Nottingham connected
Such ecosystems exhibit pluralism
in
content,
ownership
and
constituency, and demonstrate
ethical behaviour standards and
practices as well as professional
quality journalism.
In our context, a sustainable media
ecosystem is desirable.
Journalists need to feel safe
and free to ply their trade. Close
collaboration with governments
in the region to guarantee a
conducive
environment
for
journalists is mandatory. We need
to pay attention to the quality
of journalism being practised by
working closely with journalists,
editors, media owners, media
training institutions and media
regulatory agencies.
Principally, we need to support
alternative media outlets to
disseminate critical media content,
especially where media capture by
political and commercial interests
is as pervasive as it is in East Africa.
This has generally been on account
of ownership. For instance in
Kenya, a 2012 Internews study on
media ownership established that
politicians and their associates own
or have controlling stakes in a large
number of media outlets in Kenya.
issues affecting specific media
ecosystems, and the desire to
influence media content and
advocate for specific issues – civic
education on gender, governance,
democracy, human rights, HIV/AIDS
and other health issues, livelihoods,
security, and sector reforms.
Success in this approach is seen from
the number of articles published
and the number of journalists
trained. The sustainability of such
initiatives is never on the cards,
leading us to believe that such
efforts are short-term in nature.
Though useful, this kind of support
is geared towards developing a
media adept at articulating such
issues and strengthening only one
aspect of the media system.
In Kenya, considerable investments
have been dedicated to the training
of journalists to become better
subject matter specialists – data,
science, health and investigative
journalists.
Other philanthropists have focused
on supporting the establishment
of media outlets, especially
community media in Kenya, while
others have focused on the safety
and protection of journalists.
This ownership largely increases the
extent of political influence in those
outlets’ management and content.
This is prevalent in registered
community media outlets especially
where such politicians assure the
financing of such stations.
Commercial interests, on the other
hand, ensure that ‘negative content’
on large corporates is censored.
Corporates have been known to
pull advertisements from media
houses that run ‘negative’ content,
hence further limiting their
independence.
Unfortunately, based on our
experience with philanthropists,
a holistic approach to media
development seems to be the one
least desired by most of them,
largely due to limited resources,
inadequate knowledge of key
A snapshot of newspapers in
Kenya
Though well meaning, these
efforts are mostly short-term in
nature, opportunistic, disjointed,
at times duplicate other efforts
and in some instances don’t
reflect an understanding of the
root challenges facing the media
ecosystem especially in Kenya.
For instance, it is not unusual to
find one journalist being trained
by five different organizations
in data, health or science
Community
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journalism. Rarely does one find a
coordinated effort to ensure that
media houses and not just the
individual journalist have a better
grasp of cutting-edge issues in
such subjects.
Consequently, we have noted
an over-supply of low-quality
training for journalists and an
under-supply of support to
smaller media players, together
with a lack of sustainability of
media development initiatives in
Kenya. It is our contention that
philanthropists need to start
paying attention to the aspects of
the media ecosystem where their
support can be most effective.
Having implemented sector-wide
media development programmes
in Kenya and Tanzania we have
learned
that
philanthropy-
backed journalism that solely
focuses on one aspect of the
media ecosystem is unlikely to
be effective in the long run since
addressing the structural issues
facing the sector takes a long time
and requires more resources.
Although at times successful,
support to ‘quality media content
production’ is often unsustainable,
especially in a fast-changing
media context. Thus, support to
journalism and media in general is
meaningful when philanthropists
collaborate to support a long-term
sustainable media ecosystem.
Anthony Wafula is regional
programme manager, trans-
parency, accountability and
freedom of expression, Hivos Hub
East Africa.
Email [email protected]
Mendi Njonjo is regional director,
Hivos Hub East Africa. Email
[email protected] This article
by Anthony Wafula and Mendi
Njonjo was originally published
by Alliance magazine on 5
December 2017. The original
article can be found here. For
more philanthropy and social
investment coverage, please visit
www.alliancemagazine.org.