That is so interesting! Who were you working for?

Thanks for asking about it! Actually, I was a freelancer who worked for several different groups. The areas of focus, more or less integrated depending on the project, are generally infrastructure (presses, radio/TV stations, network development, technical acquisition and training), professionalization (journalism training, business/management training, forming journo associations), business development (putting the sector together, distribution, etc) and media law.

One of the things I did was fundraising, so I would raise the money for one group then go work in the field on those projects (the business or technical aspects, managing the project, doing independent assessments and evaluations, organizing training), then work on other proposals while there, etc.

The groups who do this kind of thing are pretty diverse. Some are non-profit NGOs. Internews is an 'network organization' that includes a US 'hub' and a semi-autonomous node (Internews Europe)that raises it's own money and pursues its own projects. Other country 'nodes' are affiliates of these two. The International Center for Journalists is an American NGO that runs the Knight International Media Fellows program, sort of a Peace Corps for journalists, and does some longer projects. IREX is the 600-pound gorilla in the space, but they are a for-profit outfit. There are smaller NGOs who are not as well-funded and tend to focus on particular countries. I've done work for pretty much all of them, plus a British charity I refuse to name because even seeing their initials on the screen will cause my hands to shake.

As more money has flowed into these projects, the 'Beltway Bandits' have moved in. Creative Associates, Chemonics, guys like that. I haven't done any direct work for them, but have helped develop joint proposals they did with NGOs (another long story).

Who pays for all this? Govt aid organizations (USAID, British DFID, German GTz, EU), the UN, Soros, private foundations (McCarthur, Ford, smaller players), and occasional odds and sods like some local JayCees or Chambers of Commerce.

Finally ... a link to the website of Pajhwok, the Afghan news agency I mentioned, at my sig. They supply every newspaper and radio station in the country, plus the non-state owned TV. Reuters, BBC, AP and others shamelessly steal from Pajhwok; 'Pajhwok' means 'echo' and/or 'reflection' in both Dari and Pashtu, Afghanistan's two major languages. They publish in five languages (sometimes the English is a little rough, and produces amusing results).

Sloppy today, sorry!

When you think you can't be shocked anymore by how dense, self-absorbed and out-of-touch they are, they always prove you wrong.

They might be all these things, but their shock is an act.

In late 2004, I was briefly in the US and passed through DC to attend a conference at USIP and see contacts and friends. In the latter group is a friend who was briefly famous at Newsweek, then got out of journalism altogether (his wife is still in the biz on the TV side, and both names would be recognizable so I'll leave 'em anonymous).

The stories! Some people in their circles ... including people we're talking about here ... were personally anguished, others guilty and compromised, others just worried about public backlash, or how this would interrupt their march to TV celebrity. But there was no getting around the fact that they knew, knew that they had screwed up big time, either personally or as an institution. I'm betting your many contacts would fess up to the same, under the right pressure.

Maybe they've revised their memories, three plus years later. But then what they're exhibiting is not shock but the return of the repressed ...

It's Broun who's the R-GA, not Barstow (L-NYT)!

And man, is he going to hear from me.

"We must bullshit this country in order to save it"

Rushing to bed now, as I have to be up in four hours to drive several more hours to our weekly Master Naturalist Course, which is all-day, but I will respond tomorrow afternoon because there is much there to respond to ...

You are getting so consistently good at these that I'm thinking you need your own Colbert-style blog. (Naturally, you should continue to comment here!)

I'm in on the joke but I *still* catch myself mentally composing a vigorous reply ...