Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 03/2013

You Say You Want a Revolution...Then What? The Challenges of Media Training in Post-Qaddafi Libya: A First-Person Essay

Carolyn Robinson

February 2013

National Endowment for Democracy

Abstract

CIMA announces the release of a special report, You Say You Want a Revolution … Then What?, a first-person account by veteran journalist and media trainer Carolyn Robinson of her experiences training broadcast journalists in Libya after the death of leader Moammar Qaddafi. Robinson outlines some of the unusual obstacles and challenges she faced in managing two USAID/OTI grants in Libya for Internews in the very early days after the revolution, and how her team came up with novel approaches to overcome the special circumstances they faced on the ground. Her essay is not so much about what can and should be done for media development in Libya today, but about how to structure training in chaotic post-conflict environments.