Media Development Fund revisited
When the then Vice President John Mahama announced his government’s establishment of a Media Development Fund, the media community welcomed it with the goodwill and support the gesture deserved.
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But, rather unfortunately, its implementation is muddied in such avoidable and unnecessary controversies that only the Ministry of Information can explain. If the management of the fund is not reviewed to make it transparent, the intentions of its initiators risk, as it is, unfortunately, interpretations of ill-motive. An opportunity to contribute to improving media professional standards in Ghana would be wasted.
What is a media fund?
As the concept implies, it is a fund set aside specifically to support the media industry. A media development fund specifically aims at supporting, strengthening and improving the media in societies, consequently helping to build democracy and facilitate the transition from wars and other destructive conflicts to peace-centred governance. In all cases, such special funds are meant to support the growth of pluralism of the media. In practical application, the funds are directed at improving the infrastructure and or professional quality (and diversity) of media products.
But why a media fund?
The establishment of media funds is premised on the idea that the media is necessary for and central to the survival, growth and advancement of democracy. For, as it is held, democracy without free, many and diverse media is like the air without oxygen. Moreover, and precisely because of this assumption, media funds are raised to support the revival and building of media in post-conflict countries as part of the reconstruction agenda for such societies.
They are also proposed for countries where decades of dictatorial rule have ruined free and independent media and destroyed the culture of media professionalism so that these countries would be able to build their democracy. In all such countries, economic difficulties, including prohibitive conditions of access to capital in the financial markets, make investments in the media unattractive, with serious implications for the populations’ access to the media and for professional standards.
Types of media funds
Types of media funds are realised according to their sources, objectives and management character.
UNESCO, the educational, scientific and cultural development agency of the UN, set up, in the 1990s, the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) whose remit includes grants to support media development in emerging democracies around the world. In Ghana, some community radio projects and The Chronicle have benefitted from the fund.
Without specifically labeling it as such, the major international bilateral development agencies – DANIDA, DFID, USAID, and others – have all had in their aid or development assistance programmes funds for media development. Until a few years ago, the agencies disbursed such funds directly to qualified applicants. Right now in Ghana, such funds by the bilateral agencies are placed in a pool managed by STAR Ghana.
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Private philanthropic organisations, such as the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and other bodies, as well as international non-governmental organisation (NGOs) such as, especially, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, IBIS and other institutions, have all engaged in funding media development activities in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa and beyond, without specifically calling the grants as such.
Most of these kinds of support come in the form of grants. But another kind of the fund comes in the form of credits to media investors. The global example is the OSF’s Media Development Loan Fund. In Africa, the only successful example is the Southern Africa Media Development Fund set up by the NGO, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). This type of fund provides loans to media businesses at highly competitive interest rates to support the media because most media in emerging democracies are small or medium-sized and cannot afford conditions for credit facilities by mainstream banks and financial institutions.
The type that, perhaps, the Ghana initiative may be more interested in is the fund set up by states. The oldest example is that sponsored by countries with strong and clearly defined and transparent social democratic systems and traditions in Europe such as Denmark, Sweden and France. In the Scandinavian countries, the media fund is, particularly, to promote and strengthen media pluralism.
Thus, one of the objects would be to “bail-out” a financially failing media, especially if such collapse would deprive the society of diversity in the media market or landscape.
State-sponsored media fund
In our own continent, the state-supported media fund is prevalent in Francophone West African countries. But the experience is not only checkered from country to country, but generally offer little optimism by way of positive examples. It is abused by corruption in many countries and disbursed as political patronage in others. In all, however, the fund is appropriated by each country’s legislative body. But the questionable management in nearly all the countries may have something to do with the fact that they are managed by the state-controlled media regulatory agencies or ministries of information.
But Benin’s case provides one specific lesson we could adopt in Ghana – and which is why the fund must be managed by a body independent of executive control. In Benin, beneficiary media must show strong adherence to the code of ethics of journalism. This is monitored by the regulatory agency. This is very important for two key reasons.
The first is that if it is a fund for the development of the media, then whoever receives the grant must prove intent to promote high journalistic standards. In the second instance, the taxpayers’ money, which the fund is, must not and cannot be given to the media organisation that insults and impugn the integrity of individual citizens, groups and institutions.
The problem with the threatened Ghana media fund is that nobody knows what guides its establishment and management. For instance, there is no definition of who and what the media is.
That is why the Ministry of Information can distribute laptops, in the name of the fund, to anybody at all and justify it – arbitrarily. There are no defined criteria for qualification to access the fund. There are no set objectives of the fund and there is no known system and programme for the management and disbursement of the fund.
Rather than the Minister of Information searching for bad motives by people and organisations demanding transparent management of the fund, he should help all of us and the integrity of the government he serves by taking a step back to review and reorganise the fund.
He should call a meeting of the genuine stakeholders to set up a committee to discuss the fund and how and who to manage this rather brilliant and critical initiative. The Ghana Journalists Association, a key stakeholder, should stake a clearer and unambiguous attitude than has been shown so far to give stronger support to the demands for a transparent media fund institution.
The writer is a Professor at the School of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, Legon
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