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Carefully worded, the BBC report ignores the 800lb gorilla in the room - corporate ownership of political processes in developing and developed countries.

Media have not been a priority in the developing world because independent journalism annoys too many people.

Sure the report delivers an understanding of the gaps between media, governance and development, but only from a developed world perspective. Perhaps this is as far as the BBC dares to go at the moment, having so recently been rededicated towards "entertainment" after the Hutton report.

Given high levels of collusion between public and private spheres - witness the BAE arms bribery inquiry blocked at the highest levels - Iraq - this is hardly surprising.

In failing to address media challenges from a whole-of-world approach, the report is looking for the right answers including with the "usual suspects" but is failing to ask all the right questions.

We cannot begin to address media space in developing countries without, at the same time, debating the developed world sacking journalists in the tens of thousands.

At what stage do we say as a globe that journalism resources are getting dangerously low? At what stage do we factor in further and continued economic losses through lack of resources to expose corruption and maladministration?

There are strong suggestions that this stage has been pased already, with estimates of US$60 trillion in losses over the last 12 months since onset of the global economic crisis. At what stage do we begin to insist on media as central to development, outside of this website?

Without those big pictures, the report is an at best half-sided and wonky effort at gaining some purchase on the hardscrabble of global implosion.