1 - Do No Harm
Ensure that assistance does no harm to public interest media.
Safety culture: fund and insist on safety infrastructure, training and awareness (incl. gendered risks) as standard.
“Too often we haven’t incorporated the risk of ‘the day after.’ In places like Afghanistan or Iraq, local staff, journalists and translators essential to our work, were left behind when we pulled out, sometimes at the cost of their lives.”
- Representative of an EU Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Local leadership: require documented local/regional partner involvement in design; offer grant-writing/compliance support.
Reduce the reporting burden: harmonise procedures; budget coordination; accept secure, lighter reporting.
Flexible & long-term: mix core support with emergency lines; allow objective changes when contexts shift.
Data minimisation & privacy: collect only what’s essential; protect identities; secure storage/transfer.
“We need to think internally about not harming our partners, this also includes using safe communication channels while communicating with them.”
- Programme officer who works with media in an authoritarian context.
“The biggest danger is the leak of information… security is very essential. That is why we anonymise beneficiaries and make reporting as simple as possible. Donors should be flexible and trust the implementer.”
- Representative of an EU Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Independence first: use visibility waivers; avoid agenda-setting that shapes coverage. Maintaining a distinction internally and externally between politcal communication and support given to media to produce content is essential.
“For content specifically paid for, there is attribution to the EU, in print, radio, or TV, it will state ‘with support from the European Union.’ But for articles written by trained journalists on their own initiative, there is no attribution, because our investment was in their capacity, not the content.”
- EU delegation representative
“We are very flexible on the issue, but we want to make sure they make the effort to explain why it is important for them not to showcase that it’s EU assistance. We always granted it, but it has to be requested.”
- EU delegation representative
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