Journalism is a process of collecting, analysing and disseminating information in the public interest. This means it is a profession with a strong element of social responsibility. That is why journalists are required to follow the highest ethical standards – accuracy, balance, impartiality and truthfulness, independent of any commercial or political interests.

There is no single definition of development journalism. We have opted for those definitions which :
1) put the emphasis on global issues
2) use analysis to understand the role and responsibilities of a journalist
3) entail high ethical standards, and
4) adopt a global outlook when trying to understand and reflect the world.
At the same time, while it certainly seeks to counter the tendency towards one-sided or Western-focused narratives, development journalism is not (as the name might suggest) only investigative reporting from developing countries.

Global development issues are more complex and urgent than ever before. What was considered ‘foreign news’ just a few years ago is now a regular topic in domestic public debates. ‘The global is the new local’, as the saying goes – and migration is a perfect example of this. Development journalism is a way to react to pressing issues like migration or climate change through a complex, imaginative approach that ‘domestic’ or ‘foreign’ journalism often fails to achieve.