Media and Research
Hewlett grants in 2006 helped the International Media Development Fund support films like “Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale,” featuring Mehrdad Asgari.
According to The Project for Excellence in Journalism, while there are now more media outlets, they cover fewer stories, limiting Americans’ awareness of complex global development issues. The Global Development Program works to raise the importance of global concerns in the eyes of both policymakers and the public at large. In 2006, our media strategy focused on three areas:
- Providing training to national and regional reporters, editors, and citizen journalists such as bloggers. We supported opportunities for in-depth overseas reporting for an array of media outlets; collaboration among international journalists; and opportunities for senior editors to explore development issues firsthand.
- Producing real-time information resources for journalists. With backing from Hewlett and several other foundations, the International Media Development Fund proved highly successful in producing quality programming with an international perspective for U.S. television.
- Seeding programming and story ideas. Fortune 500 companies, the White House, congressional committees, government agencies, universities, news outlets, and nonprofits all used Foundation-supported programming for education and advocacy purposes.
Strengthening the Knowledge Base for Development
The Foundation also approved a major new initiative to support research centers and think tanks in the developing world and elsewhere that focus on global development challenges.
2006 Highlights
Since the project's launch eighteen months ago, the International Media Development Fund has helped develop, fund, or distribute some three dozen high-quality television programs from independent producers. Starting this year, the group will fund twenty-five to thirty international films annually. This will significantly increase international offerings on U.S. television.
One of the project’s first documentaries, “Pickles, Inc.,” portrayed a group of widows’ unconventional startup business in the Arab Israeli village of Tamra. The broadcast received substantial press and radio coverage, and garnered over 1.3 million viewers.
A 2006 grant to Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies renewed support for its International Reporting Project, which gives U.S. journalists across a wide array of media outlets both academic training in international topics and in-depth reporting opportunities overseas. The Project’s two-week “Gatekeeper” trips provide senior editors with an opportunity to explore international issues firsthand, thereby educating these key decisionmakers rather than individual reporters. Results have demonstrated an increase in the news space devoted to international coverage at participating outlets and a significant improvement of the depth of that coverage. The Project has formed a working relationship with many top national news organizations, and editors are regularly applying to take part in the trips. Moving forward, the Project intends to upgrade and expand its Gatekeeper program, organizing two trips per year instead of one.
2007 Goals
- Explore opportunities for using “new media” outlets to advance our three-pronged media strategy
- Support real-time information resources for journalists to help them better cover international news
For more information, please visit the Foundation Web site.
