mediadev library

Sort by:

Direction:

Unlocking local capital: What does it take to address the funding needs of public interest media with locally anchored solutions?

Roby Alampay, Hala Bajani, Clare Cook, Eva Danayanti, Waqas Naeem, Jakub Parusinski, Iryna Vidanava

International Media Support (IMS) (2026), 29 pp.

"In general terms, this learning brief moves forward from the question of “where is the money?” to the question of “what does it take to unlock it?” In other words, how do we work alongside local government, private, philanthropic, and community sectors to meet the funding needs of journalis ... more

External Link (114)

Mapping of media assistance and journalism support programmes in the Asia, Pacific and Oceania region: With special focus on the top five recipient countries

Waqas Naeem

Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) (2025), 18 pp.

"The mapping shows that the funding opportunities for media development and journalism support in the Asia region are concentrated in six countries of South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and four countries of Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the ... more

Download (0)

2024-25 Annual Report: Dynamic Coalition on the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media

Waqas Naeem, Daniel O’Maley, Courtney C. Radsch, Aws Al-Saadi, Lei Ma, Nompilo Simanje

Internet Governance Forum; Dynamic Coalition for the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media; Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) (2025), 50 pp.

"[...] Just as AI technologies are disrupting the business model of the Internet, they will also have a significant impact on the financial sustainability of the news media. The ability of AI tools to generate and aggregate content and produce news-style summaries might altogether bypass the news me ... more

Climate Disinformation in Pakistan: Silencing Indigenous Peoples’ Voice

Humera Qasim Khan, Waqas Naeem

Islamabad: International Media Support (IMS); Institute for Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA); Mediastan (2025), vii, 39 pp.

"The study identifies five distinct forms of climate disinformation in Pakistan: alarmist and sensationalised content, which exaggerates climate impact to provoke fear, confusion and emotional reactions rather than informed understanding; conspiracy-driven narratives that suggest hidden agendas or e ... xternal actors manipulating climate event, undermining trust in institutions and science; denial and delay narratives where scientific consensus is rejected or inaction is promoted by downplaying risks and questioning the urgency of climate response; oversimplified or false solutions that promote misleading or ineffective fixes to distract from evidence-based mitigation and adaptation strategies; religious fatalism, which frames climate change effects as predetermined or divinely inevitable, reducing perceived human responsibility and discouraging action.hich frames climate change effects as predetermined or divinely inevitable, reducing perceived human responsibility and discouraging action. The study also confirms findings from literature about structural weaknesses within Pakistan’s news media environment, which include a lack of consistent news coverage of climate issues, limited scientific literacy among journalists, editorial incentives favouring sensationalism over accuracy and the absence of systematic fact-checking protocols. These gaps, exacerbated by platform algorithms that reward virality over veracity, create a situation where climate-related disinformation may spread unchecked. The report shows that the climate disinformation impacts IPs in five ways: first, it affects community safety and Indigenous livelihoods by creating a false sense of security or conversely unnecessary panic among IP communities that may lead to damage, displacement and poor adaptation and mitigation practices; second, disinformation related to natural disasters generates fear, uncertainty, confusion and psychological distress among vulnerable IP communities, creating emotional trauma and diminishing their self-confidence in their ability to respond to climate risks; third, climate-related disinformation erodes trust of IPs in scientific forecasts, institutional information and the official responses of state authorities, as viral disinformation messages and rumours fill the information vacuum created by the absence of clear, timely and accessible climate communication; fourth, it discourages Indigenous ecological knowledge and diminishes the credibility of local adaptation methods by painting these methods as primitive, unscientific or outdated; fifth, climate disinformation intensifies the existing exclusion, marginalisation and invisibility of IPs in climate policy frameworks and climate governance mechanisms, silencing their voices and forcibly transforming them from custodians of community resilience to subjects of pity or blame within the policy and media discourses. The study underscores that climate disinformation is not an isolated digital problem but a systemic governance challenge. It undermines trust in science and institutions, weakens public engagement and delays adaptation efforts. This crisis of information integrity demands coordinated action across sectors. The report offers the following recommendations for key stakeholders to address climate disinformation and its impact on Indigenous peoples and communities in Pakistan. UN bodies should support the government in integrating climate information integrity in national climate and digital governance frameworks and ensure Pakistan’s compliance with relevant international conventions and declarations on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The relevant ministries of the federal and provincial governments should embed information integrity into Pakistan’s climate governance frameworks, including the National Action Plan and Nationally Determined Contributions, to ensure coordinated and accountable action on climate misinformation. iNGOs should facilitate the creation of a National Climate Fact-Checking Alliance linking journalists, researchers, media organisations and civil society for real-time verification and rapid debunking of false climate narratives. CSOs should establish community-based verification networks, conduct grassroots awareness campaigns, promote digital safety and information verification capacity building for IPs and document and amplify local climate knowledge. Media should set up climate news beats within newsrooms, ensure the presence of trained journalists for environmental reporting, institutionalise fact-checking protocols, provide training for journalists on climate science and disaster reporting and adopt ethical editorial standards for coverage of climate emergencies. Technology companies should implement algorithmic accountability measures to curb the viral spread of climate disinformation, promote verified climate information through priority ranking and contextual labels, collaborate with fact-checkers to monitor regional-language climate content for falsehoods and support rapid-response climate information alerts for Pakistan during climate-induced extreme weather events. Indigenous communities should engage in peer-led digital literacy programmes that build capacity to recognise and counter climate disinformation and collaborate with independent media to document." (Executive summary, pages vi-vii) more

Download (34)

Countering Disinformation in Pakistan: Lessons and Recommendations for Digital Journalism

Waqas Naeem, Adnan Rehmat

Freedom Network; Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP) (2022), 48 pp.

"The study finds that journalistic and fact-checking disinformation responses in the country have struggled due to lack of conceptual understanding of disinformation among journalists, monetization trends that incentivize sensationalist news and reduce the impact of capacity building initiatives, la ... more

Download (22)

State of Media and Digital Freedoms Report in Pakistan 2018

Salwa Rana, Talal Raza, Waqas Naeem

Media Matters for Democracy (2019), 37 pp.

Download (20)

Surrendering to Silence: An Account of Self-Censorship Among Pakistani Journalists

Waqas Naeem et al.

Media Matters for Democracy (2018), 55 pp.

"The following are the ve key takeaways from the study: Pakistani journalists work in an environment that makes self-Censorship diffcult to avoid [...] 2. Pakistani journalists exercise self-Censorship in personal settings [...] 3. Journalists perceive the policies of their own news organizations a ... more