UNESCO Supports Strategies for Diversification African News Agencies
01-08-2003 ()
UNESCO in cooperation with the Zambia News Agency and the country’s National Commission for UNESCO will from 11 to 15 August 2003 organise a workshop on "News Agencies Diversification Strategies" in Zambia's capital Lusaka for participants from Botswana; Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and the host Zambia.
The aim of the event is to develop a forward-looking strategy that would enable national news collection and dissemination institutions to anticipate the inevitable changes in their operations, to adapt to the changed news dissemination environment and to propose strategies for a more credible news collection and dissemination framework.
At the end of the workshop it is expected that diversification strategies would be developed and the report distributed widely in Africa to facilitate the sharing of experience and cross-fertilisation of ideas.
Established at the dawn of independence in the majority of the developing countries, with legislative monopolies for news collection and often also for the distribution of internationally produced wire services, national news agencies have seen their positions eroded and even their raison d'être increasingly questioned.
A situation has arisen today whereby national news agencies must adapt to a changed news collection and distribution environment and explore other possibilities to enhance their roles in national media landscapes.
Several African news agencies have already been forced to close down their operations and others are in the throes of imminent demise.
Some agencies are desperately trying to privatise without, however, questioning the nature of their operations and services and also being unsure about their future survival in an increasingly fierce competitive and commercial news distribution environment.
UNESCO, which in the early 80’s and 90’s was at the heart of various activities to strengthen news collection and distribution particularly in Africa, today seeks to promote a professional reflection on the role of national news agencies in a completely changed news collection and distribution environment.
Apart from the technological implications, necessitating more and more powerful computers and other telecommunication equipment, (which the poor countries cannot afford) it is the very concept of the national news agency that today needs to be studied.
"The issue is what kind of news collection and distribution mechanisms should countries promote and encourage? Should news be seen simply as a commercial commodity with the market determining what can be produced and sold?" asks Gervasio Kaliwo of UNESCO's Communication Development Division.
The collection and dissemination of news also need to be studied within the broader framework of freedom of expression and of access to information that need not necessarily negate the fundamental prerequisites to collect and distribute nationally and internationally credible, backgrounded information.
Closely related to the foregoing is the notion of pluralism of information sources. The new communication and information technologies have both beneficial and harmful effects on societies and individuals. It is unlikely that those with fewer resources will enjoy the full benefits of the new communication technologies thus the concept of pluralism of information within countries will be weakened subsequently endangering democracy itself.
In an increasingly inter-dependent world, the global dissemination of news should also wholly embrace the cultural, educational, scientific functions of journalism. This has become particularly urgent given the apparent commercialisation of news items and the perceptible desire to seek the lowest common denominator in news content.
It is against this background that UNESCO within the framework of its Approved Programme and Budget has decided to encourage a small group of African experts and media professionals to discuss the above issues.
At the end of the workshop it is expected that diversification strategies would be developed and the report distributed widely in Africa to facilitate the sharing of experience and cross-fertilisation of ideas.
Established at the dawn of independence in the majority of the developing countries, with legislative monopolies for news collection and often also for the distribution of internationally produced wire services, national news agencies have seen their positions eroded and even their raison d'être increasingly questioned.
A situation has arisen today whereby national news agencies must adapt to a changed news collection and distribution environment and explore other possibilities to enhance their roles in national media landscapes.
Several African news agencies have already been forced to close down their operations and others are in the throes of imminent demise.
Some agencies are desperately trying to privatise without, however, questioning the nature of their operations and services and also being unsure about their future survival in an increasingly fierce competitive and commercial news distribution environment.
UNESCO, which in the early 80’s and 90’s was at the heart of various activities to strengthen news collection and distribution particularly in Africa, today seeks to promote a professional reflection on the role of national news agencies in a completely changed news collection and distribution environment.
Apart from the technological implications, necessitating more and more powerful computers and other telecommunication equipment, (which the poor countries cannot afford) it is the very concept of the national news agency that today needs to be studied.
"The issue is what kind of news collection and distribution mechanisms should countries promote and encourage? Should news be seen simply as a commercial commodity with the market determining what can be produced and sold?" asks Gervasio Kaliwo of UNESCO's Communication Development Division.
The collection and dissemination of news also need to be studied within the broader framework of freedom of expression and of access to information that need not necessarily negate the fundamental prerequisites to collect and distribute nationally and internationally credible, backgrounded information.
Closely related to the foregoing is the notion of pluralism of information sources. The new communication and information technologies have both beneficial and harmful effects on societies and individuals. It is unlikely that those with fewer resources will enjoy the full benefits of the new communication technologies thus the concept of pluralism of information within countries will be weakened subsequently endangering democracy itself.
In an increasingly inter-dependent world, the global dissemination of news should also wholly embrace the cultural, educational, scientific functions of journalism. This has become particularly urgent given the apparent commercialisation of news items and the perceptible desire to seek the lowest common denominator in news content.
It is against this background that UNESCO within the framework of its Approved Programme and Budget has decided to encourage a small group of African experts and media professionals to discuss the above issues.
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