Creating Awareness in the Global Media on Poverty, Disease, Hunger and Earth Changes.
Over 1 billion people around the world live in extreme poverty; 70 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa on less than $1 a day.
More than 17 million Africans have died from AIDS, and an additional 25 million are infected with the HIV virus; approximately 1.9 million are children.
Every day over 25,000 Africans die because they suffer from extreme poverty or preventable diseases.
Why are stories of the suffering of Africans not consistently on the front page of daily newspapers? Why is news of thousands dying of preventable diseases not headline news on television and radio?
Today there is an urgent and immediate need for the media to take the lead in making their audience aware of the constraints of the world’s poorest countries — the Least Developed Countries.
What is MediaGlobal?
MediaGlobal was launched in January 2006 as a nonprofit media company designed to create awareness in the global media of the suffering of the 10 poorest countries in Africa about issues of poverty, disease, hunger and earth changes. In October MediaGlobal and the United Nations launched the Global Media Compact. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a signatory of the Global Media Compact.
MediaGlobal seeks the media’s assistance through the Global Media Compact, a seven-point program to raise the profile of these 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Sierra Leone (Based on the Human Development Index researched by the United Nations Development Program).
Our Objectives MediaGlobal’s objectives are to:
- Create awareness about these countries in the global media;
- Develop media initiatives on issues of poverty, disease, hunger and earth changes;
- Generate international support for these countries;
- Raise the profile of these countries with the global community.
MediaGlobal’s Young Writers Initiative
Towards development and diplomatic dialogue
Media goes hand in hand with human and economic development for the role it can play in informing the masses, holding officials accountable, and bringing traditionally marginalized voices into the public dialogue. According to IREX’s Media Sustainability Index, the state of the press in the majority of least developed countries in Africa ranks between 1 (unsustainable) and 3 (near sustainability).
MediaGlobal is a 501©3 media organization, established in January of 2006 with offices in the United Nations Secretariat in New York, with the goal of providing inclusive media coverage of the world’s least developed countries as determined by the Human Development Index.
In committed partnership with the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme, including its Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, MediaGlobal directs global media coverage of the developing countries by reporting on stories which highlight the impact of current events on marginalized sectors of the developing world and which humanize their daily struggles as they raise families, attend school, or run businesses, as well as to train a new generation of journalists to effectively report on development-related issues.
MediaGlobal has been operating the Young Writers Initiative out of the United Nations for two years. Our young correspondents receive United Nations press credentials to attend meetings and press conferences and disseminate three interview-based articles per week to the global media and two stories for the weekly newsletter, This Week In Development. Each month a 5-page analysis on a current development issue is widely distributed (refer to www.mediaglobal.org)
Based at the United Nations Secretariat, MediaGlobal’s young writers work closely with the accredited media to the United Nations, media in donor countries, civil society, the private sector and most prominent international bodies, including senior officials at the United Nations and its agencies, with an urgent need to focus on the constraints of vulnerable and poor countries.
MediaGlobal has created a powerful database of more than 20,000 active correspondents in the global media, policymakers in donor countries, non-governmental organizations, private sector and civil society contacts and key personnel in the United Nations Secretariat, its agencies and managers in the field worldwide.
A small sampling of the media list includes: Media in Donor Countries, Media in the least developed countries in Africa, Media Bureaus in the US, HIV/AIDS Communicators, lists of African journalists writing on development issues, UN Communicators working with the media, media officers at the World Bank and other financial institutions, correspondents who attended the UN Summit, Ambassadors at Permanent Missions to the UN, select corporate executives in the private sector, to name a few.
United Press International, OneWorld.net, which has its own site on Yahoo, also picks up our correspondents’ stories, as does the Google News Index.
MediaGlobal collaborates with the International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), the resource for the media assistance community. It is an online service for journalists, media managers, media assistance professionals, journalism trainers and educators.
In addition to wide dissemination of stories, MediaGlobal also assists correspondents in finding opportunities to report on stories outside of the United Nations. MediaGlobal correspondents covered the Clinton Global Initiative events held in New York this past September and helped secure sponsorship from the India-Brazil-South Africa fund for a correspondent to travel to Haiti to cover a waste management project.
MediaGlobal offers a rigorous training programme for young correspondents to ensure that after a six-month full-time commitment to MediaGlobal, they have a thorough understanding of the millennium development goals (MDGs), journalism ethics, and the business models that are needed to sustain careers in independent media and non-profit work.
Current issues and trends in journalism are emerging and innovative multimedia platforms are opening up doorways in reaching an ever-growing audience, especially in developing countries where technology is sweeping countries.
MediaGlobal believes that young writers should not simply learn to write, but be able to think, analyze, assimilate and express their views with compassion and concern for the constraints of the least developed countries. It is this humanistic approach to writing that we strive to inculcate.
As a result MediaGlobal’s young writers are able to view happenings in developing countries and emerging democracies with a deeper sense of understanding and an ability to deal with complex issues.
Journalism Training
Training for MediaGlobal’s young writers includes careful selection of stories that do not appear in the mainstream media. News stories constitute an important element in defining peoples’ cultural identity and self-expression to bring about effective South-South cooperation. While emphasis is placed on objective journalism versus solutions-based coverage, dispelling stereotypes in the media underscores a focus on ethics in journalism.
Issues-oriented training
In addition to attending press conferences on a regular basis, correspondents attend seminars organized by United Nations agencies on issue-oriented topics. MediaGlobal in its deliberations addresses the challenges and opportunities offered by advances in communication and information towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals; the disproportionate impact of earth changes on the least developed nations; and the importance of media and communications in economic and human development.
Internship Elements
In addition to writing responsibilities, each intern chooses another area to assist the organization.
When we invite young people to assist with fundraising, we initiate them by encouraging them to attend a few seminars at the Foundation Center in New York. Here they learn the value of philanthropy in a democratic society; transparency and accountability; access to accurate information; and, the responsible and effective use of resources.
Additionally, interns learn fundraising techniques, proposal writing, nonprofit management and how to use tools and resources towards effective fundraising.
We are currently working towards developing and strengthening the grassroots fundraising skills of our young interns focusing on building capacity to raise money through individuals interested in issues of poverty, disease, hunger and earth changes. We combine practical, hands-on training and skill building with a fundraising approach that is not dependent on foundation funding, but a broad-base of individual donors to support our work.
Panel Discussions
MediaGlobal ongoing plans include organizing and hosting panel discussions for its young writers in the United Nations that will be open to members of the United Nations Correspondents Association and other journalists in the New York City area. Topics will focus on independent media development and communications as a means of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Speakers will comprise of United Nations officials, journalists, non-governmental organizations and experts from academia.
Panel discussions will be coupled with structured networking sessions comprised of professional journalists, employers of media organizations, journalism funders, and fellowship administrators invited to meet MediaGlobal’s correspondents to discuss career opportunities and professional considerations.
Mentorship
Through our partners at the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme and the media and NGO community in New York and Washington, MediaGlobal will offer roundtable discussion sessions once every month to our young journalists on development and MDG-related issues.
The intern correspondents will be expected to be mentors in their own communities. MediaGlobal will help them set up times to discuss the MDGs, the importance of the media, and youth writing opportunities in local high schools, and to organize panel discussions for community and student audiences.
In the long term, MediaGlobal will provide support to alumnii of the Young Writers Initiative to implement capacity building training programmes in their native communities outside of New York. Once MediaGlobal has sustainable funding for its core programs, this will become a part of its contract with trainees.
Long Term Programs
Women Correspondents
MediaGlobal has identified a need to address the disparity between the international media coverage of the ten least developed countries that rank the lowest on the Human Development Index. Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Sierra Leone are the least developed and most vulnerable countries in the world. These countries have the poorest citizens and less access to education and healthcare than the rest of the world, yet there is a fundamental lack of media coverage addressing the problems facing these countries.
MediaGlobal will broaden the range of news it offers through its newswires to include unique news coverage from correspondents writing from within the least developed countries. African journalists, particularly women, in each of the 10 least developed countries identified will be invited to participate at the United Nations in our training programme. These journalists on completion of their training will return to their respective countries and provide MediaGlobal with interviews, breaking news stories, and reporting on grassroots development activities. It is vital to the timeliness and accuracy of the coverage that MediaGlobal includes correspondents reporting directly from the least developed countries. With field correspondents, MediaGlobal will be in the position to present the most current news coverage to subscribers as well as a more balanced view of the real life challenges and successes of the people in the least developed countries. With an UN-based training program, we expect these development journalists from developing countries to report with accuracy and awareness of the constraints that make the people of these countries vulnerable.