“I am glad to have read ‘Next steps for the WTO’ in our local daily. It's catching! This is the kind of information we desire to have in our country - Uganda - if we are to locate global trade negotiations and communicate to the grassroots.” Civil society observer
information with the public on issues such as trade or at other times, due to resource constraints faced by government officials themselves. Weak journalism skills may hinder journalists’ ability to pursue stories and at times, in difficult political environments, an element of self-censorship may constrain pursuit of the full story. Third, analytical skills and the means to locate events in an international context are a key weakness identified by Panos and journalists. Time and again the journalists supported by Panos acknowledge that the development of a broader view is the most important benefit they have derived from fellowships, resources and briefing materials, training opportunities and international commissions. By this they mean the assistance they were given to make the link to the international context on the one hand and to link international decision-making to local events on the other. After attendance at WSIS one journalist said ‘... For someone whose workday routine is largely about hardcore IT developments, the WSIS was invaluable to put a human face on technology …indeed the briefings were critical to enable this.’ Another, having undertaken a Panos fellowship at the G8 summit said, ‘I think I have improved my capacity of writing and of finding themes and ways of writing that are of interest….I learned to look at matters in a broader perspective and how to relate day-to-day issues that concern Africans with international politics.’
Meanwhile, some international NGOs warned developing country governments against being swayed by supposed ‘media spin’ said to be part of political pressure orchestrated by major powers in the WTO to rush developing countries into acceptance of what they claim to be a bad deal for development. They provided their own press releases to provide an alternative view. When public relations battles are fought in the media, journalists need finely honed skills to work through the barrage of ‘information’ they receive. As many of the developing country journalists covering these issues will not necessarily be specialists in such subjects, the challenge is even greater to read between the lines. As Kenyan journalist, John Kamau, said of the G8 discussions, ‘I learned it is important to question every statement and pronouncement by world leaders or politicians and to read beyond the face value as the confusion over the deal at Gleneagles exemplified.’
36 Quoted in Montreal, 5 June 2006, The international Economic Forum of the Americas on the topic of “Partnership and Global Prosperity”
From another perspective, however, some journalists have questioned whether the media’s role, while positive for public transparency, is helpful to what they see as the need for effective global decision-making. Guy de Jonquieres, columnist in the UK’s Financial Times, has argued that the world’s media, while serving demands for public transparency, has itself been a barrier to progress in reaching agreement in the Doha trade negotiations. Referring to the negotiation statement reached at the 2005 Hong Kong world trade summit, and the rising demands on the WTO to accommodate a growing range of public expectations from its role, he wrote... ‘Once upon a time, trade negotiations were conducted between a few consenting adults behind closed doors. Today they are everyone’s business, plastered across television screens, newspapers and websites and fuelling activists’ campaigns...Constant exposure to television cameras is unlikely
MEDIA MATTERS SECTION 3: Challenges in Media Matters: Practitioner Experiences
The next challenge facing journalists is to understand and maintain critical independence from the various actors and lobbies attempting to influence media coverage. The WTO’s Doha trade negotiations have reflected these pressures. On one side, for example, the WTO director-general, Pascal Lamy, has complained that the media has concentrated on the negative effects of trade 36 liberalisation and not covered sufficiently its purported positive benefits.
158