Why not north-south exchange project?

Ruby Pratka, canadian journalist at Radio Isanganiro,  wishes “third world” journalists were taken seriously as professionals by their Western colleagues:

"Why is it automatically assumed that a retired German television anchor knows more about writing French-language radio scripts than a Burundian radio station manager? Why is it assumed that a Swiss or Belgian print journalist knows more about conflict reporting than a Congolese or a Palestinian? Wouldn’t you think the Congolese or the Palestinians, people living in conflict zones, would have something to teach their colleagues about conflict reporting– whether the colleagues are Ivoirian or American? Why *don’t* we have journalists from Congo or Gaza training other journalists on how to go about reporting war, or poverty issues (the best writing in and about rural journalism has been by Palagummi Sainath, a guy from India) or even political or business investigations? I learned more about investigative reporting when I was in the field with Pascal, here in Bujumbura, than from any of my Canadian or European professors.

I don’t want to attack well-intentioned people or their initiatives. But everyone would win if “third world” journalists were taken seriously as professionals by their Western colleagues, and if said colleagues recognized that knowledge, unlike a river, doesn’t always flow from up to down. Everyone would win if there was more back-and-forthing and less Northern Hemisphere evangelizing.

What would it take to start a true north-south knowledge exchange project?"

Read the original article here http://yearofnofear.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/ok-kids-lets-learn-radio-scriptwriting/