Poll Comments - Media Coverage of WSSD

The poll was conducted August 31 - September 27, 2002:

Media coverage of the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) meeting in Johannesburg made a positive contribution towards the goals of that meeting.

Do you agree? Disagree? Unsure?

AGREE [top]

"The media coverage put pressure on the delegates to come up with something concrete." [ ]

"Concern about environmental issues should get a strong support from the media, in order to discuss and act upon the fundamental issues, implementing public policies, with the participation of all the people in the world, a key issue to have a natural and man-made environment, in which life, health, beauty and peace would be possible..." [Brazil]

"Many issues on poverty and environmental degradation were disseminated by the media." [ ]

"Media is a very powerful tool and it sheds light on issues which othrewise would not have been brought to light for the benefit of all those who did not get an opportunity to be there and also those who want to be heard. Mass media is the single most accessible way of information dissemination and these are global issues which affect each and every one of us." [Kenya]

"Goals of meeting thwarted by various sectors/participants, nevertheless media coverage, NGO and mainstream, mostly informed and clear, pointing out discrepancy between goals and achievement of summit." [Austria]

"The media coverage of the recent World Summit for Scoial Dev. only served to highlight the difficuty of reaching a concensus on the next positive steps possible and the high challenges ahead for defending sustainable development. These to me were the reasons for convening the Summit and to this end, the media did well!" [Liberia]

DISAGREE [top]

"In our media, very superficial and seems like they just read press releases." [ ]

"The media coverage have been very distorted toward a liberal bent. [ ]

"Coverage of the controversies masked the intelligent thinking and innovative ideas that were the real main event of the Summit." [USA]

"Canadian mainstream media have treated the World Summit as a sideshow and seized upon the keynote address that opened the conference as an example of the kind of ideological approach that prevents progress being made. All in all, the coverage in Canada has been dismissive of the goals of the conference, although some of the opinion pieces offered in the period before the Summit were informative and provocative. When the Summit actually opened, the tone of coverage changed significantly." [Canada]

"On the whole the media (predictably) hightlight the cost of sending so many thousands of delegates to another corner of the world to say nothing new with the abject poverty in the close environs." [UK]

"I didn't feel the importance of the Summit through media." [ ]

"Depends on which media in which country(s) you are talking about. The Globe and Mail in J'berg did a good job, but most media covered highlights, house races, and snippets. It rarely made front page ( NYT did give it a photo and the photos of W and the world did well), but there was no "roadbloking" of US media to give it importance. Eu media did better, but the natuer of Eu leads to fragmentation. CNN was not as strong as I would have hoped, with relatively little in-depth feataure tretment and no real systematic process for insuring that the WSSD showewd up in every news boradcast from some angle." [ ]

"The media highlighted the sensational issues and did not cover the main ones. At least some explanations of the key issues would have been great." [Canada]

"The shrub wasn't there regardless of media attention to the event." [ ]

"Considering the vast resources which went into this conference, and 60,000 people, very little evidence to see that there were any concrete outputs, and media coverage fairly limited." [UK]

"Not in the U.S., except on KPFA one of the Pacific Radio Stations. KPFA is one of the only sources of news in the US that I have found to provide comprehensive news coverage. Bush's absence from the World Summit was such a disgrace for me and my fellow United Statsans that mainstream media seemed intent on minimizing his absence and maximizing the deficit of the Summit coverage." [USA]

"Quite like the time shortly after the Rio summit, this one at Jo'berg will have media splashing the "sustainable development" view when their content is below their mandatory slotted time. And then kaput? NO. Fade out. It's begun already. Fuelling this vaporising is Bush, like his father's propensity for seeking scapegoats AND arrogantly overiding The UN's joint counsel. My surplus optimism is chinking." [India]

"I felt that there was not enough coverage." [Canada]

UNSURE [top]

"The secretary general spoke about credible action. The media did not by large think that credible action was forthcoming." [India]

"Given today's media for titilation and shock sound bites, the Jo'burg summit's goals could not puncture out of the media's dinning circle of "sustainable development", as an abstraction or as a index to the one held in Rio." [India]

"Most of the reporting were of reporting nature and so the importance of sustainable development had not been projected properly. Add to that US poured cold water to complete the dampness." [India]

"The goals of the bill moyer coverage of organizations made a positive contribution and was quite stimulating and thought-provoking...not sure that the goals of the summit are positive goals for the rest of the world..." [ ]

"There has been a lot of emphasis on the lack of U.S. participation at WSSD. It's fine to note this, but the explanations for why the U.S. isn't playing more of a role leave something to be desired. Most stories focus on the fact that other countries think the Americans' attitude towards the summit is arrogant. But very few give a detailed explanation for why the Bush administration has opted out of the meetings. Whether most people agree or disagree with the administration's reasons, the media at the very least need to give an accurate description of them. Without thorough reporting, it makes it very easy for people to point fingers at the U.S. for causing WSSD not to meet its goals without looking at other reasons that may not be at all related to the American stance on the summit." [ ]

"You can't generalize "media coverage". Who are we referring to? Are we talking print media or television? If you look at the television coverage, CNN for example or Fox News, both of which I can see where I live, these are really an illustration of misinformation. One could think that television in the US is a Government News Agency. But if you look at television in Europe, for example Spanish, Italian or French television (I also have access to them), the difference is substantial. US media seem more and more inclined to repeat whatever President Bush says. Now, if you really want to know what is happening in Johanesburg, you have to go to the sites that really care about the topics of the conference, environmental sites like Greenpeace, anti-globalisation sites like IndyMedia... Otherwise, we are lost in a bunch of distortions." [Guatemala]

"As previously we have seen the results of the summits, an individual can become confuse that whether the summit would accomplish its agenda or would remain the same." [Pakistan]

"It all depends on which section of the media you were exposed to. Atleast in India where I live, there was barely any serious and concerted attempt by the media to sensitise people from all age groups -- starting with kids -- to the issues vital to the Summit and to the health of our globe." [ ]

"If they were really making a positive impact why all the protest going on? Did they take into consideration the issues raised by the protesters or were they just adamant about the agenda they had gone to discuss which only suited the interests of those in attendance and not the populations they were representing?. We are having too many summits, meetings etc all good impractical suggestions on paper, yet not tackling the real issues. Why for one are people in the developed world still dying of poverty, poor sanitation, preventable diseases, AIDS etc? What is being done? meetings, meeting and more meetings..." [ ]

"Whereas this may be true or wrong its real assessment is a chicken and egg scenario. The scientific evidence of the contribution on every large sample space is very hard to assess. But ofcourse such repeated summits will produce finally seeable contributions whether or not easily assessable." [Uganda]

"It really depends which media you are referring to. In the U.S., mainstream press was limited, not very insightful and didn't adequately inform or empower audiences to express their views to elected officials. On the other hand the BBC and more progressive media in the U.S. gave good constructive coverage." [USA]

"The events were happening simultaneously and too close to eachother that media people found it difficult to grasp a greater pat of what was happening out there. And the host country is not the best example for this goal... let South Africa do something about the very wide gap between the haves and the have nots." [ ]