Monday, October 19, 2009

Holding the aid agencies accountable

Interesting to see that Peter Gill is writing a book on famine reporting 25 years on from the Korem reports. He has done a piece for Media Guardian today reflecting on this - found here. The Dimbleby quote - how many skeletons - is all too believable (although the intro about Michael Buerk made me inadvertently laugh which I don't think was either Gill or Buerk's intention).
Gill puts his finger on it. The IBT's view that we should refuse negative images has its limitations. What is really needed is an examination of what aid agencies have done over the past quarter century. NGOs frequently complain they get a hard time in the media; I would disagree. Frequently they are not examined closely enough at all....