A panel session / media roundtable discussing the role of the media in sustainable development was held at the annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit in New Delhi, India on February 3, 2005.

As part of the the Environment in the Media program, the BFSD offered its support to make a discussion of media roles an important part of this event.

Participants included  Mr Saeed Naqvi, Editor, World Report, New Delhi; Dr Sanjaya Baru, Media Adviser, Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi; Mr Samuel Shiroff, Executive Director, Bellagio Forum for Sustainable Development, Germany; Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chair of the Board of Trustees, International Food Policy Research Institute; Mr Roger Harrabin, Senior Environment Correspondent, BBC; Mr Raj Chengappa, Managing Editor, India Today, New Delhi; Mr Pankaj Pachauri, Senior Editor, New Delhi Television Limited, New Delhi.

BFSD Executive Director, Samuel Shiroff started the panel off with remarks focused on the essential role that a free and independent press plays in maintaining democracy - itself a sustainable system. Roger Harrabin then proceeded to explain some of the fundamental criteria that the media uses to chose and tell stories.  The tendency to favor conflict and disagreement over consensus and cooperation was noted as a key factor that made sustainable development issues both unattractive to the media and their audiences as a consistent story-line.

The other panelists took a more direct focus on the host nation, relating specific and illustrative anecdotes of the problems, momentum and pre-conceived notions that must be overcome to effectively inform the media and in-turn audiences of sustainable development issues.

The panelists agreed that television had a key and increasing role to play, but that the internet was still an unknown quantity in terms of mass communicating sustainable development and thus a force to be reckoned with.  The link between the leaders of a nation and their constituency is the media.  The media have the power and responsibility to make both the people and the leaders aware of pressing concerns.  Most stories related to sustainable development result from active press work on the part of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). However, the goal is not necessarily individual stories, but rather a larger sea-change in perspectives that integrates the various aspects of sustainable development - environmental, social, economic - into every story.

The event was sponsored cooperatively with TERI, Outlook India and NDTV