In a packed plenary room of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome this week, the BBC’s World Service Trust organised a world debate, hosted by BBC World star moderator Stephen Sackur.
The “Is a Free Media Essential for Development?” question was asked to a panel of five people from all continents, as a contribution to the first World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD) that spans from October 25 to 27. This televised debate, to be released on world television and internet in early November featured Chilean national Daniel Kaufman from the World Bank, Anwar Ibrahim, former minister of finance of Malaysia, Kumi Naidoo of non governmental organisation CIVICUS (South Africa), the Norwegian Hilde Frafjord Johnson of the African Development Bank and, Tonnie Osa Iredia, director general of the Nigerian Television Authority.
Free media, yes, anything else?
“Free media is one mechanism to fight corruption,” said Kaufman. “In the medium and long term it’s no that easy to sustain fair development without free media.” Although certain countries like China are developing at an economic growth rate that seems unstoppable, eyebrows are raised when looking at the heavy-handed way its government is running the media in that country, to say the least. Kaufman’s view thereby commands that fighting corruption by keeping the bureaucratic and corporate elite in check and redistributing development’s juicy fruits is hardly feasible without a media with teeth.
Moderator Sackur later asked Tonnie Osa Iredia of Nigerian whether Nigeria is a country with a free media and the belated answer was “It depends… (laughter in the audience)… it depends on the meaning of media.” “Sounds like Bill Clinton,” Sackur fired back. When Iredia finally explained that in his view, Nigeria has a free news service, it was asked why then Transparency International – a group ranking world governments on their openness to public scrutiny track record – would put Nigeria at the end of the pack, Iredia preferred insisting on education. “The most critical aspect of development is human. People have to be educated. They must play a role in governance.”
From the audience, a delegate from New Zealand picked up on this, asking whether the real question should not rather be whether democracy is a precondition to development, rather than media. She wanted to know how donor agencies (most of them in more developed Western countries) could make sure to finance international aid with democratic strings attached.
Western arrogance criticised
Largely left unanswered, this thread was nevertheless rejected by some panellists who made a case in point in saying that “you must not assume that the problems of free media are only in developing countries.” They carried on to explain how undemocratic administrations in the West first had to perform debt cancellation, support fair trade and ensure their own media are independent and owned by a myriad of interests. “The media in the West is not free. The West is not the threshold of freedom. Media’s a universal construct,” Anwar Ibrahim insisted. He then named Ghandi, Bolivar and few other freedom fighters who all had a free media as the basis for developing their peoples’ collectivity.
Interestingly, the BBC moderator quoted the latest Reporters Without Borders diversity of the press index that was released in mid-October 2006 and clearly in-line with Ibrahim’s position. “Countries like Bolivia are on rank 17, when the USA have slipped to place 55,” how do you explain that?
In Ibrahim’s view, what counts is that media be responsible, that they operate in the frame of laws. “You must have institutions of governance and civil society in place,” he passionately expressed, taking position for a holistic approach to fair and equal development.
Media diversity as a poignant indicator of fair development
The South African Naidoo made an argument for the need for a diversity of views. “The attention needs to be placed on media diversity in terms of ownership. I think the time has come for regulating this,” he sustained, mentioning societies where 90% of the media is controlled by two media companies.
“The majority of the people want peace, security, decent schools for their kids and decent homes, as well as justice in a broad sense,” he said. He refused to think that people demand sensational media or at the other end of the spectrum distant intellectual media. “That sounds prescriptive,” retaliated the host. “Well you have to acknowledge Stephen that media are communication channels that are being used,” Hilde Frafjord Johnson replied. She specifically hinted at the governments’ and special lobby interests’ use of media as propaganda vehicles.
Market-based view, marginalising community media
Refusing to stick her head in the sand, she followed up this idea “The issue is much more that we need to use the media for development.” The “we” here, seems to refer to the development institutions such as NGOs, UN organisations as well as public and private donor agencies. She then put her cards on the table saying that media need to commit to “corporate social responsibility,” a hotly controversial and debated market-based concept.
“The bottom-line is competition in the media world,” plainly added the World Bank’s Kaufmann. “The are so many abuses being made in the name of public service by state-owned media.” The “let-the-private-sector-come-in” approach he advocated for was just slid in at the end by a rather poor reference to the importance of community broadcasting, although there too, Kaufmann saw abuses as rampant.
Using the discussion exchange on media diversity, the moderator came back to Nigeria, telling Tonnie Osa Iredia that the BBC had unsuccessfully tried to get a licence to operate in Nigeria for many years. “Then the BBC has simply followed the wrong procedure, as usual,” he retorted, a smile on his face. General laughter.
Other positions expressed advocated for strong training of journalists in developing countries. Some talk emerged around the need to grab the opportunity of the rise of internet-based media and ICTs to pursue digital inclusion and make the voices of those most in need surface. Nonetheless, access to ICTs remained the greatest impediment to the full realisation of that dream, it was concluded.