Just over a year on from the first Summit for Democracy, the backdrop for this year’s event – co-hosted by the United States, the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia – is both very different, and depressingly similar.

It is entirely different in that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted concerted and deep seated effort among democracies committed to showing common cause with extraordinary Ukrainian resistance against autocratic invasion. As recently as 18 months ago, these same countries were still fractured and quarrelsome over issues as diverse as procurement of submarines and COVID vaccines. Today, and with some exceptions, they are mobilising with a fresh shared purpose in defence of the democratic idea, and in resistance to a country where control of ideas has become a defining and depressing mission.

But the backdrop to this Summit is also all too familiar in that most indicators suggest democracy as an idea remains in retreat. Autocracy as a force for organising societies in the interests of unaccountable power remains on the march. The latest V-Dem report on the state of democracy in the world makes for gloomy reading, reporting a new record of 42 autocratising countries - up by nine from the 33 reported in last year’s Democracy Report, which was itself then a historical record. For the first time in more than two decades, the world has more closed autocracies than liberal democracies.

A constant theme 

There are other similarities. Attacks on independent media - the strategy used by autocrats to seize and control power – have become a constant theme in any analysis of democratic decline in recent years.

“Aspects of freedom of expression and the media are the ones ‘wanna-be dictators’ attack the most and often first,” finds V-Dem. “At the very top of the list, we find government censorship of the media, which is worsening in 47 countries.”

Autocracy is at risk of becoming a global norm and the route to its advance follows a clear, predictable and demonstrably very successful strategy: first and foremost, intimidate and co-opt the media, and second, deploy disinformation to polarise and divide society. “Autocratising governments are those that are increasing their use of disinformation the most,” finds the report. “They use it to steer citizens’ preferences, cause further divisions, and strengthen their support.”

A press conference in Ukraine

Sierra Leone’s media landscape has grown significantly since the end of the civil war in 2002. By 2021, there were over 500 registered media outlets, including newspapers and magazines, radio, television and direct to home services, according to the country’s media regulator, the Independent Media Commission (IMC).  

This growth has been seen as a positive step toward media pluralism. But that is without taking into account the economic viability, independence, and subsequent ability to produce trusted public interest content. In fact, over half of Sierra Leone’s registered media outlets are either not operational at all, or are frequently off-air or out of circulation.

In such an environment, they cannot fulfil the critical role of media in the public interest – sharing trusted information, providing space for dialogue and debate, and holding leaders to account.

Economic implications for media

These deep-seated challenges of the media reflect the economy of Sierra Leone more broadly. Sierra Leone has low gross domestic product (GDP), a growing, but largely unproductive public sector dominated by patron-client politics, and is driven largely by subsistence informal economy. These socio-economic and political features also have implications for media’s operations.  

However, even with these challenges, Sierra Leone’s media sector has seen tremendous legal reforms, following decades of advocacy by civil society, media organisations and donors. Particularly problematic was a draconian, colonial-era seditious libel law that criminalised the media profession. In 2020 and 2021, Sierra Leone’s Parliament repealed the criminal libel laws contained in Part 5 of the Public Order Act of 1965, and enacted a new IMC  Act and Cyber Security and Crimes Act.

Support for reform

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action has supported reforms to media laws and policies through its (PRIMED) media support consortium. With PRIMED support, the IMC has revised the code of practice for journalists and complaint mechanisms; the central government also provides  annual subsidies to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, in the amount of 500 million Leone  (about £32,000). All these initiatives were critical to unshackle the media, provide an environment for investment, and create a basis for the production and dissemination of freely available public interest content.

Media that work in the public interest are essential to advancing democracy, prosperity, and stability. But these legislative and policy reforms alone are not enough to guarantee and sustain press freedom, and independent, pluralistic and trusted public interest content. A viable media must be able to balance income and expenditure to sustain free and fair journalism.  As long as advertising markets dwindle, and without policies to guide government adverting, media houses were undoubtedly going to fall on the trappings of corruption, nepotism, and state capture.

Wooing investors

In recognition of these challenges – and undoubtedly also for political considerations - the President of Sierra Leone, on the occasion of the signing of a revised public order act, committed to organising a national media investment conference to woo investors into the media. To deliver on this political commitment, the Minister of Information and Communication gathered a committee of stakeholders from the media, government, private sector, and civil society to organise a national media investment conference. But one full year after the formation of this committee, no significant progress had been made - until Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action was invited to contribute technical and logistical support.

The idea of the media investment conference sat well with PRIMED’s objective to promote a viable media ecosystem, supporting the free flow of trusted public interest content. But we also sensed over-optimism on the part of the government, that merely bringing together private sector actors would result in large investment in the media sector. We knew this was impossible, given the economy of Sierra Leone and the changing nature of media globally.

Speakers and organisers pose ahead of the Sierra Leone National Media Viability and Investment Conference in Freetown, 21-22 April 2022. Photo courtesy of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action Sierra Leone.

A Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action for PRIMED panel at the World Press Freedom Day Global Conference in Uruguay, 2 May 2022. Photo courtesy of UNESCO.

Idriss Mamoud Tarawallie speaks at the World Press Freedom Day Global Conference panel, 2 May 2022. Photo courtesy of UNESCO.

Thirty years after declaring independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia is becoming increasingly cosmopolitan, with a highly connected young population and a robust media scene. But where do Georgia’s people turn to find reliable information – and how can truly independent media find financial support to continue? Our researchers set out to learn how.

In a media market where so many outlets have biases to match their financial backers, where do you go to find trusted information?

After 30 years of independence, Georgia has a relatively free media scene – scoring 60 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index in 2021, ahead of Poland and Japan. It enshrines freedom of speech in its constitution and has a large number of media outlets serving a population of four million people, held in part to account by a Broadcasters’ Code of Conduct.

But misinformation and political influence over media content abounds, and it’s hard for audiences to know what to trust. As part of our Eastern Partnership project to support independent media and improve editorial standards, we set out to learn how the Georgian people consume media, and how they feel about what they can access. In turn, our research would help inform the strategy and media programmes of our partners - Studio Monitori, Mtis Ambebi, Netgazeti and Batumlebi. 

We took a wide measure, with representatives from five regions of the country, through 30 online focus group sessions and 48 in-depth interviews. Our respondents were equally divided between men and women, ranged in age from 18 to over 55, and included people with disability, people identifying as LGBTQI, and ethnic minorities – including Armenian, Azeri and Russian language speakers.

People at a newspaper stand in Tbilisi, Georgia. Credit: Getty images

You could be forgiven for thinking (as I did) that coalition-building is a field of media development where international organisations can play only a modest role.

However, the experiences of local stakeholders who have been involved in long-running advocacy initiatives suggest otherwise. The “Coalitions for Change” workshop held by the PRIMED (Protecting Independent Media for Effective Development) programme, led by Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action, in autumn 2021 offered a unique insight into the potential for balanced partnerships between international and local actors to bring about systemic change.

Success requires understanding and political savvy

The challenges are daunting. Coalition-building is a complex set of moving parts that is, to a large extent, hostage to the vagaries of the political, economic and social landscape – and multiple factors over which international organisations have limited influence or control. There are no shrink-wrapped solutions or off-the-shelf frameworks. Success relies on an in-depth understanding of the local operating environment, trust-based relationships with key stakeholders and plenty of political dexterity.

At first glance, it is difficult to see how international organisations can bring added value to what the French would call “an internal kitchen”. It could even be argued that external support is counter-productive since there is a danger that it will be perceived as interventionist or agenda-driven. Furthermore, top-down approaches can damage the sense of ownership and buy-in which are crucial to locally driven initiatives.

Yet the PRIMED workshop showcased several examples of successful coalitions which have been steered – and, in two cases, initiated – by international partners. The mutual benefits of these relationships were clearly articulated. First and foremost, such partners can provide unique access to experience and expertise from comparable environments. The value of these peer-to-peer exchanges is self-evident. Local stakeholders are given the chance to see how similar challenges have been addressed and overcome by their counterparts in other countries. This approach works well when it comes to developing new legislation, regulatory structures or ethical codes.

The PRIMED team in Bangladesh is mentoring journalists from a regional newspaper, Daily Gramer Kagoj, among other outlets, to produce accurate and engaging online content. Credit: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action Bangladesh

The pandemic has unleashed a global wave of government spending, much of it disbursed quickly, at scale and under difficult circumstances. With it have come concerns over fresh opportunities for corruption.

While much international effort has been dedicated to tackling corruption in recent years, little of it appears to have paid off. Transparency International concluded in their most recent global that “most countries have made little or no progress in tackling corruption in almost a decade”. 

This lack of progress prompted a rare Special Session of the UN General Assembly last week, the climax of multiple similar regional and other preparatory meetings. Its main outcome was this long .

As a media specialist, I confess consistent bafflement about much of the anti-corruption debate. I believe independent journalism is really effective in deterring corruption, and I often look to see if support for it is prioritised in anti-corruption efforts. When it isn’t – which is almost always – I wonder on what basis decisions are being made and strategies prioritised. The logic increasingly escapes me.

Almost every evidence review or research paper I read concludes that very few anti-corruption strategies appear to work. Professor Heather Marquette concludes in this just published Westminster Foundation for Democracy paper, : “We also, frankly, don’t know if anti-corruption interventions succeed or fail because we don’t have accurate measures to work with.”

Curtailing media = rising corruption

That finding is consistent with multiple earlier evidence reviews. This 2015 from the UK Department for International Development concluded that “direct anti-corruption interventions, which were especially prominent during the 1990s and 2000s, including efforts such as anti-corruption authorities, national anti-corruption strategies, and national anti-corruption legislation… were found to be ineffective in combating corruption”. In contrast, it found that the evidence available “consistently indicates [that] freedom of the press can reduce corruption and that the media plays a role in the effectiveness of other social accountability mechanisms.” The same paper concluded that when media freedom is curtailed, corruption tends to rise, finding evidence of “restrictions to press freedom leading to higher levels of corruption in a sample of 51 developed and developing countries”.

On a purely evidential assessment, it would seem that investing in support to independent media should be among the central planks of any anti-corruption strategy. Prioritising media support would also help solve the challenges that Marquette highlights of measuring the impact of anti-corruption initiatives. Let’s take just three categories of measurement.

One is correlation between the existence of a free press and reduced rates of corruption (and indeed the absence of a free press and increased rates of corruption). As well as constituting a central plank of democratic theory for centuries, evidence reviews, such as that cited above, conclude this correlation has shown to be strong.

The second is the volume of public assets returned to the public purse as result of investigative or other forms of journalism. The Organised Crime and Reporting Project (OCCRP)  that more than US$7 billion in fines and assets have been seized as a result of its investigations and those of its partners. That seems a pretty convincing measure.

The playbook of 'wannabe' dictators

The third is to assess where those intent on corruption – especially authoritarian leaders – focus their political and financial efforts in order to act with impunity. As this famous 2004 from Stanford University proved, neutralising independent media is top of the list. And as the concluded this year, “The playbook of ‘wannabe’ dictators seems to have been shared widely among leaders in (former) democracies. First, seek to restrict and control the media while curbing academia and civil society. Then couple these with disrespect for political opponents to feed polarisation while using the machinery of the government to spread disinformation. Only when you have come far enough on these fronts is it time for an attack on democracy’s core: elections and other formal institutions.”  

If media wasn’t effective as a check on corruption, those who plan to be corrupt would not focus so much attention on neutralising it.

These are familiar arguments – that the role of, and support for, media is under-prioritised in anti-corruption discussions - which people like me have been making for years. Those arguments have had scant impact and last week’s UNGASS statement was only partially encouraging. The statement “notes with appreciation the important role of civil society, academia, the private sector and the media in identifying, detecting and reporting on cases of corruption”. It commits to “respect, promote and protect the freedom to seek, receive, disseminate and publish information concerning corruption, and ensure that the public has effective access to information, in accordance with the domestic laws of States.” And importantly, it strives “to provide a safe and adequate environment to journalists, and we will investigate, prosecute and punish threats and acts of violence, falling within our jurisdiction, committed against them.” 

But, like almost all anti-corruption discussions, it assumes that one of society’s most important capacities to deter and expose corruption – an independent media – requires no active support. It does nothing to ensure the future viability of the independent media sector. 

Single most important anti-corruption measure

Unfortunately for democracy and development, and for efforts to combat corruption, independent media are disappearing. The mainly advertising-based business model that has sustained independent media has eroded as advertising migrates to online platforms. The pandemic, and the associated characterised by huge volumes of disinformation (itself often deployed from governments and others to ensure impunity against corruption), have both highlighted how important independent journalism is in a crisis whilst dealing a further, sometimes fatal hammer blow to the finances of independent media. The pandemic has been to have cost newspapers more than US$30 billion in lost revenue. The UN Secretary General himself three weeks ago gave his to efforts to create a new .  “We cannot afford to let the pandemic to lead to a media extinction event,” he said. 

The single most important anti-corruption strategy a society can have is a free, independent, sustainable and pluralistic media sector. That, I’d argue, is a justifiable conclusion from the evidence base of what works and doesn’t. It is time to start supporting independent media.

One section of the UNGASS declaration might provide a platform from which to prioritise media support. It concerns the use of confiscated assets illegally acquired through corruption. The language is tortuous and highly provisional, but it urges consideration of “the Sustainable Development Goals in the use of returned assets” and “reinvesting funds for special purposes”.

The reinvestment of confiscated assets to support independent media, and especially investigative journalism, is an argument that organisations like have been making for years, and an investigative journalism fund has been built into the design of the International Fund for Public Interest Media. 

Anti-corruption strategies need to start factoring in that a failure to support independent media will hamper future anti-corruption efforts and prospects. And the weakening of what media remain will provide huge new opportunities for corruption. Those intent on corruption, who have often been most determined to attack, intimidate or co-opt independent journalism that threatens to expose them, can then look forward to sleeping more easily in their feather beds. 

James Deane is Head of Policy for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action, co-founder of the  and consultant to on the Fund.

In 2018, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action asked whether the financial crisis confronting independent media around the world warranted a much more ambitious, better organised and resourced response from the international community. We proposed then the establishment of a new global fund, focused initially on resource-poor countries where the crisis was most acute.

Two years on, in the midst of a global pandemic in which trusted information is critical – and critically endangered – it is even more clear that this Fund is essential to the future of independent and public interest media.

In co-operation with, and with the support of, , a newly published, detailed feasibility study now outlines why such a Fund is so urgent, and how it could be set up, governed, resourced, structured and evaluated.

This study builds on almost a year of consultation and debate with media and media support organisations, donors, international organisations and others.

The case made for this Fund is ambitious. It needs to have resources of at least $100 million per year – but could usefully be 10 times that size. We argue that resources should come from official development assistance, which currently allocates just 0.2% to international media assistance, as well as technology companies and other philanthropic resources.

This Fund would make it much simpler to allocate additional funding to this politically complex area of assistance. Rather than the reorganisation of existing sources of media support, it would dramatically expand the resources available to support independent public interest media, especially in resource-poor settings, while lowering the transaction costs of development agencies and other donors, and increasing the legitimacy of financial support being provided to independent public interest media, as decisions on resources spend would be governed by an independent board. Media support would be more coherent, more co-ordinated and more consistent, with improved impact, impact assessment and learning of what works and does not work in this highly complex arena.

Much of this study was researched and written before the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pandemic, and the associated that is helping fuel it, has highlighted in even greater detail the critical importance of widespread public access to trustworthy information.

Yet this pandemic is accelerating the demise of many of the public interest media institutions best-placed to provide that trustworthy information. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism estimates that news organisations worldwide will lose more than $20 billion through the decline in advertising and other revenues brought about by the pandemic. Commentators now ask whether independent media in even the richest countries are going through an '', as advertising revenues and other revenues collapse.

The idea of an International Fund for Public Interest Media is attracting increasing support. But it will take time to become reality. In the meantime, many independent media institutions, especially in resource poor countries, will face immense challenges.

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action is also working with Luminate and others to build better coordination systems among the many individual funds and initiatives now emerging in response to the pandemic. Ultimately, however, an International Fund for Public Interest Media will be essential to rebuild public interest media after this crisis.

The first steps towards establishing this Fund are under way, as Luminate works with the MacArthur Foundation and other donors to establish an interim secretariat and hire an interim Executive Director. While Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action will not be directly involved in the establishment of the Fund, we will continue to do all we can to ensure this feasibility study does translate into reality. Amid this existential crisis for independent media, such a Fund can help secure these essential foundation stones of society.

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For further information on the International Fund for Public Interest Media contact james.deane@uk.bbcmediaaction.org

James Deane is Head of Policy at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action, currently consulting with Luminate to advance the International Fund for Public Interest Media proposition.

Maha Taki is Senior Adviser, Media Development at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action.

Independent media are vital to enabling peaceful and effective development. But that role has rarely been so endangered, with the consequences for governance and democracy so great. The international response to the threat is poorly prioritised and poorly organised.

The crisis confronting independent media around the world is a crisis of democracy, freedom and human rights. It is also a crisis with profound implications for development and peace.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of the classic work, Development as Freedom by Nobel Prize winning economist, Amartya Sen. “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” he wrote, arguing elsewhere that the question of food and starvation could not be divorced from “the issue of liberties, of newspapers and ultimately of democracy.” This analysis holds remarkably true, but depends upon media being capable of playing its assumed role – able to expose wrongdoing, mismanagement or emerging crises, and to have public legitimacy sufficient that government feels impelled to respond.

Those assumptions are being challenged. Media institutions around the world, especially in resource-poor settings, are increasingly co-opted by those in, or close to, power. There is growing evidence that the public is losing trust and confidence in information and news, as online misinformation and disinformation flourishes. The business models capable of supporting public interest media are disappearing as advertising moves online. Many countries are losing the essential safety valve that Sen argued was vital if calamitous mistakes were not to be made.

An increasing risk of famine is just one probable consequence. Vaccination boycotts and attacks on health outreach workers prompted by misinformation campaigns are becoming increasingly common and are proving a major obstacle to the elimination of polio and a central factor in the resurgence of formerly manageable diseases such as measles.

The evidence that a free media acts as one of, if not the most, effective check on corruption is venerable and long standing. Fear of journalistic scrutiny helps explain the tragic escalation in killings and attacks on journalists documented by media freedom monitors in recent years. As free and independent media declines, incidences of corruption can be expected to increase, with concerning knock-on effects for development and social cohesion. Corruption is a principal driver of violent extremism and social unrest. Without media as a principal check on corruption, there are broader, deeply concerning consequences for governance.

Elections are becoming ever less democratic. Evidence is emerging of the manipulation of electoral processes principally through subverting information and communication spaces and controlling independent media. Elections are increasingly susceptible to manipulation by those adept at exploiting big data (and those who pay for such manipulation). Hate speech is on the rise and social cohesion, already often weak in fragile states, increasingly undermined. Misinformation and disinformation have become endemic, contributing to social tension and conflict, and access to trusted and trustworthy information from domestic media has declined.

The increasing fragmentation and fracturing of media has accompanied a decline in independent media capable of engaging people across societal divides, undermining society’s capacity to negotiate differences. The decline in channels for public debate, shared public spaces and trusted reference points for national public conversations is contributing to a rise in suspicion, blame and stigmatisation of the “other” in society.

There is a long and growing list of consequences of the loss of independent media, yet effective responses to the challenge have been scant. International response needs to be better prioritised, better organised and better resourced. Important new initiatives have emerged in recent months including the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters without Borders and the July 2019 Defend Media Freedom conference organised by the UK and Canadian governments.

Another initiative, proposed by Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action, is the creation of a new, ambitious . Loosely modelled on the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, it focuses on supporting independent media in settings where market failure is especially acute or media freedom especially under threat. With the support of , we have recently completed a consultation document outlining how such a Fund might be governed, structured and operated. Such a Fund would serve to galvanise international donor support, essential in protecting not only independent media, but the gains in peacebuilding and good governance to which they are essential.

The consultation document is available on request from the author.

At Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action we are dedicated to the cause of media freedom – the principle that expression and communication through media is a right that should be exercised freely -which is at the very core of effective democracies and inclusive societies. This freedom can never be taken for granted, and cannot be exercised in many places around the world.

This World Press Freedom Day commemorates another dark year, with precipitous plunges in rankings on media freedom indices and increasing – and increasingly egregious – attacks on journalists, most notably the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

Independent, sustainable public interest media are increasingly threatened, not just by laws and politics, but also by economics and the sheer pace of technological change. Each day, we see media co-opted by the powerful, and challenged to secure income that comes without strings attached, especially as more and more advertising revenue becomes concentrated in the pockets of those with a powerful hold over online eyeballs and clicks.

This crisis faced by public interest media, particularly in resource poor settings, is so great that we at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action are working hard to apply fresh thinking, advance new strategies and mobilise substantial new resources to address it.

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Journalist, Hassan Arouni, interviewing members of the community in Sierra Leone

Community voices in Iraq- Al Mirbad

Mentoring programme in Zambia

Haba na Haba community discussion

Recognition that free and independent media around the world is in deep trouble is growing. Most democratic countries understand with increasing alarm the impact that the current assault on media freedom is having on prospects for democracy, development and stability. Misinformation and disinformation preoccupy multiple policy debates. Shrinking civic spaces and the fixing of elections – often by intimidating, co-opting or distorting traditional and social media - form a mainstay of anxious commentary among those who care about freedom and democracy.

The response to all this, however, is a mess. There is a near absence of individual leadership from any democratic country let alone the development of a clear collective response from those countries most committed to freedom of expression. Many democracies are, themselves, implicated in attacking and intimidating journalists and media freedom. There are excellent media freedom and media development organisations fighting a rearguard action to protect fundamental freedoms, and this is an era of outstanding journalism, but the international response to supporting independent media around the world is fragmented, siloed and lacks impact. A recently released report from the  concluded that “donors still only commit a tiny fraction to the [media assistance] sector and appear to be responding slowly, if at all, to the unique challenges of press freedom in the digital age.”

As a consequence, the fight to support independent media is being lost.

In recent weeks  there is a need to bring fresh energy, creativity and intensity to efforts to support independent media. But these alone will not be enough. There is a fundamental problem of resources so I propose the creation of a new International Fund for Free and Independent Media focused in particular on resource poor societies and those societies where media freedom is under most pressure. The fund would support independent journalism, independent media institutions focused on serving the public interest, and other media and social efforts designed to underpin informed and fact based public debate.

I think it would solve several problems.

First, and most obviously, it would help solve the problem of money. Independent media, and the journalism it supports, decreasingly has a viable business model available to support it. This is of course a problem facing independent media everywhere as social media platforms attract the advertising that provided, until only a few years ago, the financial foundations for traditional media institutions. But it is far greater problem in fragile and resource poor countries where economic challenges are compounded by especially acute political ones. The co-option and capture of media by political, factional and other interests - which often have far greater financial backing than those available to independent media – is an even greater challenge. It is precisely because media is so effective at holding power to account that those political and other interests who need to avoid public scrutiny find it worthwhile investing heavily in setting up their own media or undermining media presenting a threat to their interests. An international fund would invest in strategies capable of making independent media organisations more economically viable but would also support other mechanisms – including exploring other models of public subsidy within these societies - capable of sustaining them in the long term. It would also support the development of professional skills and other initiatives necessary for media to serve the public interest and underpin informed and effective democratic societies. And the International Fund for Free and Independent Media could provide a way for people to directly support independent media around the world through private donations.

Second, an International Fund would solve the problem of transaction costs. Many donors – bilateral government donors, multilateral institutions and private philanthropic foundations – already support independent media. But, as the recent  demonstrates, that support is cumulatively tiny (0.3% of development assistance) as well as being disorganised and lacking strategy. A small number of foundations and a very small number of government donors have expert staff and long experience of supporting independent media and the International Fund would be intended to complement and not replace these. But the vast majority of donors, many of them with very substantial potential resources available to support independent media, have almost no staff focused on developing effective strategies, learning from what works and does not, and able to support an area that they often consider to be too political, difficult and time consuming in terms of grant management. Many bilateral development donors, in particular, often consider media support an important priority but don’t feel they have the administrative capacity or infrastructure to spend money well in this area. The same donors are under pressure to reduce administrative costs and are highly unlikely to increase their in house expertise and capacity in this area in a meaningful way. A International Fund would solve that problem.

Third, it would help solve the problem of independence and would immunise funding to independent media from undue donor – and especially governmental – influence. Many media support organisations find it uncomfortable to accept governmental funding because they feel it represents either an actual or perceived threat to their independence. An International Fund with the right governance structure would ensure that would not be the case.

Finally, it would provide better impact, effectiveness and strategic clarity. The International Fund would be committed to ensuring that investment strategies are rooted in the best available evidence and learning about what works in supporting independent media. It would look to develop long term strategies that many existing donor efforts find especially difficult. And it would be have the capacity to experiment and innovate in an extremely fast changing environment. It would also need to invest in its own research and evidence base given the relative paucity of excellent research currently available. And it would have the convening power to better organise and crystallise the often disjointed and mono-disciplinary research efforts that do currently exist in this field.

There is much work to do before this proposal could become a reality. Care would need to be taken not to compete with excellent existing media support efforts, including the . But the International Fund would focus explicitly on resource poor settings where markets are weak, freedoms are especially endangered and where a financial return on investment, however desirable, would not be a condition of spending.

The governance of the Fund would require careful design and consideration. The majority of its board would need to be derived from, or at least highly credible to and respected by, independent journalists and media. The main donors to the fund, who would include bilateral agencies from governments committed to democracy and media freedom, would also need appropriate representation. The  (which has donors, people affected by HIV and other related issues and other stakeholders on its board) would provide the beginnings of a model. Strong representation from the Global South would also be necessary. Its governance structure would need to guarantee its immunity to government or other political influence. It would also need to be independent from any existing media support organisation or other entity which it may end up supporting. The strategic priorities of the Fund would need to be developed once sufficient appetite for such an initiative was established (I have put forward  recently).

For this proposal to gain traction, an initial group of donors would need to express interest in at least exploring its potential. I am an adviser (informal and sometimes formal) to several bilateral, multilateral and foundation donors and believe that there may be an appetite for such an initiative, although I should make it clear this idea has not been discussed with any of them. The Fund would only be worthwhile if the resources invested in it very substantially exceed what would have been allocated to media development in the first place so it would need to demonstrate that its administrative costs would make it cost effective to those investing in it.

There are some hopes that a meeting of bilateral, multilateral and foundation donors will take place later this year to discuss how best to support free and independent media and I would hope this proposal could be on the agenda.

James Deane is Director, Policy and Research at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action. 

james.deane@bbc.co.uk

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action is the international development charity of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ. Any views expressed in this or other blogs should not be taken to represent those of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ itself.

Many more issues and strategies can be considered but, ultimately, there is little point considering them unless there is space to properly organise the 21st century approaches necessary for media assistance to succeed.

Several things need to happen.

First, those funding international support to the media need to link up more to share learning of what they think works and what doesn't. This has not happened successfully in the past but signs are emerging that it can now. Private philanthropic foundations – such as the Omidyar, Ford, Open Society, Gates, Rockefeller, MacArthur and Knight Foundations - are leading the way in sharing information and strategic thinking between them better than even a year or two ago. Bilateral agencies (especially long standing supporters of independent media like the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Swiss Development Cooperation and now DFID) are re-examining and reprioritising media support while reaching out to other donors to explore how they can learn from each other. The OECD Development Assistance Committee Governance Network (full disclosure: I advise it) has provided the most valuable space in recent months and years for these issues to be prioritised and examined, and there are hopes of a more intensive level of communication between donors on the issues as a result. The National Endowment for Democracy Center for International Media Assistance is playing a particularly strong role here.

Such conversations have always proved challenging. Various donors have often had different agendas and objectives ranging from supporting independent media as an intrinsic public good (something that is thankfully being reprioritised) to seeing it as a means to improve specific development objectives (improving accountability, fostering greater social cohesion, challenging misinformation, shifting societal norms around gender for example). But the conditions for a really coherent and productive donor conversation in this area have rarely been more fertile.

The second is between practitioners and donors. I will be candid here: media assistance donors (with some exceptions) do not always have a good reputation among practitioners. Practitioners have, with at least modest success, tried to create a more coherent sector. Through the  in particular very different - often competing - organisations talk to each other, share analysis and information, and at least start to work towards better coordination mechanisms and generate advocacy for what is needed to improve public interest media. GFMD has sought to give its developing country/non-western members interests special prominence.

The same has not happened among donors. The efforts at donor coordination highlighted above are welcome but late, and the feeling in the sector is that donors frequently chop and change priorities, pay little attention to evidence (and insufficiently invest in it), and invest too little in their own lesson learning. Some have acknowledged this. A particularly welcome revealed just how little the EU knew what it was funding in this space, let alone understanding what worked and did not work. As a result it has now set up a new technical resource to advise it in the future. Practitioners tend to know a great deal about the problems they are working to solve but that knowledge is not always well captured by donors. There needs to be better information sharing here. There are particular dangers that failed strategies of the past will be repeated.

Third, and perhaps most important, is for the rest of the development community to recognise just how critical a free and independent media that's capable of underpinning informed democratic societies is to sustaining, and advancing, human progress. Even within most governance support strategies, let alone across the rest of the , media support issues are poorly prioritised.

And finally, there is a need for a much stronger research base which, as noted above, is interdisciplinary in nature. I have found it curious that the most insightful and useful research we tend to use emanates from economists and political scientists, not from media scholars.

To be taken seriously in the media assistance space in recent years, especially in the digital space, it has been important to cultivate a persona of “impatient optimism”. But I believe we are in serious trouble and do not currently have the strategies, sector wide architectures, resources, research or learning systems to make the kind of difference to 21st century media and communication systems that sustainable and functioning democracies and a sustainable development agenda needs. We have much good practice to build on but there is a poor collective record of building on it.

Making a real difference will take years, and optimism has proved neither warranted nor particularly effective. We need fresh approaches, new determination and a collective preparedness – not least from donors – to commit ourselves for a long haul. Pessimism is not energising, but a fresh and sober realism may be our best starting point for the road ahead.

James Deane is the Director of Policy and Research at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action

The explores the relationship between media development and Social and Behaviour Change Communication.

A future agenda for media assistance cannot simply repeat the same strategies that have applied – sometimes successfully, sometimes not, in the past. What do we know has worked, what do we know has not worked, what might work in the future?

I suspect there is widespread agreement that the democratic information space of the future will require strong, public interest institutions capable of generating journalism and other media content capable of underpinning informed public debate. The arguments of a decade ago, that citizen journalism would replace journalistic institutions, and , now seem perilously outdated. Our information spaces have rarely been more vulnerable to manipulation and distortion, our public debate rarely more driven to polarisation and subject to echo chamber effects, and people’s trust in the information they receive, rarely weaker.

Access to information that people can trust, find relevant, that underpins informed democratic debate, and can hold power to account, will depend on the existence of media institutions, not just information networks. That remains the major challenge of media support. It is a challenge that we need fresh thinking to achieve.

The most obvious area where we can expect action is in continuing and perhaps revamping media investment strategies. The dream, some would argue chimera, of media assistance has been to invest in the kinds of independent media who can develop a sustainable business model sufficient to support high quality independent, public interest journalism. There have been good examples where this approach has worked and fostered fantastic, independent news organisations, most notably through . I stand to be corrected but I think most (but certainly not all) of those successes have been in large markets (like Indonesia and Malaysia). The challenge comes when applying this approach in smaller markets, particularly in fragile states, given the current economic and political realities.

Fragile states have two overlapping challenges. The market is small and often highly fractured making it extremely difficult to build a profitable business model capable of sustaining independent journalism. That challenge has grown as digital and social media has, as it has done elsewhere, diverted funding away from independent media markets. 

The second is that politics has proved overwhelmingly powerful.

I had the privilege of working alongside wonderful Ugandan colleagues in the 1990s, as the media market – print and broadcast - thrived in the wake of economic and political liberalisation. The opening of economic and political space led to media, such as that owned by the Monitor Group, doing perhaps the best journalism in Africa, and outstanding innovations such as “ebimeeza” open air radio talk shows. All of which did much to nourish the democracy that was emerging after the authoritarian horrors of the Amin and Obote years. This was an entrepreneurial, commercial revolution built on the individual commitments and journalistic talents of remarkable people. It enabled, as never before, communicative power to leak from government to citizen.

We have witnessed, since the mid-2000s, the slow death of the independent media sector in the country . Partly, these businesses were never going to be money printing machines given the broader challenges the internet brought to almost all media markets. But much of it was that pressure from government and other political actors simply became too strong.

This is just one example but it is a familiar story in fragile states with weak economies characterised by highly contested politics. The political markets have outgunned the economic markets. It is not that the market is simply not there (although it is probably increasingly the case that it isn’t). It is that the political pressures that come with doing good journalism and forming an independent media and creative industry blew market forces away. It is a story told in different ways, in different contexts and with different drivers in the vast majority of states our own analysis at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action has focused on in recent years including , , , , and

That doesn’t mean the market cannot form part of the solution. It means we need to spark a creative debate about making markets work for freedom. This will mean calling on economists, technologists, and political scientists - not just media - and drawing on experience and existing research into market economies in fragile states. This requires a real interdisciplinary approach of the kind that our academic, organisational and donor structures have proved poorly equipped to facilitate in the past.

But, however imaginative the proposals, the market will not provide a long-term solution to supporting public interest media. It hasn’t in the past, and conditions, especially in fragile states, are just too hostile for it to be expected to do in the future - which is why we need to think, equally creatively, about public subsidy.

This does not necessarily mean rolling out a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ-style public service broadcast model It means looking at solutions that can provide sustained investment in independent media over a significant period of time. Can entertainment media be levied to support public interest journalism? Can public interest media funds be set up within countries where public interest media is most threatened? Can we think of other ways in which licence fees for public interest media can be raised? (there are many models for this), can the value inherent in data cross-subsidise good journalism? I don’t pretend to have answers, but there needs to be creative thinking about what those answers should be, without resting on the assumption that investment automatically leads to commercial sustainability.

More fundamentally still, solving these issues will be insufficient if they don’t connect with people. Much media support has focused on media for a relatively elite audience. Media freedom and media sustainability indicators focus on whether media is free and sustainable and less on on whether they are valued, trusted or relevant to the populations of their societies, especially those outside an educated middle class. This is especially important at a time of digital and demographic transformation.

The donor and media assistance community are finally realising there are no digital, magic bullets to these problems and that the digital revolution is as much a driver of market failure and disinformation and a wrecker of public interest media as it is an enabler of it (although there remain many exciting opportunities). But it is a transformation whose effects have only just started to take hold (smart phone access is still far from universal but in a small number of years it will be) and any media support strategy that does not root itself in the realities of 21st century information and communication networks access will fail.

And finally here, we need to pay more attention to re-balancing the incentive structures so that there is a greater political price to be paid for political interference in independent media – that means really embarrassing and holding to account in a much more insistent way those who are shutting down or co-opting the media. This would consist of further investment in media freedom advocacy and a much more robust approach and focused interest from governments committed to democracy and freedom of expression both North and South (sadly a diminishing number – in both number and power). Attacks on media freedom and independent media systems proliferate because those behind the attacks prosper and get away with it. Events such as organised by UNESCO take on greater importance in this context.

There are plenty of other areas we can talk about – improving support to media around elections (which is generally very poorly prioritised, organised and integrated into electoral support strategies), understanding and more effectively supporting public interest media in the context of violent extremism, working out how best to support independent journalism in fragile states where the risks are so often so great, better structuring media support within governance programming and much more besides. These issues present challenges for all of us.

I talk about just some of things Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action is planning especially in my area of research and policy.

James Deane is director of policy and research at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action.

“We will support and promote the freedom of the press”, announced Penny Mordaunt, the British international development secretary in her earlier this month setting out her government’s future international development strategy.

After years in the doldrums, support to independent media shows signs of being revitalised. Many other donors – from philanthropic foundations to bilateral and multilateral development agencies – are recognising that prospects for human progress in the 21st century are increasingly tied to how people are informed or misinformed, how information is controlled or liberated, and how media institutions remain independent in the face of authoritarian or factional power. It is rooted in a recognition too of just how essential good journalism is to functioning democracies (take your pick from , , and myriad other examples from around the world).

The media support community has been a gloomy place in recent years. The heyday of independent media support was in the 1990s and 2000s when democracy was – or at least appeared to be – sweeping the world. The last two years have been especially depressing with increasingly successful clampdowns by authoritarians, unprecedented numbers of journalists killed or imprisoned, the ever more influential role of misinformation and disinformation in disrupting democratic politics, the growth of propaganda and counter propaganda in the context of violent extremism and a , not least in the US.

But it isn’t just the backdrop of world events that has darkened the mood within the media support community. It was the lack of success many traditional efforts had in really bringing into being the kinds of free, plural and professional media systems that we were collectively working to achieve.

If investment in media assistance is to return as an important development priority – and I believe it is vital that it does – then it needs to learn from what has worked and not worked in the past.

In this blog series, published around , I today ask first why media development efforts have not had the kind of impact that their backers and investors had hoped, especially in the where most international development donors are focusing their support.

In I offer some ideas for fresh thinking which I hope might spur broader debate.

In I talk about just some of the ways Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action is approaching these issues and adapting.

In I talk about how the sector – donors, practitioners and media partners – need to be better connected and strategy much more joined up to deliver the outcomes we want to see.

And in , I argue that the relationship between independent media support and the substantial funding invested in social and behaviour change communication is confused and unnecessarily disconnected.

Where are the successful models of media assistance?

Where can we point to the success stories or models where thriving independent, economically sustainable, credible media organisations and industries have emerged as a result of the media assistance programmes that were put in place in many countries? Why have all those media laws, regulatory bodies and access to information provisions that had been supported to come into being had so little effect on the actual structure, conduct and independence of the media – or indeed people’s access to trustworthy information?

How was it that hundreds of journalists had been trained with often little discernible improvement in the quality of reporting? How could the tech optimism offered by the US West Coast digital giants and the democratic energy of the Arab Uprisings so quickly turn to chaos and information powered factionalism, confusion and hate? How is it that so many national elections – and broader politics - are so vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation when so much effort has gone into media assistance designed to achieve the opposite?

For sure, different media support organisations () point to often extraordinary impact in particular areas and particular sectors – in nurturing independent journalism, in underpinning informed public debate at great scale, at building institutions and structures, in supporting elections underpinned by open and informed public debate, not disinformation and manipulation. I consider most media support organisations highly effective in what they do. But the fact remains that, especially in fragile states, the media is weaker, more co-opted and often less sustainable than for years.

The reasons are complex.

This is mostly to do with the scale of the challenge. The political incentives to control, distort or co-opt information and communication spaces (both traditional and digital) have greatly outgunned the efforts to defend and advance public interest media. I and many others only a few years ago that communicative power was shifting from elites to masses, from institutions to networks and from old to young. In many ways it has – but ultimately communicative power now rests most with those who see political or other advantage in undermining informed public debate and away from those who seek to underpin it.

But ascribing the current situation solely to tectonic power shifts would let us off the hook too easily. Some of our lack of success can be attributed to hubris - a lack of understanding of (or investment in understanding) political realities and a too blind assumption that the new information environments created such a hostile environment for authoritarians that democracy and freedom would inevitably triumph. This arena is a power game and communicative power now favours the authoritarians and the factionalists. Any future agenda that does not recognise and root its response in the political economy realities of 21st Century information and communication environment will fail.

But resources – or the lack of them – have mattered and many would argue that there simply hasn’t been enough money and effort to support independent media. I would agree with this - the has estimated that approximately two per cent of the funding development donors allocate to improving governance is directed at supporting media (and less than half a percent of total development funding).

But that would be too convenient an explanation and one that prevents us from properly examining what we need to stop doing and what we need do better.

And it isn’t just the lack of funding, it is the organisation that underpins it. Lack of funding can’t disguise the fact that in some countries – such as – huge amounts have been directed at supporting independent media but such efforts have too often been inchoate. Funding in this area has been poorly organised and particularly vulnerable to boom and bust cycles, to faddism (a few years ago if a proposal didn’t include some form of digital app it was unlikely to be supported) and, generally, to poor systems of lesson learning. There are very few spaces to assess what is working and not working in supporting media and the research base underpinning the field is weak, siloed and insufficiently interdisciplinary.

Ultimately, we have to accept that media development could have been far better supported and more organised and it would still have struggled in the face of these odds. That does not mean the situation is hopeless. Public interest journalism has arguably never been better respected and recognised with the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers and the unsung heroics of independent journalists and citizen journalists around the world never playing a more important role in democracy. The importance of independent public debate has never been more valued in environments where elections are increasingly undermined and manipulated through control of information.

And our capacity to have an evidence and reality based debate is much improved now we can take off the rose tinted spectacles offered by the digital evangelists as public interest journalism has exposed how Cambridge Analytica has allegedly used data to distort the politics of , including fragile states, around the world.

But what we can’t do in the media development space is simply to repeat the recipes and strategies of the past. We need to understand and confront our own experiences of what has worked and not worked.

That forms the basis of

James Deane is Director of Policy and Research at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action

On the International Day of Democracy, James Deane sets out six ways in which a resurgent public interest media can help improve accountability and foster transparency.

Strategies being used to improve accountability and foster transparency are not working well enough.

Corruption is on the rise, people do not feel that traditional institutions are delivering effective accountability, and there is a decline in trust in institutions as a whole. Authoritarianism and populism are resurgent.

The solutions to these challenges are huge but I want to set out six things which need to happen if democracy support is to become more effective.

1. We will pay more attention to the behaviour of people who do not want to be held to account.

People who do not want to be held to account buy up the media, intimidate journalists and civil society activists, and close down civic and information spaces. They do this because they know these often present the greatest threat to their interests. Democracy support needs to get better – more organised, more strategic and more effective – at countering such attempts. At present multiple parties are sowing misinformation, disinformation and confusion to foster their own agendas. Some of this is international – the role of Russia is often highlighted. Much of this occurs within countries.  

The economic markets capable of supporting independent media, especially in fragile states where Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action mostly works, have not yet materialised. It is largely politics, rather than economics - let alone the public interest - that shapes the media people have access to. We are concerned that support for building independent media is falling among western donors at exactly the time when it is most in peril, when business models are most fragile and where its contribution to effective governance is increasingly recognised and evidenced. The opposite needs to happen.

2. We will refresh our understanding of just how critical and effective public interest media is in holding power to account and fostering functioning democracies.

This has already begun. We have seen the dramatic contribution investigative journalism has played, and the outstanding work of organisations like the especially around the Panama Papers. But, in many fragile states, investigative journalism is very dangerous activity and it is not a replacement for a functioning independent media sector focused on serving a public interest. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action supports independent media especially in conflict affected and fragile states. Last year we worked with more than 100 media partners – state, commercial, community and online – and reached almost 200 million people with our governance programmes. Our data shows us that people exposed to these programmes know more, discuss more and participate more in politics than those who do not.

3. We will look again at the relationship between open societies, especially a free media, and political stability.

The excuse often used by regimes that constrict free media and civil society is that they are maintaining stability and deterring terrorism. We will understand better the relationship between corruption and radicalisation. We will see that shutting down freedoms, media and public debate and shrinking civic space will, as it always has, allows corruption to thrive. Corruption breeds radicalisation. Many laws passed in the name of increasing security that close down civic space, will breed more corruption and fuel radicalisation.

4. Digital media could still deliver properly on its promise in delivering improved accountability and transparency.

But only when the digital promise (or – as some increasingly regard it - threat) moves from an innovation/hype-based debate to an evidence-based one. 2019 will see the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web. We need to start looking much more seriously at what really works and what does not across the whole accountability and transparency agenda - including digital.

5. The open government movement will move from a supply side set of solutions to a demand side one.

Many transparency and accountability initiatives like the excellent have focused on opening up government, and particularly in ensuring governments make information – on budgets, on services – more available so ordinary citizens can hold expenditure to account. That supply of information has not yet been matched by a demand for it. Increasingly there needs to be a focus on enabling journalists and civil society actors to make sense of the information made available through open government initiatives and make it relevant to those people who most need to act on it to make accountability work.

6. Finally, we will understand that without rebuilding trust in our institutions, and trust in the information that people – especially young people - have access to, trust in democracy will be fundamentally challenged. Tackling the trust deficit will be central to any notion of success in the future.

James Deane is director of policy and research at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action.

This blog is an edited version of remarks made to the conference, “Global Values in an Uncertain World” (September 12-13 2017) marking the occasion of the foundation’s 25th anniversary.

Our director of policy and learning’s personal reflection on the role of media in divided societies in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

I’ve spent many years writing about, researching and supporting . I’ve especially focused on divided societies. I’ve argued that does much to determine how societies either fragment or unite.

Now my own country finds itself in crisis and I find myself, like millions of my compatriots, confused, concerned and uncertain as to how to navigate the future – for myself, for my family and as a citizen. I remind myself that what we are going through right now is as nothing to the experiences of some of the countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action works. I find consolation and inspiration that many of those countries have found ways of rebuilding themselves after immensely more traumatic experiences of war and despite ongoing poverty. The UK is in a very different position but, for all the privilege we have as a country, there is real a sense of dislocation among many of us, a deep-seated uncertainty about who we are as a country, our place in the world and especially about one or our most prized sources of self-identity – our tolerance.

But if I ever had doubts that the role of a media in a country in crisis is somehow unimportant or marginal or that I might have made a mistake spending years trying to support media systems that enable informed citizenries, that allow economically and politically marginalised voices to be heard and that create the platforms for public debate that enable people to understand each other – those doubts have been expelled.

I am not going to diagnose or critique different British media organisations here, nor enter the much-traversed territory of the rights and wrongs of the Brexit outcome. Some will argue parts of the news media have voiced and reflected the anger and dispossession of millions of British citizens who have felt ignored and marginalised from the political, social and economic mainstream of this country in recent decades. Others will claim that they have fuelled tension and blame in society and distorted the information available to their readers. Some will argue that the fact that one of the commonest Google UK search terms on the Friday after the Brexit vote was “What is the EU?” provides an abject example of a collective media failure to inform its citizenry before the biggest political decision of a lifetime. Others will point to one of the most vibrant, if difficult and bad tempered, political campaigns in our history muscularly played out through a free, diverse and noisy cauldron of democratic debate.

But I come away convinced more than ever of three things.

The first is that media matters when divided countries go through a political crisis. In the jargon of the development world, the idea that media are unimportant in shaping governance outcomes is an indefensible proposition. The fact that so capable of informing public debate in divided societies seems ever odder in the 21st century information age.

The second is that I have never been more proud to work for an organisation linked to the especially since the referendum vote. There will no doubt be post-mortems and research theses in the future examining the performance of our public service broadcaster during this national trauma. But in my view, the crisis has demonstrated as never before (at least in my lifetime) the importance of a genuinely independent national broadcaster that exists to serve the public with factual information and provides a trusted platform for public debate for a country that has rarely seemed more divided and at odds with itself.

Finally, I have never before been more convinced of the value of what Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action does around the world. Britain’s international reputation and standing in the world has clearly been seriously affected over the last week, but what my organisation stands for – trusted information, balanced and informed debate, reflecting the perspectives of all in society – seems ever more relevant to the challenges facing divided societies in crisis.

I now know just a little more about what it means to live in one.

James Deane is Director of Policy and Learning at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Media Action.

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