Blogs | Strengthening Independent Media

Quality and Critical Mass

BY ERIK HERSMAN

Co-Founder of Ushahidi

I've spent the last couple days holed up in a room in scenic Salzburg, Austria with 20 other people from both traditional journalism and new media backgrounds. Our goal: discuss strategies for more effective engagement and investment in "tomorrow's media". Having this mixture of "old school" journalism professionals mixed in with those of us who are only embedded in the blogging and social media fields, but with no classical training in journalism, has led to some very interesting conversations. As Anne Nelson put it, "it's a mixture of analog elders and digital natives".<

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The New Era of Media Development Part I

BY DAVID SASAKI

Director of Outreach, Global Voices

Media development as a field within international development has existed for at least 30 years. Broadly speaking, media development organizations provide financial support, training, and resources to groups in developing countries that want build and sustain media organizations. An active and dynamic media ecosystem, the thinking goes, leads to greater government transparency, a more informed public, and greater civic participation. Some of the major players in the field of media development are:

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First do no harm?

BY ANNE NELSON

Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia University

I just met with a fascinating Iranian journalist who has been in and out of jail for his work. We talked about the high excitement in the media over the “Twitter Revolution” in Tehran in recent months. But I’m fearful that we may be experiencing our own “irrational exuberance” on the subject. I recently viewed a fascinating TED talk by OSI Fellow Evgeny Morozov, whom I ran into at a Salzburg Seminar.

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Watch the Watchdogs

BY BENJAMIN GLAHN

Program Director

This post is republished from CommGap's blog, People, Spaces, Deliberation.

Onora O’Neill (2002) contends that advocates of media freedom have erroneously equated the citizen’s right to information and expression with press freedom. They have claimed for journalists and media organizations what is essentially an individual right reserved for citizens. A free media, according to O’Neill, “is not an unconditional good… Good public debate must not only be accessible to but also assessable by its audiences.”

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