CJA E-letter
from the Commonwealth Journalists
Association www.cjaweb.com
Headquarters: 305
Executive director: Josanne Leonard miribai@tstt.net.tt
Newsletter editor: David Spark david@dspark.fsnet.co.uk, who would like to hear from you. Views
expressed in this newsletter are those of contributors, not the CJA
The CJA thanks the Commonwealth Foundation
for its financial support
Issue No
Page 2 CJA courses in the
Page 3 Papers banned in cartoon fall-out Page 4 All-Africa TV
Page 5 Violence against journalists
Page 6 Tamil journalists in danger in
Page 7
Page 9 News from round the world
Page 11 Books: internet,
features, journalist as one-man-band
CHRI condemns Kenya
Masked police wielding Kalashnikovs raided
Maja
Daruwala, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, condemned the
raids in a country where the press has hitherto been relatively free. She
described as disturbing the internal security minister’s comment: “If you
rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it.”
Earlier,
police detained three journalists after The Standard published a story claiming
that President Kibaki had secretly met a leading opponent, Kalonzo Musyoka. The
three have been charged with publishing ‘alarming’ statements and released on
bail. Kalonzo, who denied meeting Kibaki, was dismissed from the government
after opposing Kibaki’s draft constitution, defeated in a referendum in
November. The Kibaki government has been hard hit by the referendum defeat and
allegations by former corruption adviser, John Githongo, that ministers were
involved in the theft of public money.
The
raid on The Standard was the latest of three. Two tabloid weeklies were raided
in February, several journalists and news vendors and even a receptionist being
arrested. The Weekly Citizen, better known for sex reporting, had published a
front-page report headed Kibaki Senile.
CJA training in the Caribbean
CJA executive director Josanne Leonard ran two training
courses in the
Apply now for print course at Cardiff
The
CJA is once again sponsoring a place on the Thomson Foundation international
print summer course in
CJA
A three-day workshop on
reporting rural development was organised in December by CJA Sarawak, with the
help of Kuching Journalists Association, the Federation of Sarawak Journalists Association, NGOs and AZAM, a development agency. It
was financed by Shell (
The president of the CJA,
Hassan Shahriar, spoke about the media’s pioneering
role in persuading the public and the government about the urgency of rural
development in
He explained the
micro-credit programmes pioneered by the Grameen Bank. Grameen has made loans
to nearly four million members, particularly women who own less than half an
acre of land.
Adeline Liong of CJA
Sarawak told Hassan Shahriar about her three-month course at the Thomson
Foundation,
Meeting the president: Hassan
Shahriar with the CJA
Three hundred journalists and other workers temporarily
lost their jobs in February when the Malaysian government suspended the licence
of the Sarawak Tribune. The paper had republished the Danish cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad, which have caused a furore throughout
Two
editors blamed for the republication resigned and the paper printed a
front-page apology. This did not save the Tribune but its publishers got a
licence for a new paper, the Eastern Times. This will support
Two
other papers which republished the cartoons, Guang Ming Daily and Berita
Petang, were suspended for a fortnight. In
In
No one charged after editor’s death
Plan for an all-Africa TV station
Salim Amin, son of the Kenyan cameraman who put the
Ethiopian famine of 1984 on the world’s TV screens, is seeking to raise
£11million to launch an all-Africa TV news channel called ATV (Africans
Together Vision) next year. He points out that much African TV lacks
credibility because it is state-controlled or lacks trained staff. He wants
Rudo Chitiga leaves the Commonwealth Foundation
Rudo Chitiga (above), from
Her
successor at the Foundation is Trinidad-born Vijay Krishnarayan, who has been
managing partner of the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute and has a special
interest in development and the environment.
Opposition journalist shot dead in Guyana
Former Stabroek News reporter and TV talkshow host Ronald Waddell was shot dead by two gunmen outside his house on January 30. Reporters Sans Frontieres said that his death resembled the extra-judicial murders he had denounced on air. He was active in the opposition People’s National Congress and fiercely critical of President Jagdeo.
On
January 31, the High Court endorsed the government’s one-month suspension of a
TV station after it criticised flood relief measures
Writers survive attempts to kill them
Three
Bangadeshi journalists have just survived attempts to kill them. Nur Siddique,
a student correspondent for Prothom Alo, was rescued by neighbours on March 1
when assailants set fire to his room and locked the door. He had been writing
articles about the student branch of the ruling
Salah
Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the weekly Blitz, is going on trial on a
sedition charge arising from articles about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism
in
He
was originally arrested two years ago when he set out to attend a conference in
Violence hits Indian media
Media people in several parts of
A
Bill banning reporting of Maoist violence in Chattisgarh state has drawn a
protest from the International Federation of Journalists.
Kidnapped reporter still missing after three months
Pakistani journalist Hayatullah Khan, kidnapped near the
Afghan border on December 5, was still missing in March. Pervez Shaukat, president
of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, called on the governor of the
A yellow
dot on the map becomes a dangerous red spot
Death threatens in Sri Lanka
By a Colombo
The
This year
Tamil
journalists, most of whom had been generally sympathetic towards the LTTE,
faced a hard choice – Prabhakaran (LTTE) or Karuna. Having chosen, they risked
being killed by the other camp. Of the five killed so far, three had been identified
as pro-LTTE and the others anti.
The
most recent murder was reported on January 24 this year. The victim was
35-year-old Subramaniyam Sugirdharajan, a journalist
attached to the pro-LTTE daily Sudar Oli. He was shot in the Eastern port city
of
Almost all the 80 Tamil journalists in the country
have received some threat or other.
Some are threatened by both parties. One
doubly-threatened journalist edits a Tamil paper in
The leading media rights group in
But it takes time. And with each
murder of a Tamil journalist, the remainder look at
one another and ask “Who is next?”
When friendly
officials turned ruthless
Sandra Nyaira
from
Blessed with many talented
journalists with an insatiable appetite to get and publish good stories, the
independent media in
When I went to study
journalism,
What we did not get from our
journalism training at the Harare Polytechnic was how to survive in a country
slipping rapidly from democracy to autocracy. We did not know how ruthless
officials we used to talk, eat and drink with would suddenly become.
When the Movement for
Democratic Change campaigned successfully against a draft new constitution, the
government suddenly realised that, if the constitutional referendum had been an
election, it would have been taken by surprise. So began attacks on the small
but vibrant independent media in
Journalists in the state media
have been used to verbally abuse their own colleagues. As a result there is so much polarisation affecting the journalism community today.
We are a group of people that needs healing
A new minister promised to
review the oppressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act but
we guess he did not understand his master well. For the past three months, he
has been arresting, harassing and intimidating journalists to stop them from
doing their work.
We had in December journalists
from Voice of the People being arrested and detained in exchange for their
director, John Masuku, who is accused of violating sections of the Broadcasting
Services Act. The government claims the VOP and other radio stations operating
from outside the country are being sponsored by the West to sponsor regime
change.
What the oppressive media laws
have managed to do is lower the standards of journalism in the country. We now
write under pseudonyms and we do not have equal access to information from
state authorities. Bad apples amongst us – in the very bad situation we already
find ourselves in – end up making up stories to earn a living
Today Zimbabwean journalists
are scattered far and wide. But they are grateful to all the international
journalists, friends and colleagues who have helped them along the way. Those
of us in the
We want to use the association
to work with others here and at home to further the cause of the Zimbabwean
journalist. We are fighting for a just society where our rights are recognised
and respected. Special thanks to the CPJ and other media watchdogs around the
world. In these troubled times, it feels good to know at least there is someone
out there who cares.
Lindsey Hilsum
of Channel 4 TV has called on British journalists to support exiled colleagues
now in the
News from round the world
Journalists’ leaders in Western Samoa
Here are the
new executive of the Journalists Association of Western Samoa. From the left:
Angie Polu, treasurer; Maria Sio, assistant secretary, Papalii Uale
Taimalelagi, president, and Cherelle Jackson, secretary. The president said
that JAWS had adopted a code of ethics and was working to form a media council.
Free expression
newsletter for rural Pakistan
A newsletter, Sadiq News, has been launched to help
journalists in rural
Illegal
radios battle for the Khyber
Two journalists in the Khyber Agency (
After protests and hunger
strikes, Sindh’s education minister ordered the reinstatement of two editors of
a women’s magazine in
Ahmed Didi, a founder of
the website Sandhaanu, was pardoned in February, four years after he was given
a life sentence. The government, seeking to ease international criticism, has
allowed Sandhaanu to register as an independent news
weekly.
Anibalzinho, leader of the gang who shot investigative
journalist Carlo Cardoso in 2000 has been jailed for 30 years. He twice escaped
abroad, delaying a final hearing of his case.
Police searched the
Choice FM radio station and arrested the programme manager in Gulu in March
after the broadcast of a debate between government and opposition municipal
election candidates. (The opposition candidate won.) Gulu district is
impoverished by a lengthy civil war which the government has failed to end.
Blake Lambert, a Canadian who reported for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation and The Economist, was
prevented from returning to
Fred M’membe, editor of
The Post, walked free from court in February when the state dropped a charge of
defaming the president.
Freelance and former Independent reporter Gift Phiri was
waylaid, kicked, beaten and left for dead outside his
The High Court in
February told the Media and Information Commission to consider afresh
registering the publishers of The Daily News. This is the latest stage in a
lengthy legal campaign to get the independent paper published again.
The accreditation of 15 journalists at the
Four students doing
social research were arrested by police who thought they were unaccredited
journalists. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights protested in February that they
were held in cells filthy with excrement and lacking bedding.
The Media Monitoring Project has criticised the media for scant coverage of February’s municipal elections, apart from a Standard report of a dispute over Zanu-PF agents taking voters’ names. The project also criticised the state media for blaming private businesses for price rises rather than looking at the underlying reasons in the inflation-hit economy.
Reporters Sans Frontieres
in March accused
Our thanks
We again thank the International Freedom of Expression
Exchange, the Africa Free Media Foundation, the Committee to Protect
Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, International PEN,
the Media Institute of Southern Africa, Reporters Sans Frontieres, the
South-East Asian Press Alliance and all providers of material for this
newsletter
BOOKS
Getting the most out of the internet
The new edition of Brendan Hennessy’s book Writing Feature Articles gives detailed advice about using the internet. It also warns: Don’t give up talking to real people, in person or on the phone.
Hennessy
describes how to get information from the world-wide web, and from newsgroups
and chatrooms, provided you are happy about its reliability and source. He
discusses how journalists can set up their own website and get it known about –
getting known is important for a journalist. He also discusses how to get work
used on-line.
His
book gives exhaustive accounts of how to interview, how to construct, write and
illustrate a feature, how to write columns and reviews even how to write
publicity and how to sell stories in other countries.
Here
are a few of his tips:
·
Find several sources for a story rather than just one
·
Prepare simple, open-ended questions for an interview, but also ask
specific ones, so you get clear information. Seek examples.
·
Get illuminating quotes.
· Write simply, concisely and honestly using precise, familiar words and avoiding abstract ones. Don’t be self-indulgent. Use adjectives to add meaning. If they add nothing, leave them out. .
Writing
Feature Articles, by Brendan Hennessy (Focal Press, contact A.Jackson@Elsevier.com ISBN 0 240
51691 5)
Also
about the internet
Unesco,
with the Thomson Foundation and the CBA has published The Net for Journalists,
aimed particularly at those in developing countries. It is by Martin Huckerby
and has an accompanying CD. It is free from Unesco offices.
A pdf version can be downloaded from http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=21010&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Being able to do everything
We know about the one-man band: the man who plays the mouth organ, accordion, cymbals and drum, all at once. Now that some newspapers have begun to work closely with broadcasters, while launching themselves on the worldwide web, will we see one-man journalism – one reporter covering a story for newspaper, radio, TV and the web?
Not exactly, according to Convergent Journalism, a new book from
Australian journalism professor Stephen Quinn and colleagues. (Quinn spoke on this
subject at the CJA conference in
The
relevant chapter gives the example of a city council meeting which will decide
whether to sanction a superstore opposed by local residents. The same reporter
cannot cover the story for all media because their needs differ. However, even
if opportunities for one-man journalism are limited, reporters in one medium
should learn to work in other media and perhaps also produce multimedia
presentations. That is what the book means by convergent journalism.
At
the same time, it stresses the continuing importance of the basics we all know
and love: the skilled use of words, the inverted-pyramid construction of a
story (essential to catch attention on-line), the
well-chosen, frozen moment in time which the still photograph can be.
Finally
“broadcast copy is what we wish we had said if we collected and organised our
thoughts properly and cleaned it up to make it right before we said anything.”
Convergent
Journalism, edited by Stephen Quinn and Vincent F.Filak (Focal Press, contact A.Jackson@Elsevier.com ISBN 0 240 8072
3)
Human beings telling powerful human stories
An Introduction to Journalism, by four teachers of
journalism at
An
Introduction to Journalism, by Carole Fleming, Emma Hemingway, Gillian Moore
and Dave Welford ( Sage Publications –