CJA E-letter

from the Commonwealth Journalists Association

Headquarters: 305 Goodwood Heights, Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago

Executive director: Josanne Leonard miribai@tstt.net.tt

Newsletter editor: David Spark david@dspark.fsnet.co.uk, who will be glad of any e-mailed comments

The CJA thanks the Commonwealth Foundation for its financial support

Issue No 10 September 2005

Flying news into Zimbabwe

Wilf and Trish Mbanga responded to the August CJA Newsletter with this message:

Information is power. The Zimbabwean is a compact weekly newspaper published every Friday in London and Johannesburg, launched on February 11. Fifteen thousand copies are flown into Zimbabwe every week and sold at well below cost. They sell out within hours and there is a thriving secondhand market. This is not surprising given the desperation for accurate information in the face of a virtual government blackout on real news.

Despite much sabre-rattling from the authorities in Harare, no one has been persecuted for buying or reading the newspaper. Neither has it been banned, confiscated or burned. We are committed to continuing to make as many copies of the paper available in Zimbabwe as we possibly can, despite the losses we incur on this part of the operation.

We are more and more convinced of the importance of what we are doing in giving voice to alternative news, views and opinions from Zimbabweans, and promoting debate and discussion on the way forward for our country. In the struggle to escape from an intolerant autocracy into a tolerant, diverse and democratic future, The Zimbabwean is a small part of the solution.

We are up and running and here to stay. Our sales in the diaspora are vital. For every subscription taken out abroad, we can get 100 more newspapers into Zimbabwe. Please subscribe (online at www.thezimbabwean.co.uk) and encourage others to do so. Persuade your company, local library, college or other institution to subscribe. Take part in our Send-a-sub Scheme whereby you take out an extra subscription to enable a library or college in Zimbabwe to receive the paper. Full details of how you can do this are on our website, or forms are available on request.

Information is power, which is why the present regime is so hell-bent on preventing accurate information getting to the people. Please help us to make a difference.

The first Daily News journalist to be tried on a charge of working without a licence was acquitted in Harare in August. The charge related to the period between January 2003 when the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act came into force and September when the News was forced to close. The magistrate ruled that Kelvin Jakachira was entitled to work while awaiting a decision on his licence application

Trinidad broadcasters face censorship

Wesley Gibbings, president of the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers, writes:

Thank you for the August edition of the CJA Newsletter. I cannot imagine, though, how the latest news relating to Caribbean media can be reported without mention of the issue of prior restraint through telecommunications legislation currently being fought by the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers in Trinidad.

There are also longstanding, important difficulties being faced by journalists and the media throughout the Caribbean, much of which is captured through the work of the ACM. Our modest website paints at least a partial picture of the scenario www.freewebs.com/acmediaworkers.

The ACM website complains of an epidemic of oppressive practices and laws. Journalists were being brought to court on criminal charges when civil remedies were available. Trinidad and Tobago’s May elections led to a review of broadcasting regulations, to reel in elements of the media. The draft broadcasting code was an attempt to impose censorship. This followed the liberalisation of broadcasting which opened the way for the corridors of power to be stormed by broadcast-mediated public opinion.

The ACM has also protested against attacks on media workers in Guyana. Some have been assaulted and robbed, others shot.

Editor’s death was manslaughter

The death of Harry Yansaneh, editor of For Di People, was manslaughter, an inquest jury in Sierra Leone decided in August. He was not taken to hospital after he was beaten up in May, but the jury found that the beating contributed to his death from kidney failure in July.

The presiding magistrate issued arrest warrants for Dr Fatmata Hassan Komeh, three of her children [now in the UK] and two other men. Dr Komeh, an MP for the ruling party, has denied ordering the attack. Before it, she was seeking to evict For Di People and five other independent newspapers from offices which they rented from her family. For Di People’s offices were vandalised.

Feeling the news

Mindy McAdams writes that the first journalism she encountered using the Flash computer programme was a slideshow from Associated Press about the Gujarati earthquake of 2001.

It begins, she says, with a low hum of voices and some thumping and crunching, like chunks of masonry dropping on to rock. Photographs of huge collapsed buildings fade in, then fade out. One or two voices become audible. They sound concerned, worried, urgent. Pictures show a lifeless hand protruding from a truck, a man wiping his eyes, a row of covered bodies in a street. Car horns blow. People queue for food. A child cries out. A man carries a sobbing girl, her ankle in white bandages.

Journalists these days constantly ask people in the news what they feel. McAdams’s book Flash Journalism suggests that, if you want to convey what the news feels like, Flash is the thing to use. She explains how.

Flash packages, it seems, are quick to download, despite their use of sound and pictures. Macromedia, owner of Flash, is constantly urging computer-users to download its Flash player. The pop-ups may be irksome but this is the posh end of online journalism

*Flash Journalism by Mindy McAdams, professor of journalism at the University of Florida (Focal Press: contact eurobkinfo@elsevier.com. There is an associated website http://flashjournalism.com/book/)

News in brief

Tamil TV presenter shot dead

Relangi Severaja, a news presenter for a state-owned Tamil TV service in Sri Lanka, was shot dead with her husband in a travel agent’s in Colombo on August 12. They were reported to be members of PLOTE, a Tamil party accused by the Tamil Tigers of being government-funded. Relangi Severaja often criticised the Tigers during her broadcasting career.

Champika Liyanaarachchi wrote in the August newsletter about the perilous situation of Tamil journalists caught in the struggle between the Tigers and other groups. Three have died previously.

India

Police in Chandigarh seized Indian Express correspondent Gautam Dheer at his home on the night of August 28. A police officer accused him of threatening a girl. Earlier, he was himself threatened by an inspector-general of police against whom he reported complaints. Dheer was bailed on August 29. The Punjab government ordered an inquiry.

Nigeria

Gunmen fired at the car of Benin City community magazine editor Peter Iwelomen as he drove home on September 1. They missed him.

State security agents raided a Lagos-based weekly The Exclusive on August 19 and then roughed up news vendors who were selling it. The raid seems to have been prompted by coverage of unrest in South-East Nigeria which, under the name Biafra, sought to break away from the rest of the country in a murderous civil war in the 1960s.

Pakistan

Pakistani embassies and high commissions have lost the right to issue visas to journalists seeking to visit Pakistan. Journalists’ applications now have to be cleared by three intelligence agencies, plus ministries.

Javed Imtiazi, editor of a magazine in the Punjab, was found dead in August with his throat cut.

Singapore

Police have seized six tapes of Singapore Rebel, a documentary about the travails of Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan. They also seized the videocamera of the film maker, Martyn See. Officials stopped the film being shown at a festival in March. It has, however, been shown at festivals in the United States and New Zealand.

Uganda

Andrew Mwenda of Radio KFM was charged with sedition after, on August 10, he accused the government of putting Sudan vice-president John Garang in a poor quality helicopter for his return home after talks. The helicopter crashed and Garang was killed. KFM was allowed back on air after it paid £1,500 damages and dismissed Mwenda’s producer.

Our thanks

Many thanks to our news sources, including the International Freedom of Expression Exchange.