The Enabling Environment For Free and
Independent Media
By Monroe E. Price & Peter Krug
Chapter 6: Resources and Techniques for Enhancing the Enabling Environment
The major resource for enhancing the enabling environment is indigenous talent because, ultimately, the answers must almost always be local. One approach is to ask what forms of assistance are most useful in strengthening local media and, following that, what tools exist to facilitate an enabling environment for effective media reform.
There is now a growing core of expertise that is available for technical assistance. One consequence of the aid pattern is that a number of organizations have developed that specialize in providing technical assistance. To some extent, this specialization has been along industrial lines. Some organizations foster independent broadcasters while others are more expert in dealing with newspapers and other print publications.
There are entities that specialize, as well, by region. One NGO specializes in establishing emergency radio stations in conflict zones where a neutral and objective voice is needed. In a number of countries in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, techniques employed include training journalists, building associations, giving attention to media infrastructure, building business skills, and addressing the law and policy environments in which the media function.
Media programs financed by USAID ordinarily avoid direct payments to media outlets, instead providing mostly non-material assistance (training, advice, and cooperative projects). Those programs providing greater direct material assistance usually articulate such aid in terms of apolitical professional needs. These precautions are taken because of some of the obvious hazards inherent in making direct payments to stations rather than investing in infrastructure. If a donor country or foundation makes contributions based on the political approach of the print media or television station, it may be charged with precisely the kind of content-based distinction for which a government would ordinarily be condemned with at home.
6.2 Resort to Constitutions and to International Instruments
Aside from technical assistance, a number of techniques have been used to encourage states to provide a regime of law and policy more consistent with human rights and free speech principles.
Such techniques reflected a characteristic that is often called “conditionality.” An example of this mechanism is the conditioning of eligibility for certain U.S. benefits on compliance with specific copyright objectives. Other important examples of conditionality include the establishment of requirements for adjustment of internal laws so as to receive most-favored-nation treatment, to be accepted in the European Union, or to qualify for membership in the Council of Europe. Another form of conditionality would be the requirement of certain adjustments in laws and practices as a condition for receiving financing from international bodies. Such efforts could be enhanced by the establishment of an institution that would report annually on the state of the enabling environment in different countries.
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