Can journalists and aid workers trust each other?

Can journalists and aid workers trust each other?

HPN organised a meeting with ALNAP and Reuters Alertnet to look at the relationship between journalists and aid workers, and the lack of trust that is often a central characteristic of this relationship. Media and aid workers frequently rely on each other for information, access, profile and support; we work together in difficult circumstances in the same complex environment. In times of increasing competition, 24/7 news coverage and the popularising use of new media, how is the environment changing for both groups? As these forces play out in complex, emergency environments, aid workers and journalists are often pushed together in what one of our speakers refers to as a ‘marriage of convenience'. But are we on the same side, or just in the same place at the same time?

Jean-Michel Piedagnel, Executive Director of MSF UK, David Pratt, Foreign Editor The Sunday Herald and Martyn Broughton Editor of Reuters Alertnet reflected on the different agendas of these two groups of people who are often the first to arrive in disaster zones. They discussed the need for more open and critical interaction between the aid workers and journalists, who have often become too cosy in their relations with each other.

Key links

Click here to download a podcast about the meeting.
  Click here to read the ODI blog which will be posted shortly.
  Click here for Alertnet coverage and story.
  You can listen to an interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme with Martyn Broughton and Jean-Michel Piedagnel if you download realplayer.


 

 

HPN is run by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) which is part of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The views and opinions expressed in HPN publications do not necessarily state or reflect those of HPG or ODI.
All material © 2008 ODI HPN