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GFMD CENTRAL

GFMD End of Year Review

2011 has been an exciting year for the Global Forum for Media Development.  The GFMD and its members have been promoting recognition of media development as an integral part of development policies in many international forums and have helped increase support for media development. This short review highlights the milestones of GFMD activity in 2011.

2012 promises to be an even more important year for the GFMD as we work to organise the GFMD 3rd World Conference in Brasilia on September 25-28. In the coming months members will receive invitations and more information about the event, which will be the highlight of the 2012 media development calendar bringing together media assistance groups from more than 100 countries around the globe.

International Organisations
The GFMD’s work to promote support to media development has focused on the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which, for the first time, involved the GFMD and its members in discussions about development strategies and organised a special meeting on the role of media in promoting good governance in June 2011 in partnership with GFMD members BBC World Service Trust and Internews Europe.  The GFMD developed the position of media support groups to the OECD High-Level meeting on development, which took place in Busan, South Korea in November 2011. While the final document of that meeting did not specifically mention media, many of the attending governments supported the GFMD’s position that media are a key non-state actor (the term used by the OECD to describe non-governmental organisations including business) playing an important role in ensuring accountability and transparency by governments.
The GFMD also worked closely with UNESCO and other UN agencies, including the UN Alliance for Civilisations in their work related to media development.
Throughout 2011 the GFMD has been closely involved in an ambitious project to develop guidelines for media companies to report on their business activities with a focus on quality of content, internal accountability and impact on society at large. The Global Reporting Initiative guidelines for the media sector will be published at the beginning of 2012.


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GFMD STORIES

Indian Media Needs A Wake-Up Call

India with all the focus of the world on its IT revolution and technological wizardry can do better when it comes to serving its citizens in-terms of educating them with information. Journalism in India is too much about sensationalism, though I still have hope. In a recent TV panel discussion in India Madhu Kishwar a senior journalist

(By Justice Markandey Katju, Chair of the Indian Press Council)


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Journalism Ethics and Self-Regulation in a Changing Media Environment

This research paper prepared by GFMD Director Bettina Peters looks at how journalists and press councils in two very different media systems in the same region—Indonesia and Malaysia—have addressed the question of journalism ethics in the face of a changing media environment. The Indonesian Press Council, set up within the move to democracy in Indonesia, which—although a statutory council –works independently of government has recently been dealing with complaints from the public as well as criticisms from politicians about ethics on the Internet. Some Internet coverage is being perceived as harmful and journalists and the press council find themselves having to strike a balance between concerns expressed and issues of free expression. In Malaysia, several internet-only based news-sites have been at the forefront of pushing restrictions on press freedom in the country. At the same time, there is concern expressed about excesses on the Internet. The paper compares these two on-going developments. It includes interviews with journalists from both countries. It will draw conclusions on what type of self-regulatory structure is best placed to deal with new media ethics in new or emerging democracies in South-East Asia while also addressing problems of transferring structures from one media systems to another.


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