Internews, an international development group that strengthens local journalists’ capacity, has a lot to celebrate this week. Last Jan 21st, only nine days after the devastating quake killed over 250,000 and displaced more than 1 million others, Internews launched a radio program to get critical life-saving info out to Haitians. “Enfomasyon Nou Dwe Konnen” (ENDK, or “News You Can Use” in English) is still going strong today. It’s a USAID program (U.S. Agency for International Development), one that the agency could (and should) use as a model in other disaster zones around the world. Heck, in any area where USAID has development programs.
What’s really great is that the program is based on audience input and feedback. Focus groups have been conducted regularly for a full year, headed up by Jennifer Mandel, Ph.D., a Northern Virginia gal I met when I was there last Feb/March. She just published an Internews report about these focus groups and how the research has been used.
So much is good here, I don’t know where to start. I’m passionate about reporting as a profession and the critical role it plays in any society. I’m so glad some smart, savvy, ambitious Haitians are getting mentoring from Internews. And while we at US News & World Report used the term “news you can use” (we might have even trademarked it), Internews has taken the slogan to the next level. They are asking listeners: “What news would be helpful for you to hear?” And then, they go back and check in to see if that answer has changed. From finding fellow survivors to getting a tarp, from food distribution info to cholera prevention and treatment. Haiti’s been through a lot and this radio program is responding to demand from its listeners.
Internews has tracked the changing information needs of the affected population by interviewing more than 11,000 people in and around 9 areas of metropolitan Port–au-Prince, as well as Petit-Goâve, and Léogâne, the town at the epicenter of the earthquake. In addition, the research team analyzes SMS texts sent to ENDK. The program receives an average of 50-100 a day, some of which are answered directly in the “mailbox” portion of the program. As with the audience survey, these also serve as a source of information about the affected population’s information needs.
The results of these studies feed directly into the newsroom planning for ENDK’s daily programming which reaches up to 70% of the Haitian population via approximately 40 radio station partners. Very unusually, the ENDK radio program, as a humanitarian communications project, responds directly to the affected population’s articulated needs, representing a true two-way information flow.
And my little heart was all aflutter to see that the one NGO mentioned in Dr. Mandel’s report that uses Internews’s focus group data and information to inform its own programming was my alma mater, HelpAge International:
The research reports are distributed widely on a fortnightly basis to the UN clusters and to all agencies working on the relief and recovery process including the Haitian government and local NGOs. The fact that they are compiled with statistical rigor has led to their use as the basis for the communications strategies by a range of organizations, such as HelpAge International, that have come to value the power of audience research. As a consequence, several, including United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS), International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and International Organization for Migration (IOM), have been working collaboratively with the Internews research team to implement a survey on the affected population’s understanding of key cholera prevention messages, which is informing current messaging strategies on the epidemic.
Bravo! Check it out. Great stuff, Dr. Mandel and the Internews team.
