"Chayka.lv is an independent media outlet established in 2019 that provides free, high-quality, politically neutral information to the Russian-speaking community of the Latvian city of Daugavpils, including news, entertainment, human-interest and other factual content. It started as pages on the Fac
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ebook and OK.ru social media platforms, then an online news portal, before expanding to other platforms including Instagram, VK, Telegram, and YouTube. It has been supported to develop its journalistic capacity, expand its audience and progress towards financial sustainability by Internews’ project Supporting Independent Media in the Baltics Action (SIMBA), which was funded by the US Department of Human Rights and Labor between 2019 and 2022. In August 2021, Internews commissioned the Market Research Center to conduct a detailed research study into Chayka.lv’s impact on the media landscape of Daugavpils. This report is the product of that study, and highlights how Chayka.lv was the city’s third most popular Russian-language media outlet at the time of writing, that survey respondent’s viewed Chayka.lv as the only politically neutral source of information in Daugavpils, that it has a significant female following and that Internews’ support correlates with growth and expansion." (Publisher description)
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"Not-for-profit news organisations are increasingly funded by private foundations, supported by wealthy entrepreneurs. This raises a range of ethical dilemmas for journalists, which are particularly serious when their donors are alleged to have been involved in unethical or illegal activities. Altho
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ugh this is a relatively common occurrence in the non-profit sector, so far there has been no critical discussion of these issues in relation to foundation-funded journalism. In this article, we interrogate a rich and detailed case study of the relations between a non-profit news organisation and a donor accused of being involved in a massive, international fraud scandal. We document how the news outlet justified their acceptance of this donor’s money; the defensive strategies they used to protect their reputation, organisational values and editorial freedom; and the conditions that ultimately led to journalists parting ways with the foundation. In so doing, we draw on ideas about philanthrocapitalism, stakeholders and resource dependence in order to develop model of how nonprofits respond to “tainted” donors." (Abstract)
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"Research into foundation-funded journalism is relatively scarce and disconnected. There is, for example, no single edited volume on this topic. This matters because while philanthropists and foundations often want to support journalism, it is not always clear how they should do this. Similarly, jou
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rnalists are often unsure about common practices in this area. For those interested in carrying out further research in this area, this matters because it is useful to know what methods have been used to study this topic in the past and how their findings compare to others." (Page 1)
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"Back in 2011, the Spanish government decided to fund the creation of the newspaper Voces in El Salvador within the wider context of public diplomacy and a favorable political atmosphere. This article examines the implications of this aid in the frame of news media plurality in that nation. We sugge
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st that thanks to it the Salvadorian public was offered a news agenda that reflected alternative worldview. However, we also argue, the intervention itself possess a series of ethical issues and challenges that merit further study in order to inform present and future discussions around foreign aid, media and journalism." (Abstract)
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"How does donor funding affect the independence, role perceptions, and ideology of the journalism it supports? We begin to answer this increasingly important but underresearched question with a year-long case study of the humanitarian news organisation IRIN as it transitioned from being funded by th
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e United Nations to a private foundation, run by a Malaysian billionaire. Using content analysis, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research, we document the changes that occurred in IRIN’s outputs, target audience, and public service values, and the complex interplay of influences that produced these changes. We find that, in this case, donor power operated entirely indirectly and always in concert with the dominant professional values within IRIN. In doing so, this case study highlights the importance of journalistic agency and contextual variables in the journalist–donor relationship, as well as the potential significance of contradictory dynamics. We also use this case to test whether Benson, Hessérus and Sedel’s model of media owner power can help to explain the workings of donor power." (Abstract)
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"BBC Media Action has been involved in media development since it was founded in 1999. Over the years, we have designed and deployed a broad range of evaluation approaches and methodologies to assess the impact of and learn from our work. This has generated much internal discussion: Are we measuring
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the right things? Where can we realistically expect to see change? How much should we spend on evaluation? How can we tell whether that change is sustainable? This paper is our attempt to bring that discussion to the wider media development community. In it, we set out our working evaluation framework and methodology alongside the findings generated by applying this framework to five different capacity-strengthening interventions." (Executive summary)
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"Our remit was to look for innovative media outlets that are producing high-quality news, that are technologically innovative and that might actually survive financially. Accordingly, we spent three months interviewing media innovators around the world and reading what others have written on the sub
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ject. This report is divided into seven sections: 1) this introduction, 2) our main findings, 3) two sets of recommendations, one for the media development community and another set for people starting a media outlet, 4) an “Innovation Index” listing practices that we found around the world, 5) a description of our methodology, 6) a review of practitioner reports we read, 7) write-ups describing 35 media outlets, based on interviews we conducted [...] We were inspired and encouraged by what we saw. All over the world, independent media outlets are innovating and overcoming obstacles. Globally, start-ups are demonstrating the drive to take risks for the sake of a good idea. The challenges facing these outlets—and the innovations employed to tackle them—broadly fall into four categories: editorial, business, distribution and security. Operating with agility, media start-ups are finding creative ways to gather and disseminate information. In India, Gram Vaani uses a mobile phone social network to connect the rural poor and circumvent legislative prohibitions on radio broadcasting. In Zimbabwe, The Source survives in the repressive media climate by focusing on business journalism. Oxpeckers in South Africa uses geomapping to report on rhino poaching. Crikey in Australia has built a successful business model based on soliciting tips and scandal from the same audience it reports on and Kenya’s African SkyCAM deploys drones to avoid negotiating with police for access to disaster zones [...] Instead of finding a clear model for what works, we found confirmation of many things we knew or suspected. Independent media outlets vary in size, ambition and model. Few have fully succeeded, while many do one thing well, which typically reflects the founder’s particular strength—usually in journalism or technology [...] Most media outlets we found are small, run by a few full-time staff supplemented by volunteers and freelancers, and supported by a combination of grants, donations and haphazard business endeavors. The leaders at most organizations we interviewed were motivated by a desire to produce high-quality journalism rather than meet particular financial or audience goals." (Executive summary, page 5-7)
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