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Addressing Mistrust Between Humanitarians and Local Media: Baseline Assessment for “Integrating Local Media and ICTs Into Humanitarian Response in CAR”

Internews;Humanitarian Innovation Fund (2012), 8 pp.
"Internews' project to integrate local media and ICTs into humanitarian response in CAR takes place in a context of distrust between journalists and humanitarians. According to this report, humanitarians view the media as lacking credibility, depth, independence and fairness, and as monetizing news coverage. Journalists say that humanitarians are unwilling to engage in an exchange of information other than a one-way “infomercial.” As one journalist puts it, “they are only interested in their own publicity, but fear critical coverage.” However, both journalists and humanitarians agree on one key factor that undermines the quality of the information: the lack of resources. The use of ICT has the potential to fundamentally alter the relation by constantly bringing new and reliable data to humanitarians, demonstrating the effectiveness and usefulness of journalists. However, Internews' program must also include simple efforts at rebuilding trust between the actors." (Executive summary)