There was a flurry of stories within the last week or so about the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, a nation with a tortured past and a future full of promise, uncertainty and plenty of lhumanitarian needs.
Mercy Corps' Joy Portella at South Sudan Independence Day
Joy Portella with Mercy Corps‘ Seattle office was there in the new South Sudanese capitol city of Juba, sent by the Northwest-based humanitarian group to witness and report on the new nation’s declaration of independence.
Portella travels a lot and reported out of the new South Sudan capitol city of Juba, including doing this article for the Seattle Times. Portella says pretty much the same thing on one of her earlier blog posts for Mercy Corps, ending with this concluding paragraph:
South Sudan will soon start the hard work of building a nation from the ground up in the face of challenges such as extreme poverty and lack of access to almost everything – roads, education, medical care, electricity – the list goes on. But today was a day to put those concerns aside to celebrate and imagine the possible. After decades of war and sacrifice, the South Sudanese have certainly earned their celebration.
Chris Sheach of World Concern, also from Seattle (okay, well Shoreline) was also in Juba reporting on this historic event for organization. One post from Sheach focused on Sudan’s educational needs and mentions some of the work World Concern is doing on this front:
The road ahead is long, but for the South Sudanese, it is a worthwhile journey. Education is vital to the survival of a nation. Without it, people will continue to suffer, even with their political independence. World Concern is excited to walk the road of opportunity with the people of the Republic of South Sudan.
Lots of other organizations and people were in South Sudan for this milestone moment — including mostly the Sudanese, of course, and one highly influential cowboy hat from former President George W. Bush.
Portella has since moved on to Kenya, where drought and famine threatens.
What interests me in following Portella’s work for Mercy Corps is how she appears to be increasingly standing in for on-the-ground journalists and doing stories — or making her colleagues available for media interviews — for media organizations which aren’t there.
Here are a few stories or op-eds Portella facilitated for media organizations like CNN, PBS NewsHour and GlobalPost, many of which were “covering” South Sudan by asking Mercy Corps staff to describe what’s going on and what it all means.
Joy Portella interviewing at health clinic in Pakistan
Portella’s a good writer and observer. She recognizes that what she’s doing is, in part, to fill in for absent journalists. I talked with her briefly in Seattle before she left last week.
“I guess this is what happens when reporters can’t get to these places,” Portella said. “This is happening more and more. I don’t do political or news analysis but it seems pretty close to reporting.”
Jim Simon, assistant managing editor for the Seattle Times, said he would not characterize what Portella does as journalism.
Simon said the paper asked Portella to provide her on-the-ground perspective since she was there. But for news reports, he said they would rely on traditional sources such as the New York Times or wire service reporters.
I wonder if readers can really tell the difference.
I also wonder what Portella would do if she witnessed a war crime or an act of police abuse. Would she report on this, which would almost certainly put Mercy Corps and its mission in that country at risk?
“No, I wouldn’t be able to do that,” she said.
And what do other aid organizations think about how these arrangements affect Mercy Corps’ media profile — and its ability to do fund-raising? Does this practice tend to give Mercy Corps an advantage when raising funds? Does it allow one organization too much influence when it comes to defining the key needs or issues in a country?
I want to emphasize that I appreciate and value reading reports from people like Portella and Sheach. They are valuable sources of information.
But I also think we, in the media, need to take a closer look at how these gaps in foreign reporting are being filled.
