Liz Ford, Guardian Katine Editor, speaks with Glasshouse Partnership about how technology is changing the way journalists report on Africa.
The Katine website is a 3-year project launched by the Guardian to explore in new, more in-depth ways how development aid impacts communities on the ground. Funded by Guardian readers (through a Christmas appeal), the Katine project is a more ‘hands-on’ approach to understanding how aid works (or doesn’t).
Guardian journalists report from the Ugandan village of Katine, alongside the NGOs and local people about whom they file stories. They distribute video cameras to locals to capture their own experiences, and they help locals comment on the stories which are written about them. Most aspects of aid are covered from agriculture and rural development, health, education, resource management, and politics.
This project brings up some compelling questions about the future of journalism, particularly in a development context:
- How does ‘embedding’ journalists within these communities change the nature of the coverage?
- What role does technology play in opening more interactive and insightful dialogues between Guardian readers, development practitioners, and the Ugandan locals in Katine?
- Does this threaten or enhance the role of the media as an objective arbiter of news?