I sat in on what I thought would have been a lively discussion on not just the current state of media freedom in commonwealth nations, but solutions or at the very least statements of hope that the attendees can internalise and apply outside of the forum.
Last Tuesday’s event, ‘The People’s Voice: Protecting Media Freedom Throughout the Commonwealth’ organised by the Commonwealth Foundation, seemed decent enough to break my no-more-Zoom-seminar streak.
But, no.
In stiff upper lip fashion, it was the same rigid format; absolutely reminiscent of the elitist discussions and events I once was so eager to attend in London. Think unnecessarily complex terms reserved for academicians and their debates. And questions by attendees, who weren’t really asking genuine questions, but were just there to show-off how “smart” he (thinks he) is. If this was an event to simply show what a “great” contribution the UK has had to a certain nation’s media democracy, why bother hosting a public discussion at all?
Don’t get me wrong, the majority of the panelists have lived and worked through extremely difficult–even life-threatening–experiences from their journalism frontlines. And I admire them for what they have brought to the discussion where it mattered.
But, despite the event’s agenda of “protecting media freedom”, there was still a lack of generosity in the event itself. The ‘I know what I know, and you should know what I know, but I’m not going to tell you what you don’t know’.
From patting the UK on the back to selecting only questions from people they knew (e.g. the Foreign Office) that might actually make the UK look good.
I was disappointed to observe so much dancing around actual actionable community-based solutions. No doubt they couldn’t possibly provide a one-size-fits-all solution for the diverse attendees, which the organisers boasted to have 64 countries “dialling in”, but this was certainly a missed opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the year. Imagine the difference in mindset and spirit the organisers and its panelists could have made in just one of their attendees from those 64 countries.
My question to them was straightforward: how will the Commonwealth Foundation actually help journalists from commonwealth nations? Is there a legal fund available for independent media/journalists?
I didn’t get an answer. I don’t even know if the question was passed on by the web master or moderator.
Meanwhile, outside of the Commonwealth Foundation, other relatively smaller independent organisations have been actually walking the talk about media freedom; offering journalism grants, legal support and hostile environment training.
The closest suggestion to a solution during this online event was the mention of cross-border support, which more often than not requires the “goodwill” of a “First World” country to hopefully back your journalism project or “take you in”.
The idea of a legal fund for journalists is not ludicrous. Nor is it new. Private platforms like Substack are already putting money where their mouth is in the name of independent journalism; with their Substack Defender programme, a legal fund reserve for writers on the platform.
But back to the forum on “protecting media freedom”, the overall gist of the discussion was imperialist at best. In other words: leave it to the big guys, the people at the top.
After all, it’s cheaper, easier and more convenient.
