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Media leaders meet in Guatemala

Media leaders from Senegal to Serbia, Colombia to Ukraine, gathered in Antigua, Guatemala, in late October to take part in MDLF’s Media Forum 2007. Co-hosted with Guatemala’s leading investigative daily, elPeriodico, 100 clients and other participants from more than 20 countries met to discuss their solutions to some of the most pressing needs of media in emerging democracies.

Technology is changing media
The main theme of Media Forum 2007 was “technology is changing media”: how developments in new – and old – technology are changing how people access news, how they interact with media companies and how media businesses operate. Outside experts Vin Crosbie of Digital Deliverance and Allan Marshall of iMedia explained how shifting advertising spend, widespread Internet access and powerful mobile devices are transforming media consumption, revenues and production. At the same time, news outlets are starting to find that their main competitors are no longer media companies but search engines and other “aggregators” of information.

While acknowledging that major challenges lie ahead – including the migration of advertising budgets online and audience fragmentation – there was widespread confidence that traditional media companies will learn from what is happening in the US and Europe, and be able to adapt, develop and flourish in a digital world.

From building brands to building friendships – via investigative journalism
Other subjects on the agenda included citizen journalism, how to generate advertising and revenue growth by leveraging brands, and what lessons can be learned from companies that have experienced a change in ownership. But the most dramatic session was one on investigative reporting, in which four clients gave striking presentations on recent investigations carried out by their companies.

Juan Luis Font from elPeriodico described a series of articles by the newspaper’s investigative team into state-ordered killings during a raid by security forces on a prison, introducing participants to the violence many Guatemalans – and local journalists – live with on a daily basis. Boris Kirshin from Chelyabinskyi Rabochii explained how his paper’s exposure of the deaths of young soldiers became a worldwide story, while Veran Matic (see photograph above) told how B92’s investigation into the killing of civilians by Serb nationalists and its re-enactment in a TV documentary led to the arrest of the perpetrators for war crimes – watch a short video on the investigation here. Finally, K. Kabilan outlined Malaysiakini.com’s exposure of, among other things, modern-day slavery in Malaysia.

As with previous events, an intense working schedule was supported by an opportunity for participants to network informally and build friendships with colleagues facing similar challenges in other parts of the world – an important goal of the meeting. (See photograph, left, of Santoso, Director of Indonesia's KBR68H, talking with José Rubén Zamora, president of Media Forum co-host elPeriodico.)

The Media Forum is held every two years and is based on MDLF's belief that media companies in emerging democracies are the best source of advice for one another.

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