America and Imigration essays

America and Imigration essays When reading two articles that are decades apart, one sees that the nations, as a whole, opinion has changed about immigrants. In an article from 1905 the South wanted immigrants because they were cheap labor. Almost 80 years later, in 1983, the South had a different opinion about immigrants. In his 1905 article, Immigration and the South, Robert DeCoury Ward just begins to touch on the idea that immigrants could be bad for Americas economy. On the contrary, the 1983 article, Immigration: How Its Affecting US, James Fallows bluntly tells of immigration being harmful to the U.S. economy. When Robert DeCoury Ward wrote his article Immigration and the South, it was during a time when there was a heavy flow of immigrants to the North and the South was just beginning to receive immigrants. The North was clearly growing tired of the immigrants, yet the South welcomed them. For example, he stated, The North finds itself greatly burdened with the many problems which have grown out of, or have at least been greatly aggravated by immigration. He then goes on to say the following, The South is developing a newborn zeal for immigration. These two statements clearly show the opinions of the American people during this time in the 20th century. There are a few prime reasons for the Souths new zeal for immigration. First of all, the rapid growth of manufacturing resulted in a demand for thousands of new workmen. This was a need that the native population of America could not meet. Second, with the newly freed Negroes asking for higher wages and more vacation, landowners needed cheaper workers, which is exactly what the immigrants were. One other key reason, and maybe the one that standouts the most, is that the South had not really experienced immigration ye ...

Free Essays on The Devastation Of Schizophrenia

The Devastation of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a severe and devastating brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality and relates to others. Of all mental illnesses, schizophrenia undoubtedly results in the greatest amount of personal, emotional and social costs. It presents an enormous threat to life and happiness. It also causes more lengthy hospitalizations, more chaos in family life, more exorbitant costs to individuals and government and more fears than any other. Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split personality. It actually means a split between the individual's perception of reality and reality, not a Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde switch in character (Grayson, 1). Approximately 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia during their lifetime - more than 2 million Americans suffer from the illness in a given year. Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties. Scientists still do not know the specific cause of schizophrenia and believe that it is a combination of many factors that may precipitate the disorder. It is known, however, that schizophrenia- like cancer and diabetes- is a real illness with a biological basis. It is not the result of bad parenting or personal weakness. No credible authority believes any longer that social circumstance, poverty, poor mothering or willful behavior cause schizophrenia. Researchers have uncovered a number of factors that appear to play a role in the development of schizophrenia (Grayson, 3). Schizophrenia does "run in the family". The disorder has an important genetic component. Evidence for a genetic element comes from twin studies. Monozygotic twins (identical twins) are those with exactly the same genetic make... Free Essays on The Devastation Of Schizophrenia Free Essays on The Devastation Of Schizophrenia The Devastation of Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a severe and devastating brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality and relates to others. Of all mental illnesses, schizophrenia undoubtedly results in the greatest amount of personal, emotional and social costs. It presents an enormous threat to life and happiness. It also causes more lengthy hospitalizations, more chaos in family life, more exorbitant costs to individuals and government and more fears than any other. Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split personality. It actually means a split between the individual's perception of reality and reality, not a Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde switch in character (Grayson, 1). Approximately 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia during their lifetime - more than 2 million Americans suffer from the illness in a given year. Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties. Scientists still do not know the specific cause of schizophrenia and believe that it is a combination of many factors that may precipitate the disorder. It is known, however, that schizophrenia- like cancer and diabetes- is a real illness with a biological basis. It is not the result of bad parenting or personal weakness. No credible authority believes any longer that social circumstance, poverty, poor mothering or willful behavior cause schizophrenia. Researchers have uncovered a number of factors that appear to play a role in the development of schizophrenia (Grayson, 3). Schizophrenia does "run in the family". The disorder has an important genetic component. Evidence for a genetic element comes from twin studies. Monozygotic twins (identical twins) are those with exactly the same genetic make...

Various International Monetary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Various International Monetary - Essay Example On the contrary, International Monetary Fund ensures that there is international or global monetary corporation since it is a permanent institution that avails the machineries for collaboration and consultation on global monetary or international financial problems. IMF has changed the face of handling monetary issues on a global scale by establishing a permanent institution to take care of the problems (Fischer, & Lindgren 2014). On the other hand, the body is successful in facilitating the expansion as well as ensuring that international trade records a balanced growth. In this case, the body is promoting and maintaining high employment and income levels and has also been responsible the development of proactive resources of the global economies. Besides, IMF is promoting stability in international business exchanges, a role that ensures that the international economy does not experience depreciation in competition. In addition, the body has been assisting with the establishment of multilateral payment systems especially in transactions between the member states as a way of eliminating restrictions on foreign exchange that hinder the growth of the international trade. Apart from financial assistance, the IMF offers technical assistance to mem ber countries so as to create as well as implement sound economic, banking, monetary policies, and regulations (Fischer, & Lindgren

Terrorist Scene & Aftermath Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Terrorist Scene & Aftermath - Essay Example Terrorist attacks could be planned or completely disorganized, but it is always good to presume that any terror attacks have organized traps for the first responders. This aspect calls for extra carefulness for who should or should not take the first response step (Weiss, 2001, pg.117). First responders do not always find their actions rewarding. In some cases, terrorist ambush those willing to take first action by shooting at them, planting bombs in unexpected locations, trapping them within buildings, or making them appear like they were among the terror attackers among other dangers and traps. Some terrorist attacks however may not need to be planned for the dangers to be high. Attacks made using radiological dispersion devices are generally dangerous for first responders who may lack the expertise to detect harmful radiations (Runge, 2009, pg. 407). The invisible radiations in this regards could be part of the dangers and traps arising from a well-planned terrorist attack of such kind. In the case of terrorist attacks, hospitals within the locality are likely to be interrupted since they are faced with the obligation of accommodating the injured victims. In order for hospitals to avoid adverse interruptions, they should prepare a disaster plan to prepare for major influxes of injured individuals after terrorist attacks. This plan for enhancing preparedness should include an effective plan for handling the deceased especially in worse case situations (Lowe & Hummel, 2014, pg. 211). The preparedness plan may include contingencies that would encompass the hospital’s strategy. The hospital can also adopt the plan to include further actions such as handling victims of terrorism attack earlier even before arriving at the hospital. This could be done like the case of many hospitals that have already implemented plans for handling victims of

Rising Fuel Costs and US Transport Industry Essay

Rising Fuel Costs and US Transport Industry - Essay Example Consequently, comfort is often sacrificed in an attempt to cut back on the fuel budget. Often, Americans have had to make do with fewer cars, or shift to fuel efficient ones. In addition, car pooling has become a common practice among friends and families while air travel is not only restricted, but also limited to either official travels, or longer journeys that would otherwise be uneconomical with the use of a car (Coyle et al, 2006). By and large, the use of public modes of transport has increased. In fact, ridership by public transport in the United States rose by 15 percent in 2007. For those in the taxi business, these have especially been hardest hit , and this has forced some of the operators to increase fares, only to have their customers walk away from them (ACTE, 2008). The airlines too, have not bee spared either, with a coupe of them such as Delta and American airlines recording massive annual losses in the range of $ 1 billion (KLEIN, 2008). With such a gloomy picture having been slapped on the American transport industry, is there any respite for the Americans in the near future For the last six years, the price of gasoline, crude oil and natural gas has significantly risen. In 2000, a barrel of crude oil ranged from $ 25 and $ 30 per barrel. This was later to rise to a high of $ 75 per barrel six years later. Due to this, such petroleum products as jet fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel, and which are primarily dependent upon by the transportation industry in the United States, have risen sharply. In addition, the price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline almost doubled to $ 2.36 in 2006, up from $ 1.46 in 2000. The rate at which both India and China are developing, has led to a sharp demand for oil, and this has had a massive impact on the petroleum-based products such as gasoline (Hiare & Machemehl, 2007). The reliance of the transport industry on fuel is in no doubt, and its usage keeps on increasing by the day. In 1973, the consumption of petroleum was pegged at 9.05mb/day, and this was later to rise to 13.9mb/day by the year 2005. In addition, there was a strong growth in petroleum consumption to 28.2 percent in 2005, up from 24.6 percent in 1973. Furthermore, the annual average vehicle per capita mileage has also immensely improved from 5,440 miles in 1970, to 10, 087 miles in 2005 (ACTE 2008). Automobiles For the automobile makers, they too have not been spared by the rise in fuel cost, as customers are no longer shopping for cars. Both Ford and General Motors have witnessed a slump in sales in recent years, leading to a recording of major losses. As a result, the auto makers have had to institute changes (VOA news, 2008). According to Rich Wagoner, the chairman of General Motors, the company has no choice but to close down some of its factories, following in the footsteps of Ford motors, who proceeded by closing shop on the manufacturing factories for non-fuel efficient vehicles. The General Motors boss views this as a proactive move, in a bid to ensure the survival and success of the company. This will mean that thousands of jobs will have to be cut down. There is also a shifting trend in the auto industry towards the manufacturing of

Exploratory Paper On Political Ideology History Essay

Exploratory Paper On Political Ideology History Essay Political ideology is defined as a set of ideals and principles created for social order. Thus, after much consideration and deliberation, I chose to work on Political Ideology. Politics appeals to me because I have been intrigued by how it can inspire the masses with powerful rhetorics by charismatic personalities. President Barack Obama is a political leader whom I greatly admire for his oratory eloquence displayed during his maiden speeches in the U.S. Presidential Elections 2008. I was captivated by his Yes We Can! speech which moves the crowd to disperse all doubts about their future and believing that America will succeed under his leadership. Marxism-Leninism and Maoism are communism by nature but takes on a different form to cater to the circumstances in their respective countries, Russia and China. Marxism-Leninism is a political ideology that is based on Valdimir Lenins writing on the ideas of Karl Marx. Marxism advocates socialism while being heavily critical on capitalism which he believes is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which means a society run by the upper echelons of society to their own benefit. His idea of socialism is that the society will be run by the working class known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxs ideas were heavily influenced by the class struggle in society. One significant event that epitomises Marxism-Leninism ideology would be the 1917 October revolution in Petrograd, currently known as St. Petersburg. Valdimir Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik (communist) Party that toppled the Russian Provisional government and created a new form of Russia called Soviet Russia which borrowed Marxism ideologies along with it. The Bolshevik won over the support of the majority of the workers and soldiers because of the repressive and autocratic ruling by the imperialist Tsar which resulted in declining economic and social conditions. The working class was unhappy with long working hours, overcrowded housing problems with poor sanitary control, low wages which was made worst by increases in cost of living due to Russias involvement in World War one at that time. Thus Lenin-led Bolshevik appealed to the masses and faced little resistance when they staged a coup, occupying government buildings and strategic points. In China, Maoism is a political ideology that straddles along the Marxism-Leninist line. Peasants and farming forms the fundamental and building blocks of a socialist society. The difference between Lenins Russia and Maos China is dictatorship of the working class while another is the dictatorship of the peasants. Mao Zedong rise to the top of the Chinese Communist Party was nothing short of spectacular. He was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and was actively involved in spreading Marxist ideas to the peasants in his hometown of Hunan Province. The most significant event in the history of communist China is The Long March in 1934-1935. During the Zunyi conference, Zhou Enlai was ousted as the Chief Political Officer of the party while Mao Zedong was elected Chairman of the Politburo with backings from the military leaders and he has never relinquished his position since. Mao Zedong was credited for unifying China as a Peoples Republic and away from imperialism (Qing Dynasty) and feudalism (War-Lords). Also, the Long March gave the Chinese Communist Party the reputation that they are willing to endure hardship for the people and to formulate policies on land reform that would reduce the plight of Chinese peasants thus gaining wide support from the peasants. Another difference from Marxism-Leninism is the deep belief that man can prevail in harsh conditions and achieved things through strong willpower. He personally pushed through this ideology during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1968-1976). Maoism ideologies can also be found in Peru and Nepal. Locally, Singapore also had brushes with communist in the past. The Barisan Socialis was a former left-wing political party formed in 1961 by former members of the PAP (Peoples Action Party) and led by Dr Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong. The party was accused by the PAP to be a communist front and deemed a threat to national security which resulted in many Barisan Socialis members arrested and imprisoned without trial during operation coldstore by the internal security department. Singapore, widely regarded as a democratic society, would be understandably not be tolerant of the Barisan Socialis, supposedly advocates of communism since that would be conflict of political ideologies. However, based on an extract below, I felt that it could be reasons of a partisan nature. In a recently declassified Colonial office papers, Baron Philip Moore, who was Deputy High Commissioner of Britain in Singapore from 1963 to 1965, was quoted as saying: He (Lee) went on to suggest that in order to avoid the Communists taking over, he would create a situation in which the UK Commissioner would be force to suspend the Constitution. This might be done either by the Singapore Government inviting a Russian trade mission to Singapore thus forcing a constitutional crisis, or by instigating riots and disorder, requiring the intervention of British troops. I did however, form the impression that he was quite certain he would lose a general election and was seriously toying with the thought of forcing British intervention in order to prevent his political enemies from forming a government. (CO 1030/1149 p.95, para 3) In history, after revolutions for a change in political ideology, there would be power struggle for leadership as can be seen in the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong wiped out all that threatens his position as leader and started the Cultural Revolution. In the Soviet Union, after Lenins death, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky fought for power to lead. In the end, Stalin ordered the assassination of Trotsky. The lesson to be learned from history is that power struggles for leadership happens before, during and after a revolution. Leaders clinging to power would use all means to consolidate their status by eliminating political rivals. It is no difference regardless of political ideologies.

The History of the African Women

70% of African women with disabilities get them from their husbands. In Africa, most women have little or no rights. This effects what they can do for work, how their family life is, and what future they have. Women throughout time, especially in African culture, have always been subservient to men. The status of women in Africa is second-rate. In countries like the United States, women have the same rights as men and are almost equal. But in Africa it†s totally different. Women have to know that they should be equal to men. It's important to understand that every race is discriminated at one point in time. This should not happen if we have a realization. This understanding would be realizing that everyone put on this planet was created equal. Women, unfortunately, have been very discriminated against, even in this century. Women are so cruelly thought of that now, women see nothing wrong with mental and physical cruelty towards them. Since the status of women in Africa, is so low, it has caused many men to overpower women†¦ physically. More and more women are being beaten and thinking that it is okay because the women think men are superior to them. A frightening fact is that 16 2/3 percent of women are battered by their partners and 46% of these cases the children are beaten too. â€Å"If you go to the police and complain that your husband is abusing you or hitting you the authorities would think, ‘Oh well she probably deserved it! â€Å"† Said Lindy Mieza. A woman named Geli wrote about her life in which she says, â€Å"My mother†¦ she constantly suffered terrible physical and mental abuse from him†¦ Fifty percent of women in Africa women will be raped in their life time. There were 23,806 rapes in the first six months of 1996. And what worse is that police estimate that for every rape reported another thirty-five takes place. South Africa, â€Å"Already confronting the worlds worst murder rate the country has a harrowing new fact to face: there is a rape every 25 seconds.. † Geli wrote, â€Å"Being raped doesn†t mean it†s by some you don†t know, I was raped by my husband and his friends†¦ † In conclusion, when men over power women, women feel less and less important and the status of women becomes worse. Poverty is a problem because most children who grow up in poverty, die there. They don†t necessary get shot or killed, they end up not being able to climb out poverty and get a decent job, especially women. Women in Africa are forced to be prostitutes because they need to support their family. When women do this they end up having a bigger family. Women live in poverty in a disproportionate number. â€Å"My mother lived and died in poverty and so did her mom, one day I will too because I have no food or money. † â€Å"Why have women become so much poorer? There is no one reason. In countries like Kenya and India, cut backs resulting from the International Monetary Fund†s and Structural adjustment policies (SAP†s) have affected women most because they are the main recipients of education and health. † There are more women than men in poverty. Out of the 4. 3 million displaced 80% of them are women. In a study carried out over 20 years the number of rural women in poverty has increased by 50% reaching an awesome 565 million. â€Å"Poverty has influenced women†s lives more than any factor over the last decade. † If women are in poverty they will not be able to help fight to gain their rights. For many many years, generations of girls would and will give up their education for their brother because he getting an education is more important than her getting one. Lindy Mieza once said, â€Å"If you look at our country, it is the women who are the first to dropped at school to give places to their brothers. † Girls in Africa get a second class education. Many girls have dropped out of school because they were raped and need to take care of their babies that have no fathers. â€Å"I once went to school, but then I was raped and had a baby. † A fourteen year old girl told a reporter. Women should be able to go to school just like men but, â€Å"Only the wealthiest girls are able to obtain an education. † , There are 52 million boys who do not go to primary school. But their are 77 million girls who don†t go to school where one learns the two most important things, reading and writing. Because women are that last ones in schools and the first ones out, obviously they are the ones who can†t read. If one took out nine hundred illiterate people, women would out number men two to one. In Africa, 68. 3% of the women can not read. If women aren†t educated then they won†t get jobs and will have no way for a secure future. Women are taught in their tribes and cultures that it is all right for men to mistreat them. This is not helping women realize that they don†t have to be treated the way they are. Tribal women are brought up thinking it†s okay for them to be men†s slaves. Once an African woman said â€Å"I came to the conclusion that part of our problems with men†¦ is that we were brought up to see out lives incomplete without them. We were taught to consider man as our superiors, the absolute rulers not only of our home but of our lives too. † Geli said â€Å"Customs and tradition told us it was normal for men to lie and abuse to cheat and domineer†¦ Geli†s mom was abused by her husband as well as her Grandmother was abused and so was she. Geli grew up think it wasn†t wrong for men to hit women. She Grew up thinking it was all right for her husband to hit her. It wasn†t till American groups came and told her what her husband did was illegal, after that, she left him â€Å"Women were told we were duty-bound, to remain steadfast and faithful; to our husband no matter what they did do to us or how undeserving of our affections they were† If women keep growing up thinking that it is right for men to overpower then women will never be equal to men. Since men make up all of the laws and rules most laws proteins only to men. Laws are only fair to man. Black women of Africa have suffered the most because of discriminating laws. Up in till this century women couldn†t own property, vote. Get jobs, and sometimes even leave the house. â€Å"The women acknowledge that under apartheid, women†s issues were pushed to the back burner while black men and women fought together for liberation. But now women are devoting attention to old and pervasive obstacles. The whole system has placed women in a inferior position. Women were not involved in any environmental decisions or economical decisions. Woman had different jail sentences then men. If a woman killed any one she would be put to a torturous death. If a man he would get a life time sentence with a chance of parole. In Kangaroo courts, punishment for women can be rape by a government official(s). Nelson Mendela the Prime Minister of South Africa once said, â€Å"I pay tribute to the mothers and wives of our nation. You are the rockhard foundation of our struggle. Apartheid has inflicted more pain on you than anyone else. Women can†t be equal to men if laws don†t allow them to. â€Å"If you don†t get a chance to take part in you laws you don†t take part in the rules the govern you life† said Mrs. Shays. In African women are very prone to getting diseases. Women not only have to deal with having no rights but they also have to deal with disease. â€Å"At the hospitals we see women who are brought in wheel barrows who have had ten pregnancies and have ruptured uteruses. They die in those wheel barrows. In America you have 911. You call on a telephone and an ambulance comes. Here we can†t call on a phone because their are none and you can†t call for an ambulance because their are none. † Also malnutrition, starvation, AIDS, and even diarrhea are deadly in Africa. â€Å"29. 3 percent of pregnant women have AIDS. † Nelson Mendela once said â€Å"We must give health to the aged to the pregnant women and to the young children. † Doctors are rare and expensive in Africa. Many people who need them can†t afford them. Women are the main people who take care of the family, and because if they are busy fighting off disease they can†t fight for their rights. Being sick put a damper on a women†s attitudes. The attitudes of women's rights are very poor, women and men have bad attitudes about it. Forty women with the idea of them having the right to vote went to court to see what they could do. When the women brought up the idea the judge just sat and laughed. He told them to leave. â€Å"Men think nothing about us, we are slaves to them, and nothing more. When we asked for rights they wanted nothing to do with us. Sadly many women felt the same way. † A women's rights leader said. Men don†t want to let us share their power† Lindy Meiza tried to lift women attitudes in her speech, â€Å"We must think we can. Think you can and you can. Now lets win the rights we deserve!! † If women think they can they can. They will rise up against men. Just like in the story The Little Engine Who Could he thought he could and then he did it. South Africa has made a new constitution with a charter for women. The new constitution will eliminate all laws that discriminate whites and black, and males and females. The new constitution with the first charter for women will give women the rights the deserved. Some of the laws are: â€Å"Women shall have equal legal status and capacity in civil law including amongst others, full contractual rights, the right to acquire and hold in property, the right to equal in heritance and the right to secure credit† States the charter. â€Å"Every woman shall have the right to education and training at any stage of her life in order to realize her full potential. Women shall have special access to funds for education and training. Child care facilities shall be provided. Education to develop awareness of women†s status, to build women†s self confidence and able them to claim their constitutional and legal rights should be implemented. Ensure women†s full and equal participation in power structures and decision-making. Develop education and training to increase women†s capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership. The state shall establish appropriate institution to ensure the effective protection and promotion of equality for women. Women demand equality in the development, application, adjudication interpretation and enforcement of the law. Women shall have equality within the family and within marriages and intimate relationships. Women shall have equal rights during and it the dissolution of a marriage. Women married under customary law shall have the right to inherit from their spouses. All family types shall be recognized and treated equally. Women shall have the right to choose the partner of their choice. Women should have equal access to financial resources of the household. Women should have equal decision making powers and access to information in regard to the economic management of the household. Social services should be a right not a privilege. Women must be protected from sexual harassment and violence in all places where women are working. Violence in all it†s forms is endemic to South African society both sexual and domestic violence are pervasive and all women live under the threat of experience violence women experience secondary victimization at all stages of criminal justice system which shall include the right to be free from all forms of violence in the home in communities in the work pace and in public spaces. These are some of the important laws for women that will make drastic changes in Africa. Authorities have made some changes to protect women. Last year, marital rape became a crime and women can now more easily obtain restraining orders against their abusers. As a result, an older man who was convicted of raping a nine year old girl received a ten year sentence. Women are getting rights and the MALE government is realizing that they must make both genders equal. â€Å"We demand the rights we deserve. † The women of Africa demanded it and they got it. Women groups, like the ANC, have been helping women win their rights. â€Å"The ANC now regards the champing of women†s rights an integral part of its agenda. † â€Å"Already the ANC has enriched the women†s rights in the charter and constitutional guidelines. † They†ve made laws with government to become equal. The ANC has strongly advocated that that 33% of all political nominees be women. â€Å"Once the ANC was un-banned various groups united to form the Women†s Coalition to facilitate gender issues in neglected for the new government. † â€Å".. countless other women-the unsung heroines of black women liberation. If more women join these women†s groups, women will have some control over their own lives. Not only are women helping themselves but now other countries are trying to help African women too. Many countries like the United States have helped Africa by donating money, sending representatives to help villages become better place for women and even given countries food. â€Å"†¦ other countries are making giant leaps to show Africa the way. † The United States aid is providing 65 million or 80% of it†s basic education assistance to Africa, so every child will have access education. The United States also provided 4 million for the African women abuse. If other countries help Africa it will become a better place for women. Women†s thoughts on the future are strong and hopeful. â€Å"The fight will go on forever. Women will never be equal to men. One day men will be equal to women. † Many leaders even thought even though, being beaten and jailed still are positive. Just like Thandi. She was an ANC leader. She protested against women have to where passes that stated information like birth, place of birth, town and reacords. At that protest, was arrested and put into jail for eight years. She says, â€Å"One is still doughtful about the future. † Felicia Mabuza, another ANC member, says, â€Å"South Africa is going to have to get used to seeing women in the board room as well as the bedroom. † She also said, â€Å"In the coming years black South African women will continue to stand and assume their roles in a fast changing society that is filled with hope and optimism. † Women in Africa are gaining hope about their future. The more this happens the more confidence they will get and they will soon be able to face men as equals. To help women in Africa my organization, S. O. F. A. W. , Shout Out For African Women, will show women how to build homes, coaxes the governments to change some laws and most important give all women an education. S. O. F. A. W. will be collecting money from private and public distributors. This money will used for sending our representatives to places of poverty to show women how to build a house. We will teach them the basic skill. They women we teach will show their neighbor and then the neighbor would teach their neighbor and so on. If we do this more and more women will get out of poverty, less and less women will live in poverty and finally we are teaching women a skill that that will be able to use. The S. O. F. A. W. is going to set up meetings with counties all over Africa. In our meetings we will try to coax the government to change laws so men and women are equal. Then we would help them enforce the laws. If the laws are equal then the women will soon be equal. Finally and most importantly the S. O. F. A. W will build 200 schools. We will build 100 primary schools because that is where reading and writing are taught, the two most important things in the world. We would build 50 high schools and 50 middle schools. Of course all of these schools will be for girls only. If women are educated the more money would know their laws and how to do something about is. â€Å"If women are free from violence, if they are healthy and educated, if they can live and work as full and equal partners in any society their families will flourish and when they do, communities and nations will thrive. † Bill Clinton. I personal think that Africa will not remain odd man out. I think this because If organizations like mine help problems like status of women, hunger, over population, health, wildlife, rainforest and black liberation problems like these will be non existancet. Women are humans, they shouldn†t be treated like animals. Like I said before women need education, and jobs. But women also need better health facilities and better shelters. You can help by donating money to organizations like mine. I care because people are being hurt when they shouldn†t be. Please if you can call 1-888-WOMEN-AF.

Media Management Manual

 A HANDBOOK FOR TELEVISION AND RADIO PRACTITIONERS IN COUNTRIES-IN-TRANSITION Media Management Manual John Prescott Thomas A HANDBOOK FOR TELEVISION AND RADIO PRACTITIONERS IN COUNTRIES-IN-TRANSITION Media Management Manual John Prescott Thomas  Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual Media Management Manual A Handbook for television and radio parishioners in countries-in-transition By John Prescott Thomas  © UNESCO 2009 ISBN No. 978-81-89218-31-7 Printed by Macro Graphics Pvt. Ltd.Published by: Communication and Information Sector United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization UNESCO House B-5/29 Safdarjung Enclave New Delhi – 110 029 Tel : + 91 11 2671 3000 Fax : +91 11 26713001 /02 e-mail: [email  protected] org Disclaimer The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or are a or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.The author is responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this publication and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of the UNESCO and do not commit the organization.  Contents Chapters Foreword Introduction 1 What’s the media game? 2 What are the media for? Media legislation, regulation and governance 4 Management structures and organisation 5 Strategic planning and financial management 6 Programme planning and production 7 Resource planning and resource management 8 Editorial management 9 Managing people Conclusion Appendices A A code of editorial principles and practice B A line-management structure for a typical broadcasting organisation C A plan for restructuring a broadcasting organisation D A glossary of financial terms E A guide to allocating overhead costs to budget centres F A guide to the financial aspects of a business plan G A matrix for a risk-management strategy H An outline format for a programme proposal I An outline format for a programme budget J An outline format for a resources booking form K An outline format for a management information system report L A checklist for programme review of a news-magazine format M A form for the authorisation of covert recording N A format for a job description O A format for an appraisal and career-development form Case Studies Case-History 1: How enforced radical change transformed a strategic plan Case-History 2: How alternative thinking made a successful series possible Case-History 3: How television and radio can work in partnership Case-History 4: How investigative reporting served the public interest The author Page 6 7 9 12 18 31 46 59 70 76 84 89 90 98 100 105 106 108 114 116 118 120 122 124 125 126 128 130 134 136 137 138  Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual ForewordToday, Public Service Broadcasting, whether run by public organisatio ns or privatelyowned companies, is not only challenged by political interests, but also by increased competition from commercial media. The advent of the digital age has ushered in an array of commercial satellite-to-cable channels that threaten public service broadcasting audience loyalties. If viewers are to be retained, there is a pressing need for more dynamic and innovative public broadcasting. Free from political interference and pressure from commercial forces, Public Broadcasting’s only raison d’etre is public service. It speaks to everyone as a citizen. Public broadcasters encourage access to and participation in public life.They develop knowledge, broaden horizons and enable people to better understand themselves by better understanding the world around them. With its specific remit, which is essentially to operate independently of those holding economic and political power, public service broadcasting provides the whole of society with information, culture, education and entertainment; it enhances social, political and cultural citizenship and promotes social cohesion. In the past ten years, UNESCO has been actively engaged in exploring more deeply the concept of public service by specifying the functions, particularly in the fields of education, science and culture, which it is meant to perform, and the means required.Member States called upon the Organization to support public service radio and television broadcasting so that it can fulfill its cultural and educational mandate. UNESCO has continuously supported capacity-building of media professionals, responsible for production, and programming, particularly in issues related to editorial independence, ethical standards and effective and dynamic management. It is in this context, and upon the request of a great number of developing countries media managers, that UNESCO has initiated this handbook. The manual is designed with a specific focus on Public Service Broadcasting, but it co uld be used by every interested individual or media practitioner. It’s a straightforward guide that can help make a broadcaster’s programming more vibrant and engaging.It also offers advice to media executives on how to refine their management structures and practices, to keep their companies operating smoothly. What’s more, it provides practical tips on how to create sustainable financial plans which will help propel public service broadcasters into the future. We believe that this reference book can enhance both the economic and the civic competence of journalists and broadcasters. We hope that it will promote a free and pluralistic journalism and assist broadcasters’ companies in becoming more independent and sustainable; both of which are fundamental for modern democratic societies. Armoogum Parsuramen Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka Introduction If you’re looking for a theoretical textbook full of t rendy management jargon – or for a technical buffs’ guide to the latest electronic wizardry – this isn’t it. Nor will it give you a universal blueprint for the ‘right answer’ or the ‘best method’ – panaceas for which I’m repeatedly asked at international conferences and seminars but which don’t, I’m afraid, exist. What it will provide is a repertoire of practical management tools – approaches, structures, systems and techniques – which have been proved to work in a variety of broadcasting contexts and which are particularly relevant to countries-intransition. For whom is it intended?Though it includes a chapter on media institutions and governance, it’s not primarily concerned with the constitutional and political aspects of media management, which are already wellcovered in many other publications. Rather, it’s a hands-on guide for senior and middle managers who want to see their operations flourish and succeed in a rapidly-changing and increasingly competitive environment. Its aim is to help them make the most effective use of whatever levels of resources, money and staff are available within their own organisations. Rich-country colleagues who are already into HDTV, multi-platform distribution, large-scale webcasting, podcasting, mobile reception, interactivity, ‘quadruple-play bundling’ and the rest may find some of it old hat to them.I can say only that more than twelve years of working with broadcasters in countriesin-transition – many of whom have no real tradition of pro-active management and would envy the resources you had decades ago – have shown that this is exactly the kind of practical guidance they want and need. That’s not, of course, to imply that the latest technologies should be inaccessible or irrelevant to countries-in-transition. Indeed, given the speed of change, some of them may be in a position to ‘skip a technological generation’ in broadcasting, just as they have in adopting mobile telephones ahead of land-lines. But the basic management principles in the manual apply to them too. I’m indebted to many organisations and individuals for their contribution to developing these ideas.To the BBC, of course, where I spent most of my working (and therefore my learning) life. To Westcountry Television, for the experience of starting-up from scratch a completely new and ground-breaking operation and for introducing me to the world of commercial broadcasting. To the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme and its remarkable tutors, for some revelatory insights into modern management principles and practice. To the Thomson Foundation, the British Council, the UK’s Department for International Development, the Council of Europe and the OSCE for opportunities to work with broadcasters and governments in some  Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual we nty countries-in-transition; their assignments have been the source of much of the material in this manual. To UNESCO for making the manual possible. And to the very many professional colleagues and friends with whom I’ve been privileged to bat around ideas and opinions over more than forty years. Particular acknowledgements are due to Dick Bates and Zofair Ammar for their input on financial management and to Phil Speight for his suggestions on editorial and production practice. If there are errors in the manual the fault is, of course, mine alone. The terminology I’ve used is generally that of British broadcasting conventions and practice. (‘Regional’, for instance, usually efers to regions within a country, rather than to wider geographical groupings of several countries – like the Middle East or the South Pacific. ) Where that might risk confusion, I’ve tried to clarify what’s intended. Because its operations are more complex, many of the illustrations are taken from television but the principles are manifestly equally applicable to radio. We’re facing an era of change on an unprecedented scale and at unprecedented speed. Let’s together ensure that the media lead the way down the road of management reform and progress. That way the development of broadcasting can also bring with it broadcasting for development.John Prescott Thomas Bristol 2009 9 1 What’s the Media Game? 10 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual T he truth is that nobody really knows – yet. The only thing that’s absolutely certain is that the old certainties have gone for good. The BBC was designed in the 920s on the pattern of the British civil service to run a monopoly. If it had stayed that way, it would now be as dead as the dodo. As will be any broadcasting organisation which fails to adapt to the new media environment. (And, sadly, the dodo doesn’t even know that it’s extinct: none o f us gets to read our own obituary. ) There’s no market more dynamic and fast-moving than that of the media.New technologies – and convergence among existing ones – are causing monumental shifts both in consumer behaviour and in the potential for content providers and distributors. Some will emerge as big winners; but the actual take-up by consumers is by no means universally assured and is constantly changing. (Viewers with access to 24-hour television news services currently watch them for only nine minutes a day on average; in Britain, ITV has already closed down its rolling-news channel. ) As digital technology brings with it a previously unimaginable proliferation of media outlets, the audience share of any individual broadcaster must inexorably fall.The figures are already a fraction of what they were even ten years ago: programmes once watched by  or 20 million viewers are now lucky to attract five million and the figures are still falling. In fact, in this new media world, to speak of broadcasting in its traditional sense may become an anachronism. Though people are still spending a lot of time in front of their screens, they’re devoting much less of it to viewing broadcast schedules. In 2006, internet use in Britain exceeded broadcasttelevision viewing for the first time; at the time of writing, Google’s UK advertising revenue has already overtaken that of the terrestrial commercial television channels. So content providers are increasingly integrating terrestrial transmission with satellite, cable, broadband and telephony.And with print: the web-sites of newspapers are increasingly indistinguishable from those of broadcasters; which raises interesting questions for regulators in countries where, historically, the regulatory regimes for the two means of publishing are significantly different. For broadband distribution of similar content, which rules should apply? DVDs, video-on-demand, interactive channels and vid eo games are all transforming the traditional viewing experience. PVR (‘every viewer his or her own scheduler’) enables the audience to by-pass commercial breaks, with major consequences for conventional advertising revenue. With the spread of broadband, the internet is becoming a distribution network on a scale inconceivable when its only access was by slow and expensive dial-up links.Mobile reception is making significant inroads, suggesting that ‘place-shifting’ will be the next step-change beyond (now long-established) time-shifting: viewers will be able to watch their own television on a laptop or other device anywhere in the world via the internet. And the simplification – and the cheapness – of authoring equipment and software means that anyone can now shoot and edit their own material and blog and vlog it world-wide over the net. (You can already 11 buy an Apple PowerBook loaded with Final Cut Pro for less than ? 200. ) The use by the professional media of more and more so-called UGC (user-generated content), both on-screen and in print, suggests that the ‘citizen journalist’ is becoming a reality.We’re seeing a democratisation of the airwaves – a major shift from a channelbased to a network-based world, from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ consumption. That doesn’t mean, of course, that ‘linear’ broadcasting will disappear; indeed, it’s likely to remain the principal content-source for very many people. But it will have to learn how to co-exist with many other competing outlets and to survive with much-reduced audiences. In the face of this revolution, what can conventional broadcasters with limited resources do? The answer is: stop being conventional. Even if many of the new opportunities are not realistic options for you, get rid of outmoded ideas, dismantle old-fashioned structures, abandon bureaucratic procedures and build in flexibility and f ast-moving adaptability.And even if (or, rather, especially if) you’re a publicly-funded outfit, learn the cost-saving lessons of successful commercial operations and apply them internally. Get competitive by optimising operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. That or, I’m afraid, wave goodbye to your audience. You don’t actually need state-of-the-art technology to do this, though of course it’s nice to have. Nor do you need to have mastered the works of the latest management-speak gurus. What you do need is a different way of looking at things and the will to put that new thinking into practice. That’s what this manual is all about. 12 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual Whats the Media Game? 2 What are the Media for? 13 I you’re a commercial broadcaster, the obvious answer is to earn money for your shareholders. But it’s not as simple as that. Even if you’re commercially-funded, you may well have public-service obligations written into the terms of your broadcasting licence. And even if you’re state-funded, you may have to supplement your income from public money by raising commercial revenue from advertising or other sources. There are now very few public-service broadcasters which are financed wholly and solely from public funds; the BBC, Japan’s NHK and ABC in Australia are the only major ones. The first two funded by a licence fee and the third by a government grant.So, one way or another, you’re quite likely to be operating in a ‘mixed economy’. Where do you sit in that market? As the range of digital opportunities grows, the argument that the spectrum is a scarce resource requiring firm regulation becomes less sustainable (more on this in Chapter Three). So we’re likely to see commercial broadcasters acting more and more as dealers in a commodity and radio and television stations finding themselves free to adopt an engaged editorial line, as newspapers have done for decades. The first signs of these changes are already with us: Fox News is a strong example of the second, with an explicitly-declared political agenda; examples of the first can be found almost everywhere.But, in news at least, it seems likely that ‘due impartiality’ will continue to be a requirement for broadcasters which are publicly-funded. Of course, most countries-in-transition aren’t there yet. How might their media position themselves? Let’s start from first principles. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 19 states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information through any media and regardless of frontiers. Very many countries have signed up to this declaration. So in how many of them is Article 9 observed?The answer is that only 20% of the world’s population live in such free-media societies. The ‘least free’ media environments are in Asia, where many governments see dissent and opposition as ‘not conducive to the general good’; in such countries We need to establish that free media are an essential element in civil society. That’s an idea which it’s still difficult to get past what we might call the ‘Ministry of Information mentality’. 1 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual there’s a long way to go. But nor should western democracies feel complacent: in the 200 press-freedom league-table issued by Reporters Without Frontiers, while the Nordic nations led the field, Britain ranked 24th and the United States only 44th.We need to establish that free media are an essential element in civil society. That’s an idea which it’s still difficult to get past what we might call ‘the Ministry of Information mentality’. While governments will rightly have their own press and public relations operations, we should maintain that it’s not right for them to control directly – still less to monopolise – national broadcasting institutions. Even where they’re publiclyfunded, broadcasters should be free to treat information from government agencies exactly as they would treat information from any other source (with one or two exceptions, like dealing with national emergencies or natural disasters, which are considered in Chapter Three).Though western European nations haven’t, historically, been at all immune to the politicisation of broadcasting, the role of the media should nowhere be to act simply as a mouthpiece for the government of the day. Rather, their duty is disclosure in the public interest: the revealing of information and the holding to account of public institutions and individuals for their statements and actions. (Remember the old definition of news as ‘something that someone, somewhere, woul d rather you didn’t know’. ) It follows that public-service media should, overall, represent properly and fairly all voices in society. In particular, when a majority view has prevailed, they should be able to ensure that the views and interests of minorities are still safeguarded and find expression. Is this an utopian ideal? No – because it already exists in many countries.And because the ‘Ministry of Information’ model is becoming, in practice, less credible and sustainable almost by the week. Here are just five examples: n In an East Asian country, the authorities are anxious to ensure that the internet isn’t used to spread ‘incorrect’ ideas – so they apply filters in order to police web traffic. But inventive bloggers have got round this by devices such as spelling ‘democracy’ – a trigger-word – with a zero instead of an o. Anyone can read and understand it but the computer doesn’t re cognise it. This then becomes a cat-and-mouse game, with each side manoeuvring to keep one jump ahead of the other; information suppressed on one web-site also quickly pops up somewhere else. In an African country some years ago the government banned an issue of the major national newspaper which included an article critical of the authorities. This achieved little other than to make the government look foolish, because the article had already been published electronically and was available world-wide on the web. n In a country in the Caucasus, the state broadcaster made no mention for three days of a ferry disaster in which many had died. Meanwhile, everybody had heard about it on the grapevine and people were already demonstrating outside the ferry company’s headquarters, wanting to know what had happened to their relatives. (The demonstration wasn’t reported either. n In the Arabic-speaking world, some state broadcasters operate restrictive 1 regimes; but satellite broadcasting takes the independent voice of al-Jazeera to a television audience of many millions of their people in a common language. n In the former German Democratic Republic, long before satellite transmission was common, many television aerials in border areas were regularly swung towards the west to receive alternative sources of information and opinion. All this suggests that one of the best arguments for persuading politicians of the merits of free media is that imposing direct control doesn’t ultimately work. The sheer volume of web-traffic, for instance, will in the long term make it un-policeable.There are already more than 7 million servers in the world and that number is growing by a million a month; the world-wide web has 3,000 billion pages and another 2,000 are added every hour. China has already given up trying to control the Wikipedia web-site. Even where governments are rigorous in suppressing free expression, the idea that by doing so they control the w ay people think is often illusory. In the Soviet era, the two major state media mouthpieces were Izvestia (The News) and Pravda (The Truth). Among the Russian people, a well-known joke was that v Pravdye nye izvestia; v Izvestiye nye pravda: ‘There’s no news in The Truth and no truth in The News’.When people know that information is being suppressed or manipulated, they become contemptuous of the official media and find their own alternative sources and means of expression. And even when governments profess to act from the best of motives – maintaining national unity in the drive to development, for instance – the results can be counter- productive. The financial scandals of the 990s in South-east Asia showed how, far from protecting decent values, restrictive control of the media simply served to conceal massive corruption. If governments really want the media to be a tool for development, that should include being a tool for democracy.It’s therefore important for media practitioners to persuade politicians and officials that, in the modern global context, they have more to gain than to lose by promoting media freedom. Before 980 the Kenyan government tended to view the institutions of civil society more as competitors than as partners in development. There was deep suspicion of any organisation with the potential for developing an independent power-base – which included the media. The government was able to ensure that the population was only partially-informed by discouraging the coverage of civil action organisations: equipment would be confiscated, publishers would be detained and vital advertising revenue would dry up for fear of offending the authorities.But, as the country progressed from single-party rule to multi-party democracy, politicians began to accept that the state alone simply didn’t have the resources to deliver the development initiatives promised at independence. So the 989 Developm ent Plan finally acknowledged that non-state bodies had a part to play alongside government and that the role of the media was crucial in promoting the wider public interest. The lesson is clear. If a government imposes direct control on the media, then civil society will indeed become a rival rather than a partner; and the more restrictive 1 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual the control, the more opposition elements will seek to exploit alternative outlets for their political advantage.Ultimately, governments are therefore better-served by public-service broadcasting which is firmly established outside the political arena. And, from the management point of view, it becomes increasingly difficult for a broadcaster to compete with rival outlets unless it has the credibility which comes from editorial independence. The experience of South Africa in 994 is perhaps the most positive recent example of a fundamental change in the government / media relationship. The South Afr ican Broadcasting Corporation, once an institution deployed explicitly in support of the nationalist government’s apartheid policies, was transformed into a force for democratic expression in which the broadcasters were given independent editorial responsibility.As one observer commented: For the tens of thousands who stayed glued to their screens for Election 94, the image of non-racial, non-sexist harmony and goodwill that was beamed into their living-rooms held out more hope for South Africa than many of the parties could offer. In Thailand, privately-owned newspapers gave crucial support to democracy in the free elections of 99 and went on to bring public opinion to bear on making politicians accountable and endorsing the rule of law. In 1996 the first non-government television station began broadcasting, with an emphasis on news and documentary output. Radio became even more daring in giving a voice to alternative views – to the extent that even the state media began to change. Sadly, such freeing-up of the media can be short-lived.In 1990, for the first time, two non-political appointments were made to the chairmanships of the state television and radio corporations of one central European country – and for two and a half years its broadcast media were actually among the most independent anywhere in Europe. It didn’t last: by 993 the government had won a ‘media war’ which removed their autonomy. It’s also ironical that, in the same country, some dissident publications which were actually tolerated in the later stages of communism have since been forced to close under the financial pressures of the new free-market economy. If the media lay claim to freedom of expression in the public interest, it follows that they must in turn conduct themselves ethically and responsibly if that reedom is to be justified (see Appendix A, Section 1). If they don’t, there will be many forces at large only too ready t o take their freedoms away. It’s also important to persuade politicians that media coverage is most effective when it starts from the audience’s point of view, not from the establishment’s. I was once in an Asian country when the government announced a plan to ensure that all its children should be immunised against polio – a marvellous initiative which deserved universal recognition. So how did the state broadcaster deal with it? By covering a press conference at which the minister extolled his government’s (admirable, I repeat) enlightenment.But what did the audience really need to know about the innovation? If you start from their point of view, you get quite a different order of priorities. What’s important to 1 them is: n The nature of the danger n What immunisation will do for your child n It’s universally available n It’s free n It’s safe n It’s painless (oral, not injection) n Here’s where to get i t. The Americans have a good term for this kind of information: news you can use. Politicians (who often don’t really understand how the media work) can be slow to realise that it’s an approach which would win them more accolades among their people than any amount of PR posturing.We practitioners need to work constantly to sell these messages. Whats the Media Game? 3 Media Legislation, Regulation & Governance 19 Media institutions Since the framework within which we work largely determines what we can and can’t achieve as managers, it’s worth considering the pros and cons of different systems. Designing a framework within which the media operate is a multi-layered process. Some elements will need to be specified in primary legislation; others may be delegated to an independent regulator with devolved statutory powers; media operators themselves will have their own internal codes of practice; and professional bodies may also endorse codes of ethics and sta ndards.One way or another, the framework needs to cover, essentially: n Media governance n The registration of media outlets n The licensing of media outlets (including licence fees) n The ownership of media outlets – particularly foreign- and cross-ownership n Licence award procedures n Licence compliance procedures n The regulation of media practice n Legal constraints on the disclosure of information be governed by regulatory codes which can be readily amended as circumstances change. An act of parliament, for instance, might establish the basic principle of observing acceptable standards of taste and decency but it’s the regulatory body’s code of practice which would interpret this broad intent in terms of the specific use of images, language or techniques. The regulator can then amend the rules in the light of experience without having to refer the matter back to government. Regulatory bodiesThis principle of regulation at arm’s-length from governmen t is also a safeguard against the media’s becoming a tool in the direct control of politicians: an aspect of the ‘separation of powers’ principle which is crucial in democracies. In Britain, politicians (of all parties) will from time to time fulminate against some perceived transgression by the BBC; but, historically, the minister responsible for broadcasting (again regardless of party) has always replied that the BBC is not a government agency, that he or she doesn’t exercise direct control over it and that the complainant should take the matter up with the BBC’s own (independent) Board of Governors. The Board of Governors has therefore acted as a ‘buffer’ between politicians and media practitioners: it has made the BBC a selfregulating body. In many parts of the world this is an alien concept.While working with British colleagues in one country-in-transition, we were told unequivocally by a minister that, if he’d had his way, we’d never have been invited to give advice: ‘I’d have chosen Primary legislation The media scene is developing at an extraordinary pace. Any system therefore needs to be flexible enough to accommodate rapid change without the need for the constant revision of primary legislation. So instruments such as broadcasting acts should do no more than establish the institutions and embody fundamental principles; their detailed application should 20 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual someone from South-east Asia, where they know how to make the media serve the government’s interests. I also remember talking with the Minister of Information in a West African country who was under pressure from his fellow politicians to ‘stop the media doing what they’re doing’. With remarkable enlightenment – and bravery – he was trying to wean his colleagues away from the expectation of media manipulation and towards a culture in which th e government should expect to make its case to the people alongside alternative views. Sadly, he went in the next coup. A consultancy report on the state broadcaster in the same country showed how damaging political interference could be: Two factors are militating constantly against true professional independence: the formal relationship with the government and the limitations of resources, which are also funded by the government.These are having profound distorting effects, both editorially and financially. The country’s FM radio service is already proving an attractive vehicle for advertisers and has the potential to mitigate some of the financial problems. But government interference means that the organisation is not in full control of its own airwaves and cannot therefore plan its schedule for maximum audience-effectiveness. So, if there is a political requirement to carry at length a live event like a party rally, there are consequences both for the editorial balance o f the output and for revenueearning capacity. The regulatory system for commercial broadcasting is usually different from hat of the public services. In Britain, the government has delegated the overseeing of the industry to an independent regulatory institution – OFCOM, the Office for Communications, which governs the entire communications sector, including telephony and spectrum management (as does AGCOM in Italy) – with statutory powers to award broadcasting licences and to police the conduct of the operators. Again, regulation isn’t seen as a direct function of the state. But the British system is in the process of significant change. There has long been a view that it’s unacceptable for the Board of Governors both to govern the BBC and to sit in judgement on its performance.The BBC has therefore already been made answerable to OFCOM for a number of regulatory issues and that list is growing; the BBC has since re-constituted its Board of Governors as a more independent Trust. Many voices in the industry see this as no more than a holding measure and the beginning of the end of the Board of Governors concept. There are arguments that there should now be a single common regulator for all broadcasting outlets, whether publicly-funded or commercial, so that everybody is obliged to work to the same standards and be held to account in the same way. This would require the internal role of the BBC Governors to be fulfilled by non-executive directors sitting on a single corporation board, as with any other enterprise.That argument is becoming increasingly persuasive in a changing media world and this manual suggests that it offers a sound regulatory model which can be applied in most contexts. One of its advantages is that it can ensure equity of treatment for the three tiers of broadcasting – public, 21 commercial and community. (In South Africa, commercial and community broadcasters successfully lobbied the regulator to impose o n the SABC detailed public-service obligations which would reduce what they saw as unfair competition on their territory. ) Registration and licensing There can be no real objection to the principle of registering media outlets: the requirement to register a newspaper, for instance, can hardly be described as an interference with the freedom of the press.Indeed, it’s right that members of the public should be able to identify the owners and publishers of a newspaper – if only to know whom to sue if they think they’ve been mistreated in its pages. Registration is accepted pretty well universally. But it should be a right as well as a duty – not liable to refusal or withdrawal at the discretion of politicians or officials and not requiring periodic renewal. The licensing of newspapers is quite a different matter. Because it places the ultimate control of periodicals – and therefore of what they report and how they comment on it – in the hands of the licenser, it is indeed potentially a denial of press freedom.The only real purpose I can see for granting such licences is to have the power to revoke them and so, under that threat, to keep the media compliant and subdued. Because there’s no finite spectrum for the publishing of printed matter (as there is with broadcasting), the argument for ‘rationing’ a scarce resource isn’t sustainable. In fact, in most democracies, the licensing of printingpresses disappeared two hundred years ago. But in countries like Malaysia and Singapore the right to print newspapers and periodicals is still granted only by government permit – and the permit may be withdrawn if the government doesn’t like what the media are printing. Broadcasting does present a different case.We might say that a free press should be constrained only in the same way that a private citizen is constrained: by common laws governing issues such as libel, slander, contempt of cour t, trespass, copyright and so on. But the allocation of broadcasting frequencies is determined by international agreements among governments and it’s therefore not only reasonable but also essential for those governments to have mechanisms for controlling their domestic allocation. While, in principle, any citizen might have access to a printing-press, access to the airwaves still requires a ‘gatekeeper’. In a development context, the media have a vital role to play in educating the public, making people aware of their rights, encouraging participative democracy, exerting pressure for enlightened governance and exposing wrongdoing. 22Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual Though, as we’ve seen, digital technology is making a vast multiplicity of outlets technically possible, many economies will be unable to sustain unregulated commercial competition on a very large scale – certainly if there is to be any concern for diversity, quality and publ ic service. This has already been seen in some Balkan states, where political change was accompanied by a headlong rush to set up literally hundreds of commercial stations in countries with tiny populations and a very low GDP. Needless to say, the advertising market couldn’t support this volume of output and many of them didn’t last long.On the commercial front, there are those who argue that’s fine: a free market should indeed be left to find its own level. Few countries-in-transition are likely to agree that such an approach will meet the real needs of their people – particularly of the poor. In a development context, the media have a vital role to play in educating the public, making people aware of their rights, encouraging participative democracy, exerting pressure for enlightened governance and exposing wrongdoing. The development of regulatory and licensing systems in some countries of the former Yugoslavia was also able to mitigate tendencies to u se the airwaves to inflame ethnic hatred.Universality, independence and diversity are key to this concept of public service. Indeed, a colloquium conducted by the New Delhi Centre for Media Studies concluded that: The official media, increasingly market- and consumer-orientated, are out of tune with the values needed to promote broadbased human development. Development communication is most effective when practised as part of social action locally, rather than delivered top-down by media professionals. And here’s another quote from a media conference: The country needs a non-profit information consortium which would provide the kind of information that society needs but which commercial broadcasting is not providing †¦..The gaps which need to be filled are in education, public issues, culture, the arts and children’s programming. A contribution from a country in the developing world? No: in fact the views of an American delegate commenting on the media scene in th e United States. (There’s more about how to ensure you’re really in tune with your audience in Chapters Six and Eight. ) A market-driven commercial sector alone is therefore, for quite understandable reasons, unlikely to meet all the needs of a society, whether rich or developing. So it’s right that there should be a system for awarding broadcasting licences and ensuring that any public-service requirements in the terms of the licence are delivered.It should be clear that what’s being licensed is the provision of a specified service, not just the use of a specified frequency (though that service may, of course, be devoted entirely to sport or to entertainment, if that’s what you want; the classic definition of public-service broadcasting is, after all, that it should ‘inform, educate and entertain’). How should the licences be awarded? Not directly by a ministry, we should maintain, but by that independent regulatory body operating at arm’s-length from government. 23 In most contexts, a straightforward tendering system for granting licences will be perfectly appropriate; but the process must be open, transparent and representative of the public interest. It’s therefore also right that the terms of the licence should be properly demanding.We should expect them to include at least: n Commercial ownership of the broadcasting organisation n Frequencies allocated n Transmission coverage to be achieved n Technical standards n Nature of the service and minimum hours of transmission by programme category n Minimum percentage of locally-produced programming n Minimum percentage of programming commissioned from independent producers (if relevant) n Maximum minutes of advertising material per hour n Compliance with the regulatory codes of practice n Mechanisms for dealing with complaints For multiple-channel distributors such as cable companies there may also be what’s known as a ‘must-carryâ€⠄¢ requirement: that their ‘bundle’ of services must include certain specified channels.This is usually applied to ensure that there’s a free-to-air public-service element in the total offering. programmes and its treatment – it should always be a non-governmental body which is responsible for monitoring and judging performance. So, in most cases, it will make sense to entrust both kinds of activity to the same independent body. It’s important too that, as well as dealing with compliance and the ethical responsibilities of the media, the regulatory body may be given a duty to protect their freedoms and to speak out when they come under threat, from whatever source. Independent regulatory bodies How should such a body be set up and the members of its governing board appointed?Ultimately, even if indirectly, this is bound to be a function of government or, preferably, of some kind of cross-party mechanism. But there are ways of ensuring that the nomin ees are not just politicians’ cronies or political placemen. In some countries, vacancies on regulatory bodies have to be advertised and, in principle, anybody may apply and selection is overseen by an independent public appointments commission; that’s the UK’s system. In others, particular interest groups (industry, trade unions, religious bodies, arts organisations, the education sector and so on) may have the right to nominate candidates; that’s the case in Germany.And South African law requires the members of its Independent Communications Authority to have ‘suitable qualifications, expertise and experience in the fields of, among others, broadcasting and telecommunications policy, engineering, technology, frequency band planning, law, marketing, journalism, entertainment, education, economics, business practice and finance’. Compliance with licence terms In ensuring compliance, it may be that the quantitative aspects of the licence terms (the elements which can be measured objectively and aren’t matters of judgement – such as transmitter coverage, hours broadcast, percentage of local programming and so on) could be ensured by a government agency. But in qualitative matters – the content of 2 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual A tall order, you may think.But even when the appointments have ultimately to be endorsed by a minister, such measures may at least ensure that the regulator is broadly representative of society in general. Under the South African system it is parliament, rather than the government, which oversees the appointments process. Appointments are also made on a rotating basis – so avoiding ‘clean-sweep’ change at politically sensitive times such as the run-up to elections – and the regulator’s independence is constitutionally assured; legislation limits ministerial powers to broad policy directives (which must be published) and exclude s any government involvement in particular licensing decisions.All of this challenges ‘the Ministry of Information mentality’. In other countries, even where the transplanting of patterns of parliamentary government and elections have established a formal framework of legitimacy – as in some South-east Asian countries – the habits and attitudes required for a healthy civic culture and true participatory democracy have often remained undeveloped. The regulatory body will, of course, also need a team of professional full-time staff to implement policy on the ground. They are likely to require regular reports and returns on quantitative compliance and may sample-monitor output or conduct spotchecks on qualitative matters, both editorial and technical.And there will usually be an annual assessment meeting at which the broadcaster will be held to account for its overall performance. responsibility not only for awarding licences but also for ensuring compliance with their terms. Unless with this responsibility comes the power to impose sanctions on transgressors, the regulator will be a toothless creature. The government should therefore also delegate to the regulator the power of applying sanctions: for instance, to admonish broadcasters, to require them to broadcast corrections and / or apologies, to fine them, to suspend their licences – or even ultimately to revoke a licence altogether. (A commercial broadcaster in Britain was once cautioned for a breach of the productplacement rules.A second flagrant violation of the code brought it a fine of ? 00,000. More recently, a broadcaster was fined more than ? 1 million for the fleecing of viewers during a phone-in competition. ) But the more extreme penalties should seldom, if ever, need to be invoked, if only because of the broadcasters’ instincts for self-preservation. The regulator will probably draw up more than one code with which broadcasters must comply if they’r e to retain their licences. There’s likely to be, for instance, a technical code and a code governing advertising practice. But the most vital will be the programme or editorial code, which embodies the rules by which the station’s day-to-day output will be judged.Provided that broadcasters have in place proper systems for ensuring compliance with the codes (such as the principle of ‘referring up’ – see page 82), they can be a powerful shield in the face of criticism, whether from governments or from other sources. Appendix A suggests how such a programme code might work. It’s not an example from any single source but a compilation and a distillation of sound principles from several Regulatory codes The regulatory body has devolved to it the 2 The regulatory body has devolved to it the responsibility not only for awarding licences but also for ensuring compliance with their terms. Unless with this responsibility comes the power to impose san ctions on transgressors, the regulator will be a toothless creature. contexts – both from regulatory instruments and from broadcasters’ own internal codes of practice.Nor is it a formula for universal application: any such code must be drawn up with proper sensitivity to the culture of local society. But it’s not a bad summary of the kind of standards to which we should, as professionals, aspire. The acknowledgement of cultural differences is essential – and this isn’t an issue only between (as it’s often now presented) the Muslim and the nonMuslim world. Western nations too have their own taboos and nuances of acceptability. American programmes have often to be adapted for transmission in Britain because of what’s seen as excessively violent content; on the other hand, American audiences tend to have a rather more prudish attitude to sexuallyexplicit content than do Europeans.In its coverage of a terrorist bomb incident, Italian tele vision felt able to show much more horrific illustration of the carnage than did British television – though both had access to exactly the same footage. At an educational television conference (admittedly some years ago now), the Danish delegation showed a teenage sexeducation programme which addressed menstruation in a frank and open way. The broadcasters from Southern Europe, including Bavaria – and also, interestingly, those from Israel – said at the time that it would be impossible for them to transmit such a programme to schools. Repeatedly, the model code emphasises the need to protect children from inappropriate, manipulative or potentially corrupting material.Some regulators aim to achieve this by imposing a mandatory ‘watershed’ in the schedule – a time (usually around 2:00) before which all broadcast material should be suitable for family viewing and listening but after which more ‘adult’ treatments are acceptable. Su ch a watershed is likely to be variable at times of rapid social change. Some would argue that, in the video age, it’s also become unrealistic. Many primary school teachers can tell horror-stories of how even very young children have been able to view at home material they would never be allowed to see in a cinema. Again, this is a matter which has to be resolved within the local context, with on-air warnings where appropriate. Editorial freedom and disclosure Day-to-day editorial management is covered  Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual in Chapter Eight. But there are two aspects with legal implications which we should consider here. The first is the disclosure by the media of ostensibly confidential information which they acquire through leaks. The model code in Appendix A makes it quite clear that leaking is generally done not by the media but to the media, often by politicians themselves (or by companies, or whatever) or by their representatives. Any entity wit h a vested interest may quite sensibly want to keep some of the information it possesses under wraps and to invoke sanctions against employees who leak it. But maintaining that ecurity is their responsibility, not the media’s. If such information should come the way of the media, it’s their role in civil society to disclose it for public consideration in the public interest (think of Watergate). This principle was well put by one of the most famous editors of The Times, John Thaddeus Delane, as long ago as 82: The first duty of the Press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time and instantly, by disclosing them, make them the common property of the nation †¦.. The Press lives by disclosures; whatever passes into its keeping becomes a part of the knowledge and history of our times.In countries with strong freedomof-information laws, such as the Scandinavian countries, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, this prin ciple is clear and explicit and is a significant enabler of investigative journalism. On the other hand, a law such as Britain’s Official Secrets Act of 1914 (passed as a panic measure, with little debate, in the run-up to the First World War) made even the possession of restricted official information a criminal offence. Effectively, it allowed a journalist to be imprisoned simply for doing his or her job. That’s not, we should maintain, an appropriate use of the criminal law. The second issue is the protection of sources. In some countries (in Sweden, for example) media practitioners are protected by law from being compelled to reveal the sources of their information.But almost everywhere, even without such legal protection, they accept a moral and professional obligation not to disclose a source when they’ve given their word not to do so. Journalists have gone to prison rather than betray this confidentiality: in 2005 in the United States a federal judge jail ed Judith Miller for refusing to confirm the source of leaked information in the Plame case; in 2006 Lance Williams and Mark FainaruWada were sentenced to 8 months for contempt of court for a similar refusal in a case involving alleged drug-taking by professional athletes. Without that assurance – and the confidence that it will be honoured – much journalism in the public interest would be impossible.Lord Denning, when he was Britain’s most senior appeal-court judge, put it like this: If the press were compelled to disclose their sources they would soon be bereft of information which they ought to have. Their sources would dry up. Wrongdoing would not be disclosed †¦.. Unfairness would go unremedied †¦.. Misdeeds in the corridors of power – in companies or in government departments – would never be known. 2 (Please note that these are the words of a senior member of the judicial establishment, not of some wild-eyed, gung-ho media revolu tionary. ) The case-history on page 37 gives an example (from India) in which investigative journalism discovered serious criminal activity, exposed it in the public interest, enabled the criminals to be brought to justice and initiated significant improvements in health-safety practices. Media ownershipThe media are an industry and media development is a global phenomenon. Driven by technology and the market, media industries are everywhere proliferating, fragmenting, combining and diversifying. No country can insulate itself completely from these trends. And, indeed, foreign ownership can bring important inward investment to the country, in the media as in other fields. In some countries it may also provide some guarantee of media freedom. There can clearly be no universal formula for what degree of foreign ownership is acceptable or desirable but any limitation should certainly be included in the terms of the licence; 15% to 20% is a common figure.The terms should also ensure th at foreign ownership should not traduce the interests, culture and heritage of the host country. More than one government has sold off the seed-corn of its frequency spectrum to foreign providers, only to see the local audience sold short. When television was first launched in Fiji, the government granted the New Zealand company TVNZ a monopoly for twelve years of its only terrestrial channel. In a small developing country, the broadcaster’s rigorously commercial plan was, unsurprisingly, based on low capital investment, minimum operating expenditure and a high level of low-cost imported programming from Australia and New Zealand.Locallyproduced programming accounted for only 0% of the output and there was no adaptation even of international commercials for local audiences. There was nothing at all underhand in any of this: it was all clearly spelt out in the business plan which the government accepted, But local dissatisfaction with the service lasted for many years. Cross- media ownership is another matter. It would self-evidently be unhealthy for democratic pluralism if a single provider were to own, say, all the major newspapers and all the radio and television outlets in any country. Restrictions on such crossownership are clearly in the public interest and should be part of the terms of the licence; again, 20% is a common limitation.Indeed, there’s a good case for setting the permitted levels in the primary legislation. The funding of broadcasting This is another area in which the tectonic plates are shifting. Public-service broadcasting is generally funded through a statutory levy on households equipped to receive its transmissions. There are many ways of collecting this fee. In Britain, viewers have to purchase a licence by mail, at a post-office or on-line. They may pay it by instalments; but, if they own or rent a television set, they must have a licence even if they never watch the public-service channels it funds (the publicly-funded radio services are free). Not to pay is actually a criminal, not a civil, 2 Broadcasters’ Media Management Manual ffence. The licence fee is thus effectively a regressive poll-tax – though one to which, historically, there’s been little public resistance. That may soon change. Other countries use different methods of collection: in France it’s now added to the annual bill for local property taxes; in Macedonia it’s an addition to the monthly electricity bill. In other countries, as in Australia, it comes in the form of a government grant paid for through general taxation. In most countries public-service broadcasters are now subject to hybrid funding, whereby a proportion of their income comes from public sources but much of it has to be raised commercially.Hybrid funding can lead to tensions between public and purely commercial broadcasters when it leads the former to chase ratings and revenue at the latter’s expense: allegations of unfair ly-subsidised competition and a dilution of the public-service mission are very common. In the United States, the stations of the Public Service Broadcasting channel supplement their core income by seeking, through energetic on-air campaigns, free-will donations from the people of the communities they serve. Commercial broadcasting has a wider range of funding options. Historically, the most common source has been advertising revenue, derived from selling air-time for commercials in slots between and during programmes across the schedule.The proliferation of outlets is inevitably diluting this as a source of income. And, as technology enables viewers to ‘skip’ the commercials if they want to, it provides a less and less secure income stream. Another source is sponsorship, when an organisation pays to have its product or identity associated with a programme or with a broadcast event. Sponsorship too is going through a process of change. Whereas, in the past, it was regar ded almost as the equivalent of a donation, it’s now much more aggressively brand-orientated. In the future, as the market fragments, it’s likely to shift its emphasis even more closely to the individual consumer.An area of some controversy is product placement when, rather than buying advertising air-time, an advertiser pays to have the product included prominently within the editorial content of a programme; it’s long been an accepted practice in feature films. For years, ‘undue prominence’ of this kind has been prohibited by broadcasting regulators (and by self-regulating public-service broadcasters); but the new ability of viewers to evade the commercial breaks is making such placement an attractive alternative – and probably unstoppable, at least within fictional and entertainment formats. It should, however, have no place in news and current affairs programmes, where it would clearly jeopardise editorial independence. Then there is subs cription, where a viewer or listener pays a monthly fee for access to a specified ‘bundle’ of channels which are otherwise encrypted and so unobtainable.An alternative (or a supplement) is pay-perview, whereby the consumer accesses and pays for only the individual programmes he or she wants; this can also be used for video-on-demand services. And then there is the internet, initially used by broadcasters only as a supplementary service to their main channels but now increasingly a production and distribution medium in its 29 own right. As with newspaper web-sites, most internet broadcasting is still free to the consumer, as it’s seen as a spin-off from the core business – even if it costs the supplier a great deal of money. At present most providers mitigate those costs by selling advertising on the website but we may well see new kinds of subscription and pay-per-view extended to these services too.Nor should we forget the programmes themselves as sources of funding. Through co-production, several broadcasters may contribute to the production budget in return for the right to transmit the result. It gives the participants access to formats and scales of production they couldn’t individually afford. Programme sales of completed productions to other broadcasters can also provide a significant revenue stream for high-volume producers and there may also be a market for retail sales to the public of cassettes or DVDs. The use of premium telephone lines in audience-participation formats such as phone-ins can generate a useful supplement to mainstream income, as can SMS messaging.Small local stations may also compete – or even collaborate – with the local press in classified advertising (‘small-ads. ’). Where programmes – particularly longrunning series – attract large audiences, merchandising can be a significant revenue-earner. Apart from recordings of the programmes themselves, spin-off pr oducts such as tie-in books, toys and games can thrive on the publicity generated by the original broadcasts. Branded products promoting the identity of a broadcaster or a channel can also increase consumer awareness, particularly if they are distributed as part of a presence at public events. The governance of media organisationsIf we assume a single, common regulatory body for all broadcasting (see page 20), there’s no reason why public-service and commercial broadcasters shouldn’t also adopt a common kind of corporate structure, based on normal company practice. This requires that there should be a board of directors and an executive (or board of management). A public-service broadcaster will usually operate under some form of charter and licence; a commercial company will have its own memorandum and articles of association within which the board must operate. The directors effectively constitute the company and are legally responsible for its conduct. They approve its strategy, assure its financial viability, oversee the work of the executive and are answerable to stakeholders for the company’s performance; but their role is essentially to set policy, not to micro-manage the operation.In the case of a commercial company, their prime responsibility is to the shareholders who have funded the company and who expect a return on their investment; in the case of a public-service operator, it’s to th