Type: Blog Post
By Lamii Kpargoi Over the last two decades, many African countries have progressed from repressive governance, including suppressing dissenting opinion, to democracy, opening some space for freedom of expression. Thirteen countries, including Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeri...

Type: Blog Post
In Brazil, ownership of media outlets like television and radio stations by politicians has been a long-running concern since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. Civil society groups have complained that politicians have used their media clout to discourage criticism and to promote positiv...

Type: Blog Post
Building political support for media is an essential piece of the development puzzle because, as a new report by the International Forum for Democratic Studies puts it,  “Independent media are essential for determining the success or failure of government programs and assessing actual conditions ...

Type: Blog Post
Today is International Democracy Day: Thoughts on media’s role in democratic institutions We’ve known for a long time that independent news media is a crucial ingredient in the mix of policies, institutions and political behaviors that make democracy work. And we’ve seen concrete ...

Type: Event
Media is deeply intertwined within our political cultures, yet the broader development community often approaches media reform as if it were a technical problem that can be solved through training and technical assistance. What does it mean for media development practitioners to engage politically, ...

Type: Blog Post
Tidiani Togola is a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. The views expressed here are his own. Most of the press professionals in Mali learn on the job. They have not benefited from any structured or adequate training. This has an impact both on the quality of t...

Type: Blog Post
CIMA Launches Media Development Support Donor SurveyProject by Tara Susman-Peña and Tom Lansner CIMA is launching a Media Development Support Donor Survey to identify donor priorities and trends and to help paint a broad picture of the support landscape. CIMA will publish a series of summaries of d...

Type: Blog Post
There are three things you need to know about the negotiations over the United Nations’ next set of global development goals, which will be adopted by world leaders at the General Assembly this September and remain in effect for the next 15 years: Almost everybody agrees that the proposed 17 Susta...

Type: Blog Post
False facts are a problem everywhere; In developing countries, they’re devastating Accusations of inaccuracies in the news media are nothing new. After all, American journalism went through its infamous “yellow” period at the end of the 19th century when invented stories helped drive the US to...

Type: Blog Post
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” –Attributed by Mark Twain to Benjamin Disraeli I once heard a reporter just back from a foreign assignment grumble as she puzzled over exchange rates for her travel expense report: “I went into journalism because I was t...