Ellen Hume, Research Director, Center for Future Civic Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Krishna Kumar is an experienced veteran in the media development field whom I respect. My overall general reaction is that this paper looks backward, summarizing wisdom from how money has been spent, and that is useful but limited.  We urgently need also to look forward.  The media landscape is changing dramatically around the world. Donors need to factor this into all their thinking, including adjusting funding and evaluation criteria to consider:

• that professional journalism is a shrinking factor in the media landscape in general, and that it requires a culture of support that goes beyond just the journalism sector. In particular, media literacy training may be as important as support for journalists. Building a discerning audience for journalism is as important as transparency for the performance of journalists.
• the role of mobile phones and the internet to distribute news and cultural programming which may challenge the regulatory regimes and policies of target governments
• the role of temporary “journalists” and ordinary citizens in the creation and flow of important news, either as an add-on or as a counter to professional journalism-including valuable moments of accountability but also possibly problematic rumor-mongering and a failure of accountability.  Increasingly news is about a flow of content from people committing “acts of journalism” in text, audio, video and still photos, rather than about professional journalists creating a distinct set of stories.
• experimenting with different business models that may use micropayments, collectives, and other entrepreneurial formulas

In addition to those general comments, here are some specific ones:

1. The four categories seem to omit the important category of “unstable,” “destabilized” or something between democratizing (on the upswing) and war torn (a mess).

2. The support for university journalism programs versus centers will stir up a hornet’s nest in the media development community. Kumar’s advice is slanted toward universities, however he notes that in some cases, they are too rigid and a separate center needs to be created. I’m not sure it’s helpful to start off with a bias toward universities as Kumar does; I think it differs from place to place. He is correct to note that centers are less sure bets for donors to make since they are unlikely to be self-sustaining. But a vibrant center in an otherwise unfertile environment may deserve a donor’s long term commitment with endowments, because they will not be self-sustaining.

The holy grail would be that when you have to have a free-standing center, they work not only to build up the journalism sector but also to engage and partner with universities until there may be a natural merging. In some cases, that will be impossible.  But that would be the ideal outcome over time.

3. When Kumar talks about the broad categories of media laws, he talks about journalists’ rights of access, etc. What is so fascinating right now is that the legal and indeed, cultural definition of “journalist” is open to question, thanks to blogs, citizen journalists, etc. I think his notion at the end of the page that laws are not a panacea-that we need a culture to support the role of the independent journalist-is excellent.. Kumar really knows what he is talking about.

4. Kumar’s sensitivity to the difficulties civil society ngos face is helpful .His point about support in rural rather than simply urban areas is also important. He is right that international attention and support can make a huge difference.

5. The radio section is also a good one in his emphasis on how local radio can be supported. However his blanket formula that donors should not give grants to local stations to meet operating expenses does not account for important and temporary situations that may be worth supporting, including alternatives to hate radio, crisis situations, etc. He seems to not be using his formula of four categories when making a statement like this; is he truly saying that in NO situation should a local station be supported in its operating expenses? Operating funds are the hardest funds to raise because donors too often want a special type of program; I am surprised he is so broad and uncompromising in this point.

6. The section on media in conflict is straightforward, but does not go into some of the interesting ways that new media technologies might be used to help inform the public. A case study of this in the Pakistan emergency of 2007-8 is available at civic. mit.edu. If bloggers, twitter, facebook and Youtube increasingly are part of the way in which news is delivered when objective media are shut off, donors need to think about what this means for journalism development work. Similarly, the trend for news to be offered directly by ngos-rather than having the ngos support journalists-is a topic that needs to be understood.

7. He makes an important point about transparency. Media monitoring can be an important part of transparency, professionalization and media literacy education-but to say that it is a sign of bad media to criticize peace accords etc. is tricky. To expect the journalists to support the current “peaceful” regime is missing the point of what journalism is, so this kind of categorical evaluation requires delicacy and a bias in favor of accountability rather than a ban on certain approaches or topics. Of course if it is part of a package of symptoms that illustrate hate-mongering and conflict-incitement, attacking the peace accords could be one symptom, as he says. His emphasis on having the journalists’ organizations establish and enforce codes of conflict sounds appropriate.