| |
Covering Development: Opinion and Analysis*
Irish Media International Media Journals *The opinions expressed in this section by external authors do not necessarily reflect those of Connect-World
Ireland’s governance problems put Africa in fresh perspective - Joe Humphreys
If Irish taxpayers are looking for value-for-money they would be better off giving more funds – and not less – to the developing world, writes Irish Times journalist Joe Humphreys in a guest opinion piece for Connect World.*
I owe the people of Tanzania an apology. A few years ago, I travelled to their country where I wrote about “the sitting allowance”, a controversial practice whereby government employees receive a cash payment for turning up at meetings that are part of their job.
I labelled the payment corrupt. But, really, who was I to judge, coming as I do from a land where ministers are freely granted “walking around money”? Read more / Post a comment on the Connect-World Blog.
Joe Humphreys is an Assistant News Editor with The Irish Times, and formerly worked as a correspondent for the newspaper in South Africa. He travelled to Tanzania in 2006 to write about aid and governance with the assistance of the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund.
The missing link? The role of academia in raising awareness of global development issues - Dr Patrick Holden
"Clearly, the mass media is the major opinion-forming institution of our society, regarding global development questions or any other issue. Yet academia should also play a key role ... However, apart from the direct teaching of third level students and involvement in policy research institutes, academia often seems disconnected from the public at large and the mass media (with which it has a very uneasy relationship). An incredible range of academic journals display impressively researched articles, which remain untouched not only by the public but also by most practitioners (NGOs, civil servants) and journalists..." Read More. Post a comment on the Connect-World Blog.
Traditional development is not news - Lindsey Hilsum
"I don't think development, as it has traditionally been seen, is what is news and what is interesting" - Channel 4 International Editor and China Correspondent, Lindsey Hilsum on the Pat Kenny show, RTE Radio 1, November 12, 2008. Listen to the interview / post a comment on the Connect-World Blog
Galway One World Centre Changing Perspectives - an exploration of the portrayals of the Majority World in the West of Ireland’s local print media (03/09/08)
 'Un-Covering the Stories of the Developing World' and 'How Good is the Coverage of  Global Development?' (13/12/07)
Notes from the Connect-World / NUJ joint workshop on the media coverage of development issues that took place on 23/11/07. “Be careful what you wish for!” was one comment...
READ THE SUMMARY / POST A COMMENT
"Towards Journalism of Conscience: The Media and the Challenge of Rural Poverty"
Connect-World, TCD and NUI Maynooth presented an entertaining and provocative lecture by Palagummi Sainath at Trinity College Dublin on November 28, 2007. Sainath has won over 30 national and international journalism awards.
Watch Palagummi Sainath's lecture
Watch the Q&A
Sainath said the journalism of dissent is the type which moves people. However, the person handing out pro-Milosevic news cuttings outside the talk may not have been the best example (she was not actiing on behalf of the speaker or the event organisers).
Connect-World Director Katherine Meenan responds to RTE's Niall Martin piece below
"I agree with everything Niall says about the good story, but I don’t agree that this is where it 'starts and ends'."
"The point about speaking to the converted is an important one. There does seem to be an approach that if you do not have a lot of interest in world affairs or current affairs generally that you have no ethical base, which clearly isn’t the case."
READ FULL ARTICLE / POST A COMMENT
"Let the debate begin!" Niall Martin, Editor of Morning Ireland offers his views about how developing world issues can get more coverage in broadcast and film media. "There are no great mysteries and it all starts and ends with a good story..."
READ FULL ARTICLE / POST A COMMENT
Un-covering Development, Katherine Meenan, Connect-World Director, 23/11/07
"Since we started about 18 months ago, Connect-World has sought to position itself as a media organisation, with an understanding of the role of the media and of the pressures and challenges which journalism faces...
"What has been interesting ...is the tension between the development sector and the media. We have undertaken research with editors and news editors and they have told us that they find the sector sometimes amateurish and that it suffers from an irritating sense of entitlement. The development sector will say that it is the journalists who are amateurish – they don’t know or understand development, and will not bother to rise above the stereotypes."
READ FULL ARTICLE / POST A COMMENT
NEW Research highlights “heavy reliance” on press releases (23/11/07)
A report published today by a team of academics has examined the coverage by the Irish media last year of two significant international development stories. The research was commissioned by Connect-World.
Media coverage of the publication of Irish Aid’s 2006 White Paper was characterised by a “heavy reliance ...on information provided in the press release and at the press launch”, the report found. “The assumptions and claims of the original source material... tended to pass through the media with little critical examination.” Full report.
POST A COMMENT
Images of Africa. Cork, 26/07/07 The Connect-World/Suas seminar, Images of Africa, was intended to promote discussion and debate on how Africa is presented in the media.
NEW: Listen to the event here
Africa and the developing world just doesn't get a fair go when it comes to media coverage
Notes from a talk given by RTÉ TV and radio presenter Aoife Kavanagh:
 "...given the scale of suffering, the huge populations we're talking about, the importance from a human rights point of view, Africa and the developing world just doesn't get a fair go when it comes to media coverage.
"So that’s a given. What I want to discuss is why that might be the case and what, if anything, can be done about it."
READ FULL ARTICLE / POST A COMMENT
Listen to the other speakers / post a comment on the Irish Media Conference website
The event was part of the Building Unity Through Diversity Campaign
Media Moves Conference Galway, 08/06/07
A conference on understanding, shaping and creating media for social change. ORGANISERS: Galway One World Centre, SpunOut.ie and MediaForum. Part of a series of events of the Development Education Centres Network (DECNET).
Culturing Audiences, Tomas O’Siochain, programme editor for TG4 and RTÉ Nuacht. Listen [link to streaming audio].
Inside the Rossport Five, Dr. Mark Garavan, sociology lecturer and PR campaign manager for the Rossport Five. Listen [mp3]. Also available as streaming audio.
Portrayal of Travellers, Patrick Nevin, Traveller and activist. Listen [mp3]. Also available as streaming audio.
More speeches/post comments on the Irish Media Conference website ...
What part of genocide do we not understand? Morning Ireland, RTÉ, 30/05/07 Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon, discusses why people respond less strongly to mass murder and genocide than to individual tragedy.
Listen here (Morning Ireland, RTÉ)  POST A COMMENT
Silent Witness: The AIDS/HIV Pandemic In Black Africa And The Irish Print Media (originally titled, The AIDS/HIV Pandemic in Black Africa and the Irish Print Media: A Case Study of Reportorial Neglect and Under Representation), Janice Gaffey, lecturer in journalism at the Dublin Business School. Irish Research Series, No.53. Copyright: 2007. ISBN: 1-933146-24-9.
The book critically examines two decades of Irish newspaper coverage of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on an exhaustive audit of coverage of the disease in the Irish Independent and The Irish Times from June 1981 (the earliest recognition of AIDS) to December 2001, and a series of interviews with journalists, editors, NGO staff and Ministers for Overseas Development.
The role of the media in development education [PDF], Comhlámh, May 2005
Includes articles by Paul Cullen (Irish Times) and Rodney Rice (RTE), an apt cartoon by Martyn Turner (Irish Times), and analysis from the NGO sector.
Irish print media coverage of the 1998 Sudanese crisis: The case of The Irish Times. Eoin Devereux and Amanda Haynes in Communication and the Globalisation of Poverty, 2000 (1)
NEW Africa and Ireland: Aspects of a Media Agenda by John Horgan, Trocaire Development Review 1987
John Horgan of the School of communications, NINE, Dublin, suggests that the response of the Irish media to the African famine of 1984 raises a number of questions about the criteria used in reporting “newsworthy” events. He contends that media concentration was on the short-term causes and Irish relief efforts with little attempt to analyse the deeper issues involved. He proposes a number of items for a future media/Third World agenda.
POST A COMMENT
|
