Ben Affleck Visits DRC

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Rebuilding Hait'e Media

oice of America


Media Experts Urge Support in Rebuilding Haiti’s Media at VOA Panel

Washington, D.C., March 4, 2010 – Many radio stations and newspapers in Haiti
are unable to operate at capacity because of technical and financial problems
caused by January’s devastating earthquake, according to experts appearing at
the Voice of America (VOA) Thursday.

Sinclair Cornell, senior media adviser at USAID’s Office of Transition
Initiatives, said the destruction was so complete that the national radio
station was knocked off the air and a TV station operated under a tent. USAID is
providing a range of assistance to help improve communication, allowing people
to get vital information, he said.

The VOA event, “Rebuilding Haiti’s Media: The Lifeline of Development,” brought
government, media and non-government organizations together to examine the
current state of media in Haiti and its future after the earthquake. The
conference was webcast at
http://author.voanews.com/english/About/2010-03-01-haiti-discussion.cfm.

P.P. Youri Emmanuel, an alternate representative at Haiti’s mission to the
Organization of American States (OAS), said there has been an outpouring of
support for Haiti since the earthquake. While the destruction is tragic, he said
the rebuilding process offers hope for the future.

Ronald Cesar, chief of VOA’s Creole Service, recently surveyed the media in
Haiti. “More than 12 stations in the Port-au-Prince area had their buildings
either collapse or damaged by the quake,” he said. “Although most are back on
the air, they are not able to resume their full programming” because they lack
the resources and equipment.

Moreover, he said, advertising revenues have dropped off across the country,
forcing some media companies to lay off staff. VOA’s Creole Service
(www.voanews.com/Creole) is the largest international broadcaster to Haiti. It
produces 10.5 hours of programming a day during the week, and 9.5 hours on the
weekends.

Marjorie Rouse, a vice president at Internews (www.internews.org), a non-profit
that focuses on media development, said an Internews team created a 15-minute
daily show now broadcast on 27 stations in Haiti.

Shanthi Kalathil, a consultant at the World Bank’s CommGap, urged donors to
conduct long-range planning to rebuild the media and prevent distortions in the
media market. She also said new media present an opportunity to give Haitians a
voice in the rebuilding of their country.

/The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia
international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the
Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts approximately 1,500 hours of
news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an
estimated worldwide audience of more than 125 million people. Programs are
produced in 45 languages and are intended exclusively for audiences outside of
the United States./

/For more information, please call VOA Public Relations at (202) 203-4959, or
e-mail us at askvoa@voanews.com ./

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Listen to "Rebuilding Haiti's Media" at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday

Fabulous panel -- the Haitian ambassador, USAID, VOA and Internews. Please listen!