The Reporting Diversity Network: a media program to promote interethnic dialogue, conflict prevention, and reconciliation in South-East Europe

Project beneficiaries

The ultimate goal of the program was to effect a change in the media culture, in order to promote a positive role for the media in counteracting xenophobia and preventing conflict. Primary beneficiaries were:
•	Journalists and media managers who participated in training workshops, consulting, media projects, and other activities. The impact of the program on them included more interaction with colleagues of different ethnic backgrounds, increased awareness of diversity reporting, and greater capacity to cover minority and ethnic issues;
•	Journalism educators at universities and institutes, who developed and implemented new curricula on reporting on minority and ethnic-relations issues;
•	Minority community groups, which gained media relations skills enabling them to establish a more effective public voice in the mainstream political dialogue and to counteract damaging coverage and stereotyping.

Project activities:

Overall, changes in media behaviour - in particular, in the coverage of ethnic minorities - can have a considerable impact in stabilizing inter-ethnic relations in the region. The project aimed to achieve that by using a multi-faceted approach:
	Strategy One: Mid-Career Diversity Training and Professional Development The most direct way to change media coverage of minorities and inter-ethnic relations in the region - training and follow-up support for practising journalists.
	•	A Reporting Diversity Institute for Media Management targeted the region's media decision-makers (owners, editors-in-chief, publishers), whose lack of committed to the reporting diversity agenda had had a tendency to undermine much of the training of reporters on minorities and ethnic issues.
	•	Regional Diversity Training Consultant: A full-time in-region consultant provided concrete follow-up to individual news organizations, in addition to small-group training sessions.
	•	Production of Training Manual: A resource manual and reference source for future training of journalists and news organizations was produced
	•	Post-Conflict Professional Development: Journalistic fairness, tolerance and objectivity were in short supply. This initiative promoted reconciliation in and through the media.
	Strategy Two: Diversity Reporting Initiatives Training courses, workshops, and consulting are most effective in combination with practical projects - both to provide hands-on training to the journalists involved and also to create a body of work ("best practices") that can be held as a model for others.
	•	Regional Team Reporting Projects, were conducted, designed to promote cross-ethnic reporting, break down media barriers, and create professional journalistic links - as well as valuable media products.
	•	Pilot Regional News Exchange: A news agency service was produced dedicated to the distribution of high-quality material on minorities, ethnic conflict, and diversity.
	•	Project Consulting: A permanent on-site consultant supervised and advised on a variety of formal and informal reporting diversity projects.
	Strategy Three: Diversity Journalism Education and Curriculum Development Long-term improvement in media coverage of tolerance-related issues is most effectively promoted by ensuring that university-level journalism education addresses such issues in a systematic and sustained fashion. Training curricula for journalism educators are the key.
	•	Regional Curriculum Development Project: Rather than promote a ready-made curriculum, MDI worked with journalism educators to help them develop their own curricula adapted for use in their particular country and university.
	Strategy Four: Media Assistance for Minority Groups Minority groups were trained to work with mainstream media in order to promote understanding of their cultures, and assisted to develop their own professional and sustainable media organizations.
	•	Media Relations Guide: A basic media-relations manual was produced for the use of minority groups and as the focus for media-relations workshops for minority group leaders.
	•	Annual Workshops brought together leaders of regional minority NGOs for media relations training built around the manual and incorporating a wide range of capacity-building activities.
	Strategy Five: Media Monitoring for Program Development and Implementation Local RDN project partners believe that monitoring is essential to demonstrate to local media their deficiencies in coverage of minority groups, minority rights and inter-ethnic issues.
	•	A Media Monitoring Experts Group (MMEG) of Europe's leading media monitors and researchers acted as consultants to the monitoring projects.
	•	Media Research Protocol (MRP): The group created a systematic monitoring research protocol allowing local documentation, and region-wide comparisons, of media coverage.
	•	Media monitoring of the press followed in 10 of the region's countries and territories.
	Strategy Six: Institutionalising the Reporting Diversity Network The Reporting Diversity Network was institutionalised as an ongoing regional organization that mobilizes the shared energies of leading local media NGOs, while bringing to bear the best international expertise and resources.