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Media Council publishes report about OGP

Richard Sambrook|

In March 2013 the Omidyar Network funded the formation of a Media Council to comment on the objectives and performance of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). It was felt OGP discussions had lacked a media perspective. The council is entirely separate from and independent of the OGP.

Over the last few months, the council has conducted a global survey of journalists (227 responses from 52 countries) and interviewed a number of key journalists and academics on their views about the media’s engagement with open government.

Today the media council’s working paper is published – and its findings will be debated at a panel discussion at the OGP summit on Thursday October 31st.

The paper finds a significant gap between media, government and civil society organisations over views of progress and accountability. In particular it highlights inconsistencies in some member countries between OG commitments and policies towards the media and free speech and finds widespread ignorance of the OGP among journalists even in member countries. The paper offers a number of challenges and makes four key recommendations:

  1. The OGP should develop a joint statement which recognises the importance of free expression and free media in the context of open government and encourages OGP signatories to reconcile open government commitments with their policies towards free speech.
  2. The OGP should launch a major engagement initiative to educate the public – and media – on the aims and purpose of the partnership and open government. This should include a resource centre to support better understanding of open government including educational tools and developed case studies as examples.
  3. Civil Society organisations should seek to establish a regular index of “open governance” which establishes best practise, benchmarks, and can generate greater levels of reporting and debate.
  4. Media should be encouraged to seek partnerships with civil society organisations and others who can better inform their reporting of open government and support the development of appropriate expertise and skills within media organisations

The OGP has made rapid progress in bringing countries into the fold. To do so it has adopted a flexible approach, allowing countries to interpret the goals in their own terms. The next stage may require confronting some of the inconsistencies that has allowed – particularly over free speech.

The Media and Open Government: partners or adversaries is available for download here.

OGP Media Council Report

OGP Media Council Report

The Media Council members are:

Chair: Professor Richard Sambrook, Cardiff University (former Director of BBC Global News)


Pavel Andreev, Ria Novosti, Russia


Chris Cramer, Wall St Journal, USA

Yuli Ismartono, Tempo, Indonesia


Wadah Khanfar, Sharq Foundation, Egypt
(Former Director General of Al Jazeera)


Sean Parnell, FOI Editor, The Australian


Fernando Rodrigues, Grupo Folha, Brazil


Simon Rogers, Datajournalist


David Schlesinger
(Former Editor in Chief, Reuters & Chairman, China, Reuters)

Juanita Williams, AllAfrica.Com

 

Filed Under: Research
Open Government Partnership