Supporting Somali journalists in exile

Josh LaPorte and Marjan Tillmans, longtime media development project leaders at the EJC, met recently with the directors of the Hayaan Media Development Center, Abdullahi Jama Ali and Abdiweli Ibrahim Aden.

The Hayaan Media Development Center (HMDC) is a new nonprofit dedicated to improving the experience of Somali journalists in Europe and east Africa.

The meeting, in Utrecht, was held to discuss support for refugee Somali journalists based in the Netherlands as well as their colleagues working under harsh and almost impossible conditions in their homeland. Much overlap was discovered between EJC’s core media development goals in Africa and those journalists HMDC reaches out to regularly inside Somalia.  A number of possible joint fundraising opportunities were discussed, as well as integrating Somali journalists into future EJC practical reporting seminars planned in neighboring Kenya. 

A key part of the discussion concerned the Exiled Journalists Network (EJN) based in London, and the possibility of building networks with HMDC and an organisational structure based on the EJN’s successful model.

From an article on Hayaan’s website about the meeting:

“The general director of Hayaan Media Development Center Abdullahi Jama Ali detailed about the insecurity problem in which the journalists work inside Somalia and their needs to be supported on the side of upgrading their professionals.

He sees the meeting with EJC as profitable and helpful to the continuation of the activities relating to energizing of Media doings.

The senior project manager Media Development of the European Journalism Center Josh LaPorte welcomed the briefings given praising HMDC’s efforts towards Media Development in Somalia regarding it as the appropriate and timely organization that has the capacity to maintain such greater media tasks in east Africa region.”

Posted on January 25, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under development.

Thinking about press freedom from the current Capital of Europe

I was in Prague during the Czech EU Presidency last month and was struck by some off-the-cuff remarks made by a city official to a group of international journalists during a discussion on the role of the press.

The official said politicians and journalists need each other, that journalists rely on politics for a good source of its news and ‘product’, and forcefully stated that the role of responsible media is to keep an eye on the politicians.

But instead of continuing on with the press freedom banter, the comments ended with a thrust back into pre-Velvet Revolution Prague when the official added that politicians need to keep an eye on the journalists as well.

What did that mean and where did it come from?  What happened that prompted the official - in fact a former journalist - to say that?  What did it say about press freedom when someone who understands both sides of the politics/media equation has concluded that journalists need to be watched?

I thought about this for days - and came to the conclusion that what is happening now in a lot of former communist country media markets is a frustration with the down-marketing of journalism as a profession, a craft, and a form of communication that even awards prizes to itself.

The comment illustrated frustration from above, and from below reflected sloppiness and a lack of self-regulation, even pride, on the part of journalists here and in Warsaw, Budapest and other cities that thought Western foreign investment into local media was the key to raising salaries and thus journalistic professionalism. Instead it seems to have made the bottom line a daily reality for editors in order to appeal to as many readers as they possibly can, sacrificing well-researched stories for the sake of a few more readers to get those numbers up for the quickly disappearing advertisers.

While politicians in this part of the world have been known - even recently - to keep their eyes on journalists, it was more from the fear of stories that opened up questions of corruption and other kinds of scandals. However these days more enlightened politicians seem to be worried that journalists are not only getting the facts wrong but also focusing on the wrong facts, that they are not doing their job inside a functioning democracy.

Should the market sort it all out?  Media self regulation and press councils can go someway to putting pressure on sensational journalism, but the pressure for mass appeal journalism is even stronger.

I would like to say that this is a black and white issue: press freedom means being allowed to write just about anything about anyone. Whoever questions that (like my Czech official) is part of the censorship brigade.  But now with the influx of bloggers and citizen journalists the role of the professional journalist is even more important; that well researched, relevant and factual journalism should not give political, business and society’s leaders pause over questions of quality. Self-regulation should come from a source of pride journalists should have in their profession.

So if Czech politicians are watching their journalists and mentally editing their stories these days, they will have a lot of homework to do. Probably too much to take some time to reflect on Press Freedom Day this year.

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Flickr image from user Giorgio Montersino

Posted on May 4, 2009 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under development.

Eufeeds.eu update

Daniel added a 100 extra feeds, so it’s now a whopping 400 feeds instead of 300 that we started with. Now up to 500! So it’s about time to add some functionalities: Distinct local and national newspapers + sorting settings.

Also fixed a CSS bug for Safari and the like that was messing up the navigational flags…

Posted on April 6, 2008 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Filed under development.