Media Missionaries was limited in scope. It focused largely on efforts by American governmental agencies, newspaper and broadcast groups, foundations and other nonprofits from the early 1980s to 2001. The report analyzed how they supported and developed independent journalism first in Latin America, and then in the former Communist countries after 1989, moving geographically to the same regions that attracted U.S. foreign policy interest. The Africa section of the report was written by Joan Mower, formerly of the Freedom Forum and currently with the International Board of Broadcasters. The report also contained summaries of media development in Asia and the Middle East.
“As a general rule, U.S. media development efforts, particularly by the U.S. government, continue to shadow U.S. foreign policy.”
Media Missionaries included advice for would-be media developers. The "Fifteen Commandments of Media Development" best practice section was based on the experience of practitioners from USAID, Internews, IREX, the Knight Fellowships, SEAPA, the International Center for Journalists, OSI, and others. USAID also contributed a related report in 2003, Media Assistance: Best Practices and Priorities (PN-ACR-754) (Washington, DC: Hume, E.) reflecting a meeting convened at USAID of key U.S. government and NGO media developers. The American NGOs and US government contributions were estimated in Media Missionaries to have been about $600 million cumulatively since 1989, but that estimate was conservative due to the lack of specific data from the development organizations and funders. The U.S. developers’ contributions to date may actually be significantly higher. As a general rule, U.S. media development efforts, particularly by the U.S. government, continue to shadow U.S. foreign policy priorities. Thus there is more U.S. government and non-governmental funding for media development now in the post-9/11 Middle East and Asia, for example, than there was when Media Missionaries was written.
MEDIA MATTERS SECTION 4: Mapping the Sector: Literature, Surveys and Resources
Media Missionaries is available as a PDF on the author’s website (www.ellenhume.com) and includes an appendix of selected media development organizations and individuals, with contact information.
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Fortunately, the Knight Foundation followed with a complementary survey of Non-U.S. Funders of Media Assistance Projects by Lee B. Becker and Tudor Vlad at the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia (December, 2005). The report is available at http://www.grady.uga.edu/coxcenter/knight.htm. This valuable roadmap found that at least 70 organizations in 25 donor countries outside the United States were involved in media assistance projects totaling an estimated $1 billion annually. The Non-U.S. Funders report included an updatable database that should prove invaluable to those assessing the field. Media Missionaries should also be revised and converted into an updatable online database of current development projects and contacts. Another resource that continually provides new information is a website produced by the International Center for Journalists, featuring breaking news about media training events and other aspects of international journalism development. It is IJNet.org at http://www.ijnet.org/FE_Article/home.asp. Both Knight Foundation reports relied heavily on work by Monroe Price, together with various colleagues at Yeshiva University and the Oxford Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy. Price’s report, Mapping Media Assistance, analyzed how international media development work was structured. It is available as a PDF at http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/archive/MappingMediaAssistance.pdf Krishna Kumar, a USAID official who has personally evaluated many of USAID’s media development projects, recently published Promoting Independent Media: Strategies for Democracy Promotion. (Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), which is an important scholarly contribution to the field. In addition to discussing the evolution of the media development sector, the