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 3 May 2010 Indaba Room, CIVICUS House, 31 Quinn Street, Newtown, Johannesburg
Hosted by Inter-Press Service, GCAP South Africa and the National Welfare Forum
A brief perspective
NGOs often bemoan the lack of regular mainstream media coverage for the crucial development work they perform on a daily basis. There is also a sense that crucial issues such as financing for such work, only make mainstream news when there is a crisis of sorts and the typical coverage focuses on government failures rather than the value-add aspect of NGO work. Even established and successful NGO based media organisations such as IPS struggle to get mainstream coverage for the issues they write about. On the face of it, there appears to be large-scale ignorance of the role NGOs play in society and the value they add to the human development landscape.
GCAP-SA partners, IPS Africa and the National Welfare Forum (NWF) decided to address this situation through a series of robust dialogue sessions between media and civil society. World Press Freedom Day was chosen as an appropriate day to mark the start of this series of dialogues between media and civil society aimed at unlocking the value of NGOs, gaining insight into untold stories and learning opportunities to ensure that the news fairly reflects the lives of the people NGOs serve.
Dialogue One – Setting an agenda
The event drew a mix of organisations from media and civil society
though mainstream media presence at the event was far short of the
expectations of the organisers. One hack present suggested that an early
Monday morning start was probably not the best idea to attract
journalists and TV crews, though we did manage to eventually get some
attention from the ETV, 24 hour news channel, so at the end of the day,
the event did achieve at least one of its objectives.
Presentations
GCAP- South Africa
In the absence of Mr. Jimmy Gotyana, President of SANGOCO, who was
delayed due to ill weather, GCAP-SA Convener Rajesh Latchman opened the
dialogue session and welcomed the participants. This was followed by
participant introductions. Latchman then commenced with the first
presentation on the role of civil society in the context of national
development. He mentioned the importance of the work of civil society
and the role that this work has in nation building and addressing
poverty and inequality in South Africa.
GCAP Media Tool Kit
GCAP- SA presented the media toolkit developed by the global coalition
for the annual Stand Up and Take Action mobilisation. Last year over 173
million people across the world and more than two million in South
Africa participated in Stand Up 09, making it one of the largest social
mobilisation events in the world. The presenter urged delegates to
review the toolkit and provide feedback on any gaps and opportunities
for improvements for the 2010 mobilisation drive. In particular, media
representatives were asked to provide feedback on the sections that
pertained to them and how we could make the tools much more appealing to
the mainstream media for greater coverage of this mass mobilisation
event.
The site for Stand Up 09 in South Africa is www.mzansi.org.za/standup
The GCAP Media Toolkit can be found
here:http://www.whiteband.org/Action/take-action/gcap-mobilisation-2009/standup-2009/stand-up-take-action-media-toolkit-2009.doc/view
MDG South Africa Country Review Report 2010
GCAP-SA Coordinator, Watson Hamunakwadi briefly described the MDG review
process for South Africa, highlighting how NGOs can provide input and
take a participatory role in developing the report. Hamunakwadi reported
on planned dialogue sessions between civil society and Statistics South
Africa (Stats SA), who have been tasked by government to coordinate the
report development process and present the final product to government
by June this year. He emphasised the need for the media to apply a focus
to the process and raise questions about the lack of civil society
involvement in the report preparation process.
IPS- Africa
Abdullah Vawda, Marketing Manager for IPS Africa introduced the role of
IPS in bringing the work of civil society to the attention of mainstream
media audience by using various resources, including dedicated
journalists working throughout the African continent. This work has
brought relevance to the stories of the sector and developed a wealth of
partnerships with mainstream and local media. Vawda re-iterated that
while much had been achieved in bringing stories to life in the
mainstream media, there was still much work to be done.
IPS – Gender Tool Kit Launch
Vawda presented the toolkit developed by IPS and local NGOs as means to
help the mainstream media professionals develop greater insight into
gender issues in the media context. The toolkit is also useful for NGOs
working with gender issues as it outlines several options for gaining
maximum value out of local and mainstream media. Copies of the toolkit
are available from Abdullah Vawda on the contact details below.
SANGOCO partnership with NWF
The weather having lifted, SANGOCO President, Jimmy Gotyana joined the
dialogue and presented the new partnership between SANGOCO and NWF on
programmatic and operational areas, highlighting the need for a more
coordinated civil society representation in several spheres, including
government and in the media. He welcomed the dialogue session as “a
catalyst to energise the way we engage with the media for the benefit of
the people we serve”. You can read more about this working relationship
here:
http://www.ngopulse.org/press-release/south-africa-s-leading-ngo-coalitions-tie-knot
Learning and Experiences
Participants then divided themselves into two equal groups with a
balance of media and NGO individuals in each group. The facilitator
emphasised that the key objective was to have a robust dialogue, to ask
questions, to learn from each and to make sure we had each taken the
time to try and understand the viewpoint of the “other side”.
The dialogue was seeded with the following questions by the
facilitators:
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The work NGOs deliver often contains amazing human-interest stories,
why do these stories not make it to the front page of the large
newspapers?
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What can NGOs do to make their work much more newsworthy?
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Why is it that work on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which
have a direct correlation to South Africa’s current service delivery
protests a low value news item?
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How do key civil society figures gain access to mainstream media
commentary on poverty and inequality issues?
Key Outcomes
The key outcomes of the two groups engaged in the dialogue of almost two
hours are listed below.
Relationships with media
Civil society organisations need to take the time develop personal
relationships with media beyond emails and telephone calls.
Ongoing relations will foster bi-lateral understanding on development
issues and assist clearer understanding for both parties.
As a start, the focus should be on community media platforms that have
less commercial emphasis and over time, working towards permanence in
the mainstream media.
Enhancing commercial value
The commercial value of developmental stories is not inherently explicit
to the media. The context within which the stories are developed is not
apparently useful enough for commercialisation. Civil society has a
responsibility to understand the commercial value underpinning the work
of the media. Journalists and media professionals suggested the
following ideas to move forward:
Piggyback on media frenzy issues – issues press statements to key media
houses on a regular basis.
Note the current issues and engage with the writers of the story – take
the time to think through what the linkages and new angles are.
Develop stories, which will have gravitas by:
Make sure there is a person in the story to ensure a good human-interest
element for the media.
Getting support from a noteworthy patron/speaker
Getting support from a larger organisation with more prominence and a
media history.
Utilise their websites to publish stories with current media relevance.
Getting to work
IPS-Africa and GCAP-SA also committed to develop a list of interested
media organisations and individuals who can be called upon to promote
the sectors stories and commentary within their spheres of influence.
IPS- Africa also committed to send out a basic media toolkit for all
participating CSOs and at least two journalists agreed to review the
toolkit to make sure it meets the needs of large media enterprises.
Going Forward, Together
Being a relatively small number of people in total, the dialogue session
provided an opportunity for a richness of content that we cannot hope
to be captured in a short meeting report. The inaugural session was
indeed a success and a good starting point for further engagement both
within the NGO sector and amongst the larger media community. Future
sessions will draw more mainstream media presence, given that the people
who did attend have been able to see that civil society is not just
shouting about being “left out” but also taking steps to up it’s own
game. Participants also committed to attend further dialogues to
continue to learn and enrich the way they engage both as media and NGOs.
NGOs and media organisations interested in setting up similar provincial
dialogues and attending future national dialogues are encouraged to
speak to either Abdullah Vawda or Watson Hamunakwadi on the contact
details below.
Contact details
Inter-Press Service Africa www.ips.org
Telephone: 011 325 2861 Email:
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National Welfare Forum www.forum.org.za
Telephone: 011 838 0690 Email:
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GCAP South Africa http://www.whiteband.org/regions/africa/zaf
Telephone: 011 838 0690 Email:
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or
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You can view pictures of the event on the Making Mzansi Better Facebook
Fan Page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Making-Mzansi-Better/14816882261
You do NOT need to sign up to see the fan page; it is an open public
page
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all participants for their contributions to this
dialogue.
Dr. Jackie Loffell for the initial idea to explore ways to engage the
media more productively.
Abdullah Vawda and Watson Hamunakwadi for the preparations for the event
and making sure it actually happened!
Meeting Participants
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Name
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Surname |
Organisation (Alphabetical) |
Email |
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Oluwakorede
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Asuni
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CIVICUS
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Cindy
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Dzanya
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Community
Media For Development
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Marvin
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Raftopoulos
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Epiphany
Media
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Serusha
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Govender
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E tv
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Barbara
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Lancaster
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Frederic
Place
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Jackie
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Loffell
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Gauteng
Welfare Forum
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Caitlin
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Blaser
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GCAP Global
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Watson
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Hamunakwadi
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GCAP
South Africa
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Julia
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Plessing
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German
Development Society
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Adli
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Jacobs
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IAJ:
Print Media
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Les
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Sanabria
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National
Health and Welfare Council
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Rajesh
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Latchman
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National
Welfare Forum
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Thato
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Modise
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National
Welfare Forum
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Ismail
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Variawa
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Radio
Islam
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Butjwana
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Seokoma
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SANGONeT
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Daniel
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Prah
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South
African National NGO Coalition
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Jimmy
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Gotyana
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South
African National NGO Coalition
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Samuel
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Baka
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South
African National NGO Coalition
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Tshepo
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Legodi
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Southern
African Youth Movement
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Isobel
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Frye
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Studies
in Poverty and Inequality Institute
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Kendall
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Petersen
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Wits
University
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