International NGO workers can be the new foreign correspondents
So, first we should sum up:
It doesn’t look good for the future of newspapers or even international news channels.
Foreign correspondents numbers are dwindling.
Budget cutting and churnalism makes it’s preferable for media to believe official sources and reproduce them accordingly.
And then we have NGOs:
People based in assorted hotspots often dealing day-to-day with the kind of problems and issues that will escalate to become “international incidents”.
People who are not only up-to-date with the issues but who understand the regions they are in.
People with opinions that are backed by a real knowledge of not only what is happening now but also how this point was reached.
People with access, as we all have, to easy-to-use publishing tools – from blogs to Twitter taking in embeddable videos and podcasting along the way.
People in marketing will tell you that all employees have marketing duties. That just got bigger – we’re all potential reporters too.
Key overseas development and aid workers should all be blogging and these blogs must be made available via the websites of their employers.
Then, the most important bit, their employers should have the media savvy to pull out the best bits and give them the profile they deserve.
Currently we have tools but not the ambition nor the understanding of the opportunities. Most NGOs recognise the value of blogging and YouTube and, if you’re lucky Twitter too. Their users are generating – but it’s frequently just information headed down a black hole.
NGOs international comms people need to be news editors. The department should be the news desk.
It’s not enough to be signing up to these tools. They should be trawling them for the good stuff that is of genuine interest and international importance and yes, for the words and pictures that promotes their viewpoint.
With all this information – they need news lists. What will be our lead story? Where are the picture stories? The human interest tales? Where are the funnies?
They need to keep one eye on the mainstream media – what might they be interested in? Where can get our people into the traditional media to gain wider exposure for the issues and incidents where we focus?
But also – how can NGOS effectively become their own newspapers? How can they start not only influencing news agendas but actually reach a position where they can set the agenda themselves?
For awareness, for advocacy, for fundraising, for profile.
If all you are doing is providing platforms then you aren’t doing enough. You are just generating information. Now you have to work out how to bring attention to it and share it.
How to engage.
Recognise where the stories are and where the interest lies and make them your splashes and page leads.
Then allow the general public to ask their own questions. Let them spread your stories. Interactivity and debate are your friends. Don’t worry about dissent – celebrate discussion.
Follow those official sources too and see how they tally with your own. Compare and contrast where needed.
Point fingers at the uninformed and those with damaging self-serving agendas.
Be the watchdog that tells us all when the official line is manipulated or just plain wrong.
Our aid and development workers are now foreign correspondents.
Our NGO communications departments are news desks.
Our NGOs are international news channels.
This is all assuming that NGO’s don’t have private interests of their own. Aid is an industry, with an agenda. This is why many major news organizations won’t accept freelance submissions from foreign correspondents working with NGO’s. News is supposed to be unbiased (of course whether or not it actually IS, is another debate all together…) While NGO’s and aid workers certainly have a roll to play in communications, they can’t the last word on news.
As for the end of news papers, check out this TED talk if you haven’t already.
http://www.ted.com/talk
/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html
Firstly I think there are two issues here – a) what is good for the NGO and b) what is good for consumers of news and the people it affects.
This is good for NGOs. I have to admit that my piece was written from their point of view.
B) What is good for the consumers of news. Well, the status quo is awful. I live in a country that has been hovering on the edge of civil war for some time now and the international media doesn’t have a clue about it. Sooner or later it will happen and when the media finally gets here (if they can afford it) they’ll wonder how it got to this.
I quite agree that freelance submissions from people within NGOs should not be accepted. NGO workers shouldn’tbe freelancing – they should be providing their own content for the benefit of wider understanding – and yes – the benefit of their NGO.
It is another voice – a voice with an agenda but who doesn’t have an agenda?
Was just reading Flat Earth News and reached the quote where Andrew Neil then editor of the Sunday Times boasts of standing shoulder to shoulder with Thatcher and backing her all the way. What about Blair’s assorted deals with Murdoch?
What about 100% of all Murdoch’s news outlets across the world (and there are hundreds) being solidly and publicly in favour of the Iraq war despite the vast majority of their readers being against it.
What about newspapers with the non-dom owners reporting on tax havens and the financial crises? It’s all wrong and increasingly the media have been shown to have massive agendas of their own.
What about the BBC and the assorted information that repeatedly says that Palestine doesn’t get a fair deal in terms of reporting compared to Israel?
No one has no agenda.
I am not talking about the NGOs hijacking the news – I am talking about NGOs making a much wider contribution. We all have access to news from so many different sources now – NGOs should be a major one.
And if I want to know about water shortages in an African country then why shouldn’t Water Aid be my first stop? Or at least it should be the first stop for the media – and if Water Aid already has blogs or movies on the subject – why shouldn’t they be used?
It’s just another voice but NGOs should be working hard to increase their voice and considering the current budgetary situation within newspapers the opportunities are there.
Its a good argument and means to increase the supply of good quality information and writing coming out of developing countries. NGOs do need to get better (some, much better) at being “in” the social media space and not just dumping press releases onto it. And maybe not just NGOs either — I mean look at blogs.dfid.org.uk — really not a bad site.
Nevertheless, do you think that will increase the demand?
err that would be blogs.dfid.GOV.uk
One possible solution would be for the NGOs to finance their own combined ‘news agency’, which takes information from staff on the ground and outputs it in a format that news media can use.
The NGOs would still get some PR from the fact that it’s their eyewitness being quoted. And it’s in their interests to highlight the issues in the countries where they operate. But the ‘agency’ would have operational independence and wouldn’t merely be churning out stuff to match any single organisation’s PR plan. And the NGOs would still be able to reuse material for their own campaigning.
The key would be to ensure that decent news judgement prevailed, so that it would build a reputation as a valid supplier of news.