Earlier this month at a conference in Madrid I took part in a day-long discussion on the knotty question of the relationship between the media and humanitarian agencies.

It included a debate on how media and agencies could collaborate better.

One of the speakers in the main debate, Sally Begbie of Hong Kong-based NGO Crossroads, raised an interesting question: Could it be time for Media Social Responsibility?

She meant something analogous to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in which organisations consider the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, communities and the environment.

She quoted Boutros Boutros Ghali - "CNN is the 16th member of the Security Council" - and while making clear that agencies must remember that the media always has ratings and readership to consider, she asked whether it was time for journalists to take on the idea that they too have a responsibility to give the voiceless a voice.

She was challenged by Rafael Vilasanjuán, deputy director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, who pointed out that while the media could be seen as a kind of "watchdog", alerting the public to issues, NGOs and the media have different audiences and stakeholders and both sectors have very different roles.

This is something NGOs have to accept. I was surprised by people in workshops who argued that not enough coverage was given to recent disasters in Myanmar (Burma) and China. In fact, I think media coverage of both disasters, while not on the same level as the tsunami, persisted in the British media longer than I'd expected.

With competing stories jostling for attention, media have to make endless news decisions based on all sorts criteria, of which humanitarian issues are only one.

Of course, one could argue that four decades ago, the idea of companies embracing CSR would have seemed equally impossible.

There have also been big changes - certainly in the British media - in the way race and mental health issues are reported. Much of that is due to changing public perceptions. It is always hard to know which comes first -media or society.

But there were also sustained attempts by race and mental health campaigning groups to stop unthinking prejudice, in its simplest forms, by changing language.

One of the recommendations that came out of the afternoon workshops was NGOs encouraging the media to refer to those affected by disasters as "survivors" rather than "victims" - as articulated by the Red Cross Code of Conduct. It may be a small step, but a vital one.

But no one should think the media and NGOs will ever be working to the same agenda. The challenge is for both to work most effectively while maintaining their roles.

One conference attendee told me: "The thing is, the key word is not trust. Media and agencies can't trust each other; they have different agendas. What we must work on is that we have respect for each other."

Glenda Cooper was attending the 23rd Biannual Meeting of ALNAP, an international interagency forum working to improve the quality of humanitarian action.

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