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03/2003
  

New tasks for the InWEnt Institute of Journalism

Reporting in the service of democracy

Werner Eggert

The InWEnt International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) is to expand its work significantly. Besides imparting craftsmanship skills, the training courses for journalists from around the world will also convey other content to a much greater degree than before. For that the IIJ will use much more the know-how of other InWEnt divisions. Also new is a course in online media and a summer academy for media trainees and newcomers to the profession.


Freedom of expression and the Press provides transparency and promotes participation. Hence it is an important instrument in driving ahead democratic and economic development. Great importance is once again being attached to this perception in the current debate on development policy. The World Bank devoted a whole chapter of its World Development Report for 2002 to the role of the media, and subsequently published the special report "The Right to Tell". World Bank President James Wolfensohn wrote in it: "The freedom of the Press is the core of a just development." And Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winner in economics, said: "The right to freedom of expression increases the probability that the basic needs of the people will be satisfied." The experts in the BMZ share this view.

Freedom of expression and the Press, however, needs functioning mass media. This applies to the developing countries as well. And well-trained journalists are in turn a precondition for functioning mass media. It is precisely that to which the IJJ is committed. Founded in 1962, the Institute is the oldest of all such training centres in Germany. The IIJ began in a small way. It is now an internationally recognised institution equipped with state-of-the-art technology. Its work focuses on advanced training of newspaper and news agency journalists. Many thousands of journalists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, and recently also from Southeastern Europe, have attended the courses in Germany and abroad. The graduates form a strong network. Many former students have done well in their careers and become editors-in-chief, others have founded their own newspapers, and some have risen to top government positions.


Growing demand in Asia and Africa

The IIJ is part of InWEnt and financed mainly from BMZ funds. InWEnt has taken account of the growing importance of the media in the development process by increasing the Institute's staff at the beginning of this year. That means its work is being adjusted, expanded and restructured to conform to the changed media landscape. The IIJ is thus reacting to a growing demand from Asia and Africa, where the diverse newspaper landscape that arose in the wake of the political upheavals of the 1990s is struggling with many structural problems.

In the past, the IIJ placed great importance on the craftsmanship skills of the course participants. In future, there will be greater focus on advanced training on fundamental content. For journalists in many developing countries still lack command of basic journalistic techniques, How do I write a newspaper report that the readers will understand? How do I carry out an interesting interview? How do I research sensitive information? How should I as Editor-in-Chief manage my colleagues? The IIJ aims to satisfy the demand for this content even further.

Equally, these journalists lack know-how in terms of substance. What is the context of the news? What is the background? What are the likely impacts? This is where the IIJ will expand its offer, such as for reporters on business affairs and the environment, or further develop and supplement its offer of courses on reporting on HIV/AIDS. For organisations in some transition countries, this knowledge transfer is so important that they pay for the IIJ's services.

True, the IIJ cannot turn journalists without specialist training into economists or biologists. But they learn to ask the right questions and sort out the answers in a sensible way. Only so will informed readers take the Press seriously, and less-educated ones not be misled. The IIJ's advanced training will become more political, and the journalists sensitised to goals such as poverty reduction, environmental protection, promotion of democracy and preserving the peace.


Networking with other institutions

A key IIJ concept is networking. Once a year, the IIJ management meets other German actors in developmental media work to compare notes on the latest trends in the sector. This so-called 'clearing' is supplemented by a 'clearing' newsletter that the IIJ has published since the beginning of this year. On content, the IIJ's advanced training of journalists will network more strongly with other InWEnt departments: Development Policy Forum, Good Governance, and Environment and Social Development. The IIJ will in future use this InWEnt know-how in its training courses. Decision-makers in developing countries can learn at InWEnt how to take good decisions. In turn, journalists learn at the IIJ how the Press can inform the people about these decisions and at the same time monitor the decision-makers.

Together with other InWEnt departments, the IIJ will also focus on media subjects going beyond the advanced training of journalists. For instance, InWEnt last year organised in Cologne a much noted and high-calibre discussion event with editors-in-chief, managers and leading academics on the subject of "Media, Conflict and Terrorism". In April the topic will be "Media and Democracy". Besides advanced training of journalists, the IIJ sees exchanges of views between decision-makers as an important building block of a strategy to improve quality in the media.

The IIJ also aims to network with schools of journalism in Germany and other European countries. At the initiative of the IIJ, a network of various European institutions that promote journalists in developing countries came into being last year. Besides the IIJ, advanced training institutions in Britain, Denmark, Spain and Switzerland are participating. In addition, Belgian, French, Finnish, Netherlands and Norwegian institutions have announced they will send representatives to the next meeting in September. The aim is together to evaluate experiences and agree on future programmes in order to make them more efficient.

Close cooperation with German schools of journalism is planned in establishing the new advanced training in multimedia. Combining the specialist experience that the German online editorial teaching departments have gathered and the intercultural and developmental competence of the IIJ, a high-quality curriculum is now being developed. The background to this training is the growing Internet-driven convergence of print and audio-visual media. In the final analysis it will offer more than pure training in online media, which often merely translate traditional media to the Internet. The new training course is in reaction to a strong demand from developing countries, where online editorial departments are arising on a large scale. This demand comes not only from established media, but also from NGOs that want to use the new medium for their own purposes. With the aid of the Internet, concepts such as freedom of expression and participation gain new relevance, especially in African or Asian countries. The IIJ will organise an initial workshop on this subject at the end of this year in connection with the UN Summit on the World Information Society in Geneva.


Summer Academy for trainees

Another innovation, the IIJ Summer Academy, will make its debut in July. Whereas traditionally the Institute has made its offer to journalists with several years' experience, the Academy will address media trainees and students at schools of journalism. In a four-week course the young talent will learn the fundamental concepts of journalism. What have the powers of the managerial hierarchies and the owners in the media to do with the freedom of the Press? Are there limits to its freedom? Why do we need journalistic ethics? As a journalist, what responsibility do I bear for fair reporting? A second section covers the relevance of media and journalists to development. Why is it that a free Press promotes development? What is the connection? Is what Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz asserts at all true? For instance, can corruption be stemmed by free reporting?

Reflections on such subjects will be a focus of the Summer Academy. The IIJ expects them to make a sustainable impression on the young participants in the sense of responsible and critical journalism. The World Bank report "The Right to Tell" emphasises the particular importance of ethical standards in journalism. For instance, just as the media can contribute to violence and war with one-sided and stereotyped reports, so also can they engender understanding and peace with balanced reports and background articles. In almost all civil wars of the last decade it was seen how journalists allowed themselves to be instrumentalised for the purposes of the warmongers. The Summer Academy is to make them more resistant to such pressure.

The 25 participants will come from all continents, and unlike in other IIJ courses German and other European candidates can apply to attend. The prerequisite is an upcoming completion of a media traineeship or of study at a school of journalism, or at least two years' professional experience. Bringing together participants from the North and South – that is what the IIJ calls networking.

Werner Eggert, InWEnt International Institute of Journalism.