described. It varied from country to country, he said, and gave several examples.

In China, most environmental exposes in recent years have been made by ‘very brave journalists’. Their investigations have compelled the local and central authorities to address the massive incidents of pollution and environmental degradation resulting from China’s economic march forward.

In South Asia, the record is uneven. Indian publications like The Hindu newspaper and Frontline magazine are at the forefront in reporting and analysing ‘almost exhaustively’ on environmental struggles in the world’s largest democracy.

In contrast, Singapore and Malaysia have no critical mass media to turn the spotlight on excesses or lapses, he said. In these countries, journalists as well as activists have turned to the web to express themselves — but even they are under pressure from their governments.

In Thailand, the two English language newspapers The Nation and Bangkok Post have both have a long tradition of covering environmental issues and supporting mass movements. A number of Thai language newspapers also have sustained coverage.

In his native Philippines, Prof Bello singled out the Philippine Daily Enquirer for persisting with environmental coverage and exposing environment related scandals. But that comes with its own risks.

“At the local levels, journalists who take up these issues face many threats, including the very real risk of extra-judicial killings. The Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world today for independent journalists and human rights activists,” he added.

Journalists living in the provinces and reporting from the grassroots are more vulnerable than those based in the cities. This is precisely why local journalists need greater support and protection to continue their good work.

The local elites and officials would much rather silence such journalists. International solidarity for such journalists could make a big difference, Prof Bello said.

He had a suggestion for his hosts, Greenaccord, which annually organises what is now the world’s largest annual gathering of journalists and activists concerned about the environment: Invite and involve more local level journalists in the future forums.

That will give them a voice, and strengthen their resolve to continue the very important work they do.

Read April 2007 blog post: Can journalists save the planet?

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account

True ‘People Power’ needed to fight climate change

Dealing with climate change – the biggest environmental threat faced by the planet today – requires building up a mass movement at the grassroots across the developing countries of the global South.

Such a movement might be unpopular not only with the Southern elite but also with sections of the urban-based middle class sectors that have been the main beneficiaries of the high-growth economic strategy that has been pursued since the early 1990s, a leading southern activist cautioned in Rome last week.

Speaking at the Greenaccord Media Forum on 10 November 2007, Walden Bello, Filipino academic and executive director of the Focus on the Global South (seen in photo below, on the right), dismissed the notion that Asian masses are inert elements that uncritically accept the environmentally damaging high-growth export-oriented industrialisation models promoted by their governing elites.

“It is increasingly clear to ordinary people throughout Asia that the model has wrecked agriculture, widened income inequalities, led to increased poverty after the Asian financial crises, and wreaked environmental damage everywhere,” he said.

People in the South are open to an alternative to a model of growth that has failed both the environment and society, he said. For instance, in Thailand, a country devastated by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and wracked by environmental problems, globalization and export-oriented growth are now bad words.

He added: “Thais are more and more receptive to the idea of a ‘sufficiency economy‘ promoted by popular monarch King Bhumibol, which is an inward-looking strategy that stresses self-reliance at the grassroots and the creation of stronger ties among domestic economic networks, along with ‘moderately working with nature'”.

But the southern countries cannot and must not rely on their elite to provide leadership, he said. “What is clear is that in most other places in the South, one cannot depend on the elites and some sections of the middle class to decisively change course. At best, they will procrastinate.”

The fight against global warming will need to be propelled mainly by an alliance between progressive civil society in the North and mass-based citizens’ movements in the South.

Delivering the Lectio Magistralis to conclude the 4-day international gathering of journalists, activists and experts concerned about the environment, Prof Bello traced the evolution of social movements on environment and public health in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia over the past few decades.

Read the test of a similar talk given by Walden Bello at the Trans National Institute in October 2007.

Prof Bello acknowledged that the environmental movements in the South and North have seen their ebbs and flows. “As with all social movements, it takes a particular conjunction of circumstances to bring an environmental movement to life after being quiescent for some time or to transform diverse local struggles into one nationwide movement.”

The challenge facing activists in the global North and the global South is to bring about those circumstances that will trigger the formation of a global mass movement that will decisively confront the most crucial challenge of our times.

And climate challenge is one among several challenges we confront today.

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account
People power India photo courtesy TVEAP image archive

Bretton Woods on fire: Hard times ahead for World Bank and IMF

As the California forest fires raged over many days in October 2007, it dominated the US and some sections of the global media. Focus was on how the fires started and what factors contributed to their rapid spread.

Below the media’s radar, another kind of ‘fire’ has been building up over the past few months on the US East Coast. According to one leading intellectual-activist that I heard this week, this is a development whose reverberations will be felt right around the world, and for years to come.

The Bretton Woods are on fire. Actually, it’s the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking at the Greenaccord Media Forum in Rome on 10 November 2007, Walden Bello, Filipino academic and executive director of the Focus on Global South, suggested that the World Bank and IMF are headed for turbulent times as countries in the global South (majority world) assert themselves economically.

Preparing to rebuild the international economic system as World War II was still raging, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The delegates deliberated upon and signed the Bretton Woods Agreements during July 1944. That marked the birth of the World Bank and IMF.

The World Bank and IMF are essentially lenders of money to governments for development purposes. If these lending institutions run short of borrowers, they will be out of business.

That hasn’t happened yet, but Bello (photo, below) identified several trends that must make the Bretton Woods duo worry about losing control.

According to Bello, the resistance is led by countries of Latin America, a region where the twin lenders have long been controversial. In May 2007, Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez announced it would be leaving both the World Bank and IMF.

Venezuela has repaid its remaining debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule and paid off its debts to the IMF shortly after Mr Chavez first took office in 1999. Bello says the oil-rich country has sought to provide alternative forms of credit and financial support for countries in the region. One such project is the “Bank of the South”, which aims to financially help Latin American countries to pay off their IMF loans ahead of schedule.

In October 2007, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz endorsed the Chávez plan to create a pan-regional bank for Latin America. Professor Stiglitz, a Washington insider and former World Bank chief economist, said the Bank of the South would benefit the region and give a welcome shakeup to western lending institutions.

Read March 2006 commentary by Mark Engler in Common Dreams: Latin America Unchained: Will the U.S. Lose its Influence Over Countries That Have Paid Off Their IMF Loans?

These trends, coupled with the rise of a new set of Southern countries willing and able to provide loans or grant aid to fellow countries of the South, are slowly but steadily eroding the domination and power the Bretton Woods twins have exercised for over half a century, Bello said.

Some of these alternative lenders are giving money with fewer conditions and restrictions. These include China, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This is what the editor of the influential US journal Foreign Policy called ‘rogue aid’ in an article he wrote in the journal’s March/April 2007 issue.

As the global South asserts itself and begins to exercise the power of their recent economic growth – which, ironically, is partly thanks to past borrowing from the Bretton Woods twins, the coming years will be crucial for the future World Bank and IMF.

The fire in the Bretton Woods is only just smouldering. But watch that smoke…

* * * * *

Walden Bello won the Right Livelihood Award (the Alternative Nobel) in 2003, for his decades of advocacy, activism and research. As the award foundation noted: “Walden Bello is one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalisation, combining the roles of intellectual and activist. As a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist, and through a combination of courage as a dissident, with an extraordinary breadth of published output and personal charisma, he has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalisation.”

While campaigning on human rights he saw how the World Bank and IMF loans and grants were supporting the Marcos regime in power. To expose their role, he took the risk of breaking into the World Bank headquarters in Washington, and brought out 3,000 pages of confidential documents. These provided the material for his book Development Debacle (1982), which became an underground bestseller in the Philippines and contributed to expanding the citizen’s movement that eventually deposed Marcos in 1986.

Read full profile on Walden Bello on Right Livelihood Award website

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account

Beyond coffee and bananas: We need fair trade in international media!

Fair trade is gaining momentum worldwide. More products are coming within the scope of fair trade in more countries.

That’s certainly good news in a world full of exploitation, inequality and unfairness at various levels.

But are we, in the mass media whose business it is to gather and deliver news and information, yet part of this good news ourselves? In other words, isn’t it high time there was fair trade in international media products too?

This is the simple question I raised this week at the V Greenaccord International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature, held from 7 to 11 Novmeber 2007 at the historic Villa Mondragone in Frascati, some 20km southeast of Rome.

During the 3.5 day international gathering of journalists and scientists concerned about the environment, we had several speakers referring to fair trade in Europe and at a global level. As more consumers become aware of environmental and social justice considerations, they are doing something about it in their buying of goods that are fairly traded, we heard.

The Wikipedia describes fair trade as ‘an organised social movement and market-based model of international trade which promotes the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods.’

The movement focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine and fresh fruit.

Fair trade is all about creating opportunities for small scale producers in the developing countries to get organised and supply directly to consumers in different parts of the world. When they sell direct, with few or no intermediaries, they can earn three or four times more, and that money will enhance their incomes, living standards and societies.

Fair trade is certainly a cherished ideal, but it’s mired in complex economic and political realities. The globalised march of capital, profit-maximising corporations and developed country farm subsidies are among many factors that make fair trade difficult to achieve.

Fair trade activists are well aware of these realities. Their success is built on connecting producers with individual consumers. The proliferation of new media – especially the Internet – has made it easier to sustain such communications.

But the fair trade movement is still largely rooted in goods, not services. In my view, this is necessary but not sufficient in a modern world economy where nearly two thirds of global GDP comes from the services sector. (The Wikipedia’s breakdown for global GDP is agriculture 4%; industry 32%; services 64%).

I can’t immediately find how much the print, broadcast and online media contribute to that 64%, but it must be significant in the media saturated world today. And certainly the flow of media products — text, audio, photographs, moving images, online content and derivatives of these — has become more globalised in the past two decades.

So why not begin to agitate for fair trade in media products when they cross borders? Why aren’t we practising fair trade in our own media industry even as we cover fair trade as a story in our editorial content?

I didn’t get a very clear answer from fair trade activists that I posed this question to this week. While agreeing with me that the same fair trade principles can be applied to the media sector, they acknowledged that each sector has its own dynamics and must develop realistic ways to accomplish fair trade.

So it’s up to us who produce, distribute and manage assorted media products to begin this transformation from within.

Let’s not kid ourselves about what we are taking on. As I wrote in a blog post in September 2007:

“In the media-rich, information societies that we are now evolving into, media and cultural products are an important part of our consumption — and therefore, more of these have to be produced. In the globalised world, more television and film content is being sourced from the majority world — or is being outsourced to some developing countries where the artistic and technical skills have reached global standards.

“But in a majority of these media production deals, the developing country film and TV professionals don’t enjoy any fair terms of trade or engagement. Their creativity and toil are being exploited by those who control the global flow of entertainment, news and information products.

“This is why the top talent in the global South become assistants, helpers and ‘fixers’ to producers or directors parachuting in to our countries to cover our own stories for the Global Village. Equitable payments and due credits are hardly ever given.”

In the same commentary, I added:
“Unfair trade in film and TV is also how the unsung, unknown creative geniuses contribute significantly to the development of new cartoon animation movies or TV series, as well as hip video games that enthrall the global market. Lacking the clout and skill to negotiate better terms, freelancers and small companies across the global South remain the little elves who toil through the night to produce miracles. They work for tiny margins and even tinier credit lines. Some don’t get acknowledged at all.”

Read my blog post: Wanted: Fair trade in film and television!

Raising this amidst 60 journalists and producers from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean attending the annual Greenaccord meeting, I pointed out that many of us were keen to contribute to media outlets beyond the countries where we are based. It gives us a chance to tell our stories to a bigger audience, and to have our voices heard about a range of issues and topics important to our communities.

And yes, the additional income that such work brings in is quite useful too, thank you.

Heads were nodding when I pointed out how hard it is for a talented, hard working journalist based in the majority world to break into the tightly controlled international media outlets. Even when they make an occasional breakthrough, they are often exploited by being paid lower professional fees for the same output and quality of work.

Or worse, majority world journalists are slighted and insulted for being where they are and who they are, rather than be judged on the merit of their work. As I wrote in a commentary published by SciDev.Net in November 2005: “Media gatekeepers in the North often dismiss the better-informed and equally competent Southern professionals — saying, insultingly, that ‘they don’t have the eye’! And for years, I have resisted the widespread practice of Northern broadcasters and filmmakers using the South’s top talent merely as ‘fixers’ and assistants.”

All this makes it imperative for us in the globalised media — in the developed North and developing South — to begin agitating for fair trade in media products and services. As in other products, we are not looking for charity or tokenism or a lowering of standards. We must strive for fairness and equality while working on building the capacity of southern journalists to generate world class media products.

And as my friend Darryl D’Monte — whom we missed dearly at this year’s Greenaccord forum — has been saying for years, publishing each other’s stories is one great step forward.

Mahatma Gandhi put it this way: we must be the change we wish to achieve.

Note: My own organisation, TVE Asia Pacific, practises what I preach here, and always engages local camera crews when we film TV stories across Asia. We will be taking up Fair Trade in Film and Television (FTinFT) as a campaign from 2008.

Image of camera crews courtesy Pamudi Withanaarachchi of TVEAP.

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account

Beyond press release journalism: Digging up an environmental business story

“Don’t reproduce press releases from companies, or accept their corporate PR. To get to the real stories, journalists have to dig deeper and work a bit harder.”

Paolo Pietrogrande, Chairman of Atmos Holding, offered this piece of advice when talking to an international group of journalists at the V Greenaccord International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature, held from 7 to 11 Novmeber 2007 in Rome, Italy.

Pietrogrande (seen speaking in photo, below) was talking on ‘new investment scenarios in renewable energy sources’ during a session on sustainable economic mechanisms. A New York based Italian businessman with past experience in Ducati Motor, General Electric, Bain&Company and Ryanair, he suggested that many positive environmental business stories were being overlooked by the media.

According to him, there are billions to be made in clean energy and clean technology sectors in the coming years — and venture capitalists and other investors have already recognised this potential. Real Money is now being invested in these sectors, often below the media’s radar and without any fanfare.

This is not corporate social responsibility (CSR), philanthropy or ‘greenwashing’ PR. These are hard-nosed investors who fully expect good and dependable returns on what they put in. They do due diligence and take expert advice before putting in their billions into such emerging sectors.

Yet, immersed in peddling doom and gloom stories – especially on climate change these days – most media outlets miss out on these stories which have significant business and environmental angles.

His advice to journalists included these tips:
* Don’t look at press/media sections on corporate websites, which is usually full of PR. Even CSR reports are carefully crafted to give a rosy picture. The real stories lie elsewhere.
* Instead, read the annual reports of companies, especially the CEO’s letter to shareholders. That’s a carefully crafted statement and analysis which contains a good deal of information.
* Stop replying on press releases, and certainly don’t get into the habit of recycling them in news stories. Instead, look at public disclosure documents of companies for leads and insights.

The environment has moved way beyond CSR and corporate PR, he said. More and more companies realise how environmental compliance increases their efficiency and thus profitability. Whole new business areas and opportunities are opening up for those working on clean energy and clean technologies. The impetus has come from concerns on global climate change.

If Pietrogrande sounded a bit like Carl Sagan – talking of billions and billions – that is understandable. He sees vast potential in clean energies and clean technologies that can help reduce carbon emissions causing global warming. Industry has traditionally made profit emitting carbon, and now there is money – and profit – to be made cleaning it up.

Investors are lining up with the money, but good ideas and projects are in short supply, he said.

Which reminded me of something that the American engineer, architect and visionary Buckminster Fuller once said: “There is no shortage of energy on this planet. There is, however, a serious shortage of intelligence”.

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account

Journalists and scientists seeking Green Accord

Can journalists save the planet?

This was the question I raised in a blog post written in April 2007. Arguing that environmental journalists alone cannot adequately address the multitude of complex environmental challenges faced today, I wrote: “We urgently need more good journalism that covers sustainable development as an integral part of mainstream human affairs.”

For the past five years, an Italian non-profit cultural association named Greenaccord has been attempting just this. In the (northern hemisphere) Fall of each year, they invite and host 50 – 60 journalists and scientists from all over the world to discuss how the media can be an integral part of society’s response to today’s environmental crises. In fact, they believe the media must play a path-finder role in our search for solutions.

During this week, I have been attending the V Greenaccord International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature, held from 7 to 11 Novmeber 2007 at the historic Villa Mondragone in Frascati, some 20km south east of Rome.

It has been a time to meet old friends again and to make new ones. I have been part four of the five Greenaccord media forums since the first one was held in Rapolane Terme, in the Tuscany valley in northern Italy in 2002.

Greenaccord is the only regular (annual) meeting that I know of where practising journalists and media gatekeepers come together from all regions of the world to discuss the state of the planet and state of their profession.

Each year, we have some ‘regulars’ returning while new participants join the growing network. As some old hands noted this week, it is evolving into an extended family.

That family consists mainly of print and broadcast media journalists from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Many are engaged in ‘deadline journalism’ of news and current affairs, while a few of us, like myself, have moved on to more reflective and analytical kind of journalism. We also have a few researchers, activists and public information officers among us, enriching our discussions with a diversity of perspectives.

To engage this group of participants over three and a half days, Greenaccord invites a dozen or so scientific or industry experts from different regions of the world and different disciplines. This year’s theme, ‘Capitalising on the Environment’, was explored by business leaders, fair trade activists, economists and a number of technical experts specialising in fields such as clean energy, clean technology and organic farming.

As with all meetings, some speakers were far more interesting than others. And some sessions were blessed with competent chairpersons who kept overenthusiastic speakers in check and allowed meaningful discussion and debate to happen.

Sitting through such meetings is a bit like gem mining. One has to sift through a lot of gravel to find a rare precious gem. When that happens, it’s well worth the hassle.

Well, I’ve had my share of gravel moments (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!) and precious moments (Eureka!) this week. I’ll write separate blog posts on some of the latter. They are indeed worth sharing.

The real stars (or gems if you like) in this whole exercise are the participants themselves. We come from such diverse backgrounds – the sessions are supported by simultaneous interpretation in English, Spanish and Italian, with an occasional remark in French – that we enrich each other by simply being there.

Some of us can barely contain our passion for what we do, and keep making comments or asking questions at every available opportunity. Others are more quiet during sessions but expressive during the many hours of networking and socialising over fine Italian wine, coffee and gastronomical treats. All these are part of Greenaccord’s cultural diversity that we contribute to, and then celebrate.

Even if we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we do discuss sobering issues. On the one hand, the planet is in peril, largely thanks to human bungling over generations. On the other, mass media itself is in crisis in many countries — under siege from oppressive governments, grappling with limitations of money and skills, and facing competition from new media platforms grabbing audiences and revenue.

For example, a colleague from Cameroon found the government closing down his privately owned FM radio station just a couple of days before he left for Rome. Others had worrying tales to share about official censorship, physical violence unleashed on media organisations and journalists, and the tension between media owners’ interests and the public interest.

We expressed solidarity and support for all Greenaccord colleagues currently experiencing difficulties of various kinds. The spirit of camaraderie in this network is strong – and keeps growing.

So is all this networking and meeting hopping a distraction from real work, which each one of us have to perform at our desks, or in our studios, on an individual basis? I don’t think so. Far from being a drag on my time, I find gatherings like Greenaccord inspiring and energising. They also remind me that I’m not alone in the daily struggle and drudgery of deadlines, government bureaucracies, funding crises and a never-ending race to keep up with new media technologies.

A planet in peril and a media in crisis need more platforms like this to connect and support many more of our kind who weren’t in Rome this week. Greenaccord isn’t perfect (we’re working on it), but it has lit more than a few candles against the looming darkness.

– Nalaka Gunawardene, Frascati, Rome: 10 November 2007

Meeting photos courtesy Adrian Gilardoni’s Flickr account

Say ‘Mooooooooo’! Mixing grassroots and ICT in KL…

Remember the ‘Alphabet Soup’ made up of the endless acronyms and abbreviations (A&As) coined by the development and technology communities? (See July 2007 blog post: Who makes the best Alphabet Soup of all?)

Last week in Geneva, attending UN OCHA’s conference on information for humanitarian action, I realised that the humanitarian community has its own share of A&As, some more memorable than others. HIC, SPHERE and FAST stuck in mind.

In this strange jungle, nothing is quite what they seem. While still recovering from that overdose, I was hit by the latest in the field of ICT (that’s information and communication technologies for you): believe it or not, it’s called MOO.

Well, actually the correct spelling is MoO (the middle o is lower case). It’s described as “a place where people SEEK and OFFER expertise, experience, project support, ideas, solutions and other resources that leverage on knowledge and ICT to fulfil the needs of ‘Emerging People, Emerging Markets and Emerging Technologies’.”

Wow, that’s somehow sounds important. This is going to happen as part of a big platform of events called Global Knowledge 3, inevitably abbreviated as GK3, to be held in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, from 11 to 13 December 2007.

According to the load of hype on the conference website, the will be a ‘Virtual MoO’ and the ‘Physical MoO’ and the anticipated 2,000 conference participants will be browsing both, “seeking an exchange”.

Ok, let me not prolong the suspense any longer. MoO stands for Marketplace of Opportunities, which GK3 is supposed to create or inspire for all those engaged in using ICT tools for meeting the real world’s needs — to reduce poverty, increase incomes, create safer communities, create sustainable societies and support youth enterprise, etc.

Of course, if we browse through the massive GK3 website, we will be overwhelmed with a whole heap of technicalities, self-important hype and knowledge made incomprehensible to all but those who are already within the charmed ICT circle.

For example, take a deep breath and read how the conference is introduced:
“GK3 will explore concrete solutions and possibilities within the interplay, interface and interweaving of issues related to the Knowledge for Development (K4D) and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in the context of our globally evolving societies, economies and technologies worldwide.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Or, shall I just say: Mooooooooooooooooo!

PS: Despite this skepticism, I’m planning to be there – I can’t afford to miss this chance to meet fellow activists who are so concerned about welfare at the grassroots.

PPS: An informed little bird says GK3 has milked development donors well and truly for this 3-day extravaganza. I hope someone will calculate the cost of development aid dollars per ‘Mooo’…

Can somebody please update ‘The Development Set’ by Ross Coggins?

At the UN European Headquarters in Geneva this week, while attending a conference of humanitarian aid workers from around the world, I heard two of them compare the flat-beds in business class of two international airlines.

The conversation was more than just a passing one. They were passionately discussing the relative merits of different business class seats and perks.

I almost felt like butting in and saying that Singapore Airlines – the world’s finest airline, no argument – has just created a new product that they can now lust after: personal cabin suites in the air.

Coincidentally this week, on 25 October 2007, Singapore Airlines began operating the first commercial flights of the new Airbus380 double-decker super-jumbo.

Here are two images from the airlines’s website:

I’m all for humanitarian aid workers being well paid, well protected and well cared for. After all, they risk life and limb for the rescue, relief and recovery of large numbers of people caught in disasters or conflicts.

Perhaps I’m being naive, but there’s something incongruent about aid workers aspiring to flat-beds and space beds in the air.

Which reminds me, it’s about time somebody updated the well known poem, The Development Set, by Ross Coggins. First published in “Adult Education and Development” September 1976, it’s now more than 30 years old — the luxuries both in the air and on the ground have evolved a bit in that time.

Graham Hancock’s book “Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business” gleefully reprinted this poem in the 1980s.

I’m no poet, but there’s a need to update this to include GPS, satellite phones, four-wheel drives, and yes, business class beds.

If you are not familiar with the original poem, here it is:

The Development Set
by Ross Coggins

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet
I’m off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I’ve had all my shots
I have traveller’s checks and pills for the trots!

The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton Hotels in scattered nations
We damn multi-national corporations;
injustice seems easy to protest
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution —
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like “epigenetic”
“Micro”, “macro”, and “logarithmetic”

It pleasures us to be esoteric —
It’s so intellectually atmospheric!
And although establishments may be unmoved,
Our vocabularies are much improved.

When the talk gets deep and you’re feeling numb,
You can keep your shame to a minimum:
To show that you, too, are intelligent
Smugly ask, “Is it really development?”

Or say, “That’s fine in practice, but don’t you see:
It doesn’t work out in theory!”
A few may find this incomprehensible,
But most will admire you as deep and sensible.

Development set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios, and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the great and the poor.

Enough of these verses – on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray god the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.

New media anarchy is good for you!

“You people are too well mannered! I’ve never been to a conference where people are so properly dressed and so polite to each other!”

With these words, Neha Viswanathan made sure she had everyone’s attention. But it was not just a gimmick — she was contrasting the relatively more orderly, organised world of mainstream media (MSM) with the decidedly more anarchic world of new media — including blogs, wikis, YouTube and Second Life.

Neha, South Asia Editor of Global Voices, was speaking on a panel on ‘new media’ during the Global Symposium+5 on ‘Information for Humanitarian Action’ in Geneva this week (22 – 26 Oct 2007).

The panel topic itself showed the rapid change taking place in the humanitarian sector. As the panel premise said: “Within minutes of a disaster or conflict, the first images are seen on YouTube rather than CNN, and probably to a larger audience. YouTube, Flickr and blogging are bringing wars, disasters and their humanitarian consequences to the attention of the public, government and aid agencies more efficiently than ever. It’s now possible to keep watch on a Darfur village through satellite imagery, or take a virtual tour of a refugee camp.”

The panel was to discuss whether citizen journalism and new collaborative/ networking technologies are improving humanitarian response, and review how the humanitarian community is faring in this new environment.

My own views on this are found in another blog post: New media tsunami hits humanitarian sector – rescue operations now on!

Neha’s take was slightly different. She started reminding everyone that the new media activists were unruly and not always polite. The blogosphere is very much a contested and contentious space where arguments rage on. Not everything is moderate, balanced or ‘evidence-based’ (to use a new favourite phrase of the humanitarian community).

But in times of crisis or emergency – whether disasters or war – new media activists are increasingly the first responders. The anarchic nature actually provides them with an advantage: they are distributed, self-organising and motivated. There is no central newsroom or coordination point telling them what to do. In typical Nike style, they just do it.

As an example, she described World Wide Help, whose introduction reads: “Using the web to point help in the direction where it’s most needed”.

This blog was started by several founders and members of the SEA EAT (South East Asian Earthquake And Tsunami) blog, wiki and database, all of which gained worldwide attention at the time of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004. The group, now calling themselves The World Wide Help Group, has since remobilised to aid in other relief efforts.

Read the whole story of the SEA EAT Blog: A Candle in My Window by Peter Griffin, one of its co-founders

As Sir Arthur C Clarke has also noted, the 2004 tsunami marked a turning point in how citizen journalists and other new media activists respond to emergencies. Since then, the power of new media has been unleashed on many public interest issues and humanitarian causes. As an example, Neha cited the online campaign against street sexual harassment in India.

In Neha’s view, new media can collate authentic testimonials of those directly affected by disasters or other crises, and keep the public attention (and thereby, political interest) on emergencies beyond the first few days.

Her advice to humanitarian aid agencies: keep looking at the new media, especially blogs, to find out what people at ground zero are saying about relief and recovery work.

“Bloggers are not objective – they talk openly, and express themselves freely,” she told the largely prim and proper Geneva audience, where some participants had referred to the meeting as ‘this august gathering’!

Finally, in situations where MSM (the formerly big media!) are shut down, restrained or intimidated into not carrying out their watchdog role, it’s the new media that fills the voice. Neha described the pro-democracy struggles in Nepal in 2005 – 2006 as an example where the people power struggles continued to be reported and commented on after the autocratic king clamped down on all print and broadcast media.

Read my August 2007 blog post: The Road from Citizen Kane to Citizen Journalist