Some 225 participants, the bulk of them journalists from Mekong countries, are set to discuss, debate and take stock of their media environment against a backdrop of changing and often quite different news cultures at the Mekong Media Forum, which started in Chiang Mai, Thailand on 9 December. Follow the event through the daily IPS TerraViva Mekong Media Forum.

The four-day media conference brings together a mix of participants, from print, television journalists and photojournalists to civil society, academics and development workers, who will be discussing a menu of issues such as changes in the Mekong media scene, new trends, citizen journalism and new media, training, media challenges and reporting on water governance, children, as well as gender and sexuality.

Johanna Son, regional director of Inter Press Service (IPS) Asia-Pacific news agency, which is a co-organiser of the MMF along with the Probe Media Foundation Inc (PMFI), hopes that the Forum will capture the uniqueness of this region in ways different from other media conferences in the past. “There are a host of media conferences in Asia each year, but I haven’t heard of one focusing on the Mekong countries in all the years I’ve been working on Mekong issues,” she said. The Mekong countries are Burma, China (Yunnan and Guangxi provinces), Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Forum, to be held at the Holiday Inn Chiang Mai, has plenary, parallel and satellite sessions, talk shows, exhibits of Mekong photos and cartoons/illustrations exhibits. ‘Cinema Mekong’, which features screenings of 12 Mekong documentaries, will be on from Dec. 10 to 11.

The Forum is being organised with major support by The Rockefeller Foundation. The Dutch MDG3 Fund contributes to the two gender sessions to be held at the MMF on Dec. 11, 2009 as part of the “Communicating for Change: Voice, Visibility and Impact for Gender Equality” project of the IPS international news network. The Forum will see the launch of the IPS Gender and Development Glossary, and a gender needs assessment of the media in the Mekong region.

The other supporters of the Forum are UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific, Nobel Women’s Initiative, MPOWER, UNESCO and Japan Foundation. Participant supporters are UNDP Laos, Konrad Adenauer Asian Centre for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University and World Bank Laos. Media partners are ‘The Irrawaddy’ and Lao National Television.