MDLF News and Events http://www.mdlf.org Media Development Loan Fund is a mission-driven investment fund for independent news outlets in countries with a history of media oppression. en-us Helping independent media stay independent in a digital world http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/316/Helping-independent-media-stay-independent-in-a-digital-world.htm op-ed for AlJazeera.com, MDLF Knowledge Bridge Editor and Digital Strategist Kevin Anderson explains why, with much of the world’s media in crisis, he is taking on a new challenge with MDLF: to help independent media in emerging democracies stay independent in a digital world.]]> 2012-04-25T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead Kevin Anderson joins MDLF http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/314/Kevin-Anderson-joins-MDLF.htm Kevin Anderson, journalist, journalism trainer and digital strategist, is joining MDLF to help lead our work assisting clients to make the digital transition.

Kevin will be Editor of the Knowledge Bridge, a blog, digital resource centre and newsletter – to be launched in May – that will capture the best in actionable digital business and editorial strategy for news media in the Majority World. He will also help identify clients’ wider digital capacity building needs and deliver targeted training.

After starting his journalism career in newspapers, Kevin shifted to digital journalism in 1996. In 1998, he became the first online journalist for the BBC outside of the US, based in the BBC's flagship Washington bureau. He joined The Guardian in 2006 as their first blogs editor. Two years later, he became digital research editor at the newspaper, helping identify and implement new technologies to support the newspaper's world-class journalism.

In March 2010 Kevin became an independent journalist and strategist. He has worked with journalists and news organisations around the world, including Al Jazeera and Reed Business Information, to prepare them for the digital future, while continuing his work in journalism, providing frequent comment on technology issues for the BBC and Al Jazeera.

Read Kevin’s blog post about why he is joining MDLF.
]]> 2012-04-10T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead Vijesti reporter attacked http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/313/Vijesti-reporter-attacked.htm Olivera Lakic, an investigative reporter with Montenegro’s only independent daily Vijesti, was attacked when she opened the door of her apartment building on the evening of 7 March 2012. Ms Lakic was hospitalized after an unidentified man hit her several times on the head.

This was not the first time that Ms Lakic has been targeted. In February 2011, Ms Lakic and her family received threats after she reported on the illegal labelling of tobacco products. Two men are currently on trial for making threats.

Vijesti and its staff, with whom MDLF has worked for more than a decade, have been subjected to threats and violence many times for their reporting activities, though most of these cases remain unsolved. These include:

  • In July and August 2011, four cars clearly marked as belonging to Vijesti were set on fire in three separate attacks.
  • In September 2010, Zeljko Ivanovic, one of Vijesti’s founders, and several other journalists received death threats by mail.
  • In August 2009, Mihailo Jovovic, editor of Vijesti, and Boris Pejovic, a photojournalist, were physically attacked by the mayor of Podgorica and his son while documenting their alleged illegal parking in town. The mayor's son threatened the journalist with a gun, and Mr Jovovic was treated in hospital for a head injury.
  • In September 2007, Mr Ivanovic was attacked by men with metal bars when he left a celebration for Vijesti’s 10th anniversary.

The US and German Ambassadors to Montenegro issued a joint statement condemning the attack, as did the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

]]> 2012-03-08T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead MDLF launches digital investment fund http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/309/MDLF-launches-digital-investment-fund.htm MDLF has launched an early-stage fund for digital news and information businesses, Digital News Ventures.

Digital News Ventures provides early-stage equity finance from $30,000 to $300,000 to entrepreneurs whose ideas can be used to provide news and information that is important to open societies or can help develop financially sustainable news businesses. Its goal is to foster innovative projects that will help change the way the world interacts with information.

Digital News Ventures is a global fund with a primary focus on projects located in, or with particular application to, emerging and frontier markets.

“Digital News Ventures invests in the future of news,” said Syed Karim, MDLF Director of Innovation and Digital Strategies. “By financing visionary media ideas, particularly in emerging and frontier markets, we will help foster innovation in news and information, and help create the platforms, tools and services that news businesses need to be viable in the digital age.”

Digital News Ventures is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MDLF, which has invested more than $113 million in 79 independent news companies in 27 countries since 1995. It backs up all of its debt and equity investments with strategic advice and business assistance.

“We have been active in the digital media space for 15 years and have financed some of the most respected and successful on-line news sites in the developing world, including Malaysiakini.com and South Africa's M&G On-line,” said MDLF CEO Harlan Mandel. “Digital News Ventures is the next evolution of our strategy to foster innovation in news and information. It extends the scope of our investments beyond news businesses to projects that can change the way people interact with information.”

Digital News Ventures invests in:

  • Innovative business models for producing credible news and information.
  • Platforms that generate and disseminate data and information constructed by the public.
  • Tools that help the editorial and content-creation process.
  • Services that help make sense of the onslaught of online information, including reporting on the social web.
  • Products that contribute to the viability of news operations.
  • Viable, independent digital news outlets, especially in frontier markets.

Find out more at digitalnewsventures.org.

]]> 2012-03-06T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead Express's future jeopardized by government threats http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/308/Express's-future-jeopardized-by-government-threats.htm Express's future. A court ruled against the newspaper in a case concerning the ownership of the company, ignoring a superior court judgment and legal precedent. Within hours of the judgment, officials offered to have the ruling overturned if Express would stop criticising the government in the run-up to elections later this year.

The court decision is the latest in a long line of intimidatory acts against Express. In the past two years, Express journalists and managers have been attacked, arrested and had their equipment smashed. There has also been a suspected arson attack on Editor-in-Chief Igor Pochynok’s home, tampering with his car’s tyres, a smear campaign against him, and repeated threats of criminal prosecution. The windows of Express’s office have also been shot out.

The court ruling led the Lviv-based Express - one of the country's highest circulation papers and the leading newspaper in Western Ukraine - to publish a blanked out front page and launch a campaign calling on the public to protest the decision to President Viktor Yanukovych and senior court officials. The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, which represents 18,000 publications and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, has sent a letter protesting the intimidation to the President.  They have called on the government "to guarantee that court decisions are totally free from government influence in Ukraine."

Read a report in the Kyiv Post.]]> 2012-02-07T02:00:00+02:00 Shubha Bala MDLF to become carbon neutral in 2012 http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/304/MDLF-to-become-carbon-neutral-in-2012.htm MDLF will become carbon neutral in 2012.

We are partnering with The CarbonNeutral Company, a world-leading provider of carbon reduction solutions, to achieve CarbonNeutral® company certification by the end of the year. This commitment is part of our ongoing drive to lessen the environmental impact of our work.

To achieve full CarbonNeutral® certification, a greenhouse gas assessment will be conducted and any additional emissions reduced to net zero through offsetting or internal reduction activities.

Our offsetting payments will support resource conservation projects, like one in the northwestern Chinese province of Lianing that prevents the potent greenhouse gas methane from being released into the atmosphere by coal mining. Our support is helping to install technology that will capture the methane and turn it into a fuel source.

Our commitment to becoming carbon neutral upgrades our previous policy of offsetting all air travel emissions through a reforestation project run by Indonesian client radio news agency KBR68H. By opting to partner with the CarbonNeutral Company, our emissions will be independently assured and the offsetting projects fully accredited by an industry leader.

CarbonNeutral® is a global standard to certify that businesses have measured and reduced their CO2 emissions to net zero for their company, products, operations or services in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol.

For more information on climate change, offsetting and the types of project we invest in, follow this link.

The CarbonNeutral Company works with over 300 businesses in 32 countries to develop offset inclusive carbon reduction programmes, and is a founding member of The International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA).

]]> 2012-01-11T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead MDLF clients provide news to 38 million people http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/303/MDLF-clients-provide-news-to-38-million-people.htm The Media Development Impact Dashboard 2011 reveals that more people than ever before – 38 million – get their news from MDLF clients. It also shows that news outlets working with MDLF saw their sales grow by an average of 11% last year, despite the recession, while those working with us for five years enjoyed sales growth of 213%.

The Media Development Impact Dashboard 2011 reveals that more people than ever before get their news from MDLF clients, which have a combined reach of more than 38 million. It also shows that working with MDLF has a positive impact on the financial sustainability of a news business: news outlets working with MDLF saw their sales grow by an average of 11% last year, despite the recession, while those working with us for five years enjoyed sales growth of 213%.

The Impact Dashboard is an annual assessment of the impact our work has on the financial sustainability of news businesses. It is compiled by analysing sales, reach and other performance data gathered over the length of our relationship, usually five to seven years, and provides an intimate portrait of the development of each client – and through it, an indication of the impact of our work.

The key findings of the Impact Dashboard 2011 include:

  • More than 38 million people in developing democracies got their news from our clients in 2010, an increase of 3 million from 2009.
  • In 2010, news businesses working with MDLF saw their reach grow by an average of 26% and sales increase by 11%.
  • After 5 years with MDLF, clients on average increased their sales by 213% and after seven years by 345%.
  • For every $10,000 invested, MDLF supported access to independent news for 8,944 readers, listeners and viewers.
  • Each dollar invested by MDLF leveraged $2.28 in client sales.

The Impact Dashboard also looks at overall client financial viability by analysing a number of risk indicators, as well as the number of people they employ.

Over the coming year, we will continue to examine how we can analyse the data more effectively to produce an even more insightful guide to the impact of our work.

Read a summary of the Impact Dashboard or download a copy here.

]]> 2011-11-28T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead Harlan Mandel addresses publishers and editors at world congress http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/286/Harlan-Mandel-addresses-publishers-and-editors-at-world-congress.htm Harlan Mandel, MDLF Chief Executive Officer, addressed a joint session of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum at their annual meetings in Vienna, Austria, on 12 October 2011.

He told the Media Development Roundtable that revolving loan funds can have a huge impact on the sustainability of independent news businesses and called for more public-private partnerships to help provide the capital independent news outlets in emerging markets need to become financially viable.

Other participants included Anne Nelson, professor at New York's Columbia University, Marguerite Sullivan, Director of the Center for International Media Assistance in the USA, and Justin Arenstein, of the African Media Initiative.

The Congress and Forum brings together more than 1,000 publishers and editors for three days of business discussions.

Read more about the roundtable, Congress and Forum on WAN-IFRA's blog.

]]> 2011-10-12T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead Study finds weak business models threaten media sustainability http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/279/Study-finds-weak-business-models-threaten-media-sustainability.htm The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) at the US National Endowment for Democracy has published a study of business models for news media around the world - Matching the Market and the Model: The Business of Independent News Media.

Based on interviews with leading practitioners, including several MDLF clients and CEO Harlan Mandel, it finds that many media businesses are unable to take advantage of economic and audience growth because of their lack of management skills and inexperience in developing effective businesses.

Compounding the problem is a lack of management-focused media development assistance, the expansion of economic constraints on media businesses and a shortage of investment capital.

The report finds that business naivety poses a risk to the viability of independent news media - a situation made worse by the fact that at the same time that audiences are growing, the media are increasingly decoupled from their traditional advertising revenue base.

Helping media businesses become financially sustainable is vital if news outlets are to continue to be able to fund quality news reporting. As a starting point, the report recommends that news organizations should be helped to carry out a situational analysis of their marketplace and an assessment of the business skills within the company.

In the current fast-changing media market, diverse hybrid models of funding are emerging, resulting in a period of exploration and experimentation during which donor funding and outside investments are essential while organizations work out viable solutions.

Read the full report here, and the full interview with MDLF CEO Harlan Mandel here.

]]> 2011-08-24T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead MDLF Asia Director honoured by Indonesian journalists http://www.mdlf.org/en/main/newsroom/274/MDLF-Asia-Director-honoured-by-Indonesian-journalists.htm On 8 July the Independent Journalists Alliance of Indonesia (AJI) honoured MDLF Program Director for Asia Tessa Piper with its Tasrif Award “for her long dedication to freedom of the press since the New Order era”.

The Tasrif Award is presented to a journalist or other figure who has contributed to freedom of the press, or has fought injustice or corruption. The award was presented during AJI’s 17th anniversary event at the National Gallery in Jakarta.

Among those receiving awards was Kathe Vince Dimara, director of Radio Pikon Ane located in remote Yahukimo in Papua (see photo). Kathe was presented with the S.K. Trimurti Award for female journalists or activists who fight for gender equality, freedom of expression and freedom of information.

Tessa worked closely with Kathe and MDLF client radio news agency KBR68H to help set up Radio Pikon Ane. Watch a video chronicling the station's early challenges and achievements here and read a report on the awards ceremony in the Jakarta Post here.

]]> 2011-07-13T02:00:00+02:00 Peter Whitehead