Report: Confronting the Crisis in Independent Media: A Role for International Assistance

The report published by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) and authored by Nicholas Benequista is based on the premise that independent media around the world are in crisis and asks the fundamental question: What is the role of international donors and private foundations in this situation?

It  analyzes how these international actors can provide effective support when the driving forces behind independent media’s decline—simultaneously technological, financial, social, political, and institutional—are so complex and difficult to disentangle.

This report argues that complexity is no excuse for inaction. Solutions to this crisis will require that political agency rise to the daunting level of the challenge, and that the structures of international cooperation—forged as the global response to World War II—are now put into motion to safeguard the foundations of independent media.

Based on input from media actors, freedom of expression activists, implementers, and donors, the report puts forward three interrelated objectives that, if achieved, would help to international cooperation in the media sector.

1.  Build the high-level political will and donor capacity needed to increase support to the media sector

2.  Strengthen approaches to international cooperation focused on the development of media sector institutions

3.  Enhance the effectiveness of media sector support by making it more demand-driven and coordinated

Read the report online or download it from CIMA website.