CJA E-letter
from the Commonwealth Journalists Association www.cjaweb.com
Headquarters: c/o Canadian Newspaper Association, 890 Yonge Street Suite 200, Toronto ON, Canada M4W 3P4
President: Hassan Shahriar (Bangladesh) shahriar@bangla.net
Vice-presidents: Doyin Mahmoud (Nigeria) doyinmahmoud@yahoo.co.uk
Martin Mulligan (UK) emsquared2002@yahoo.ie
Executive director: Bryan Cantley bcantley@can-acj.ca
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 18 January 2007
A happy new year to all our readers
Look at our upgraded website
The CJA website www.cjaweb.com, set up by Josanne Leonard, has been upgraded and updated and is now being added to daily. Please let the webmaster <pwessels@ozemail.com.au> know what you think. It’s OK to find fault.
See page3: A hub of news about journalism
Yarn for the season: The three wise men
Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Peter at the pearly gates. “This is Christmas,” he said, “named after the son of the boss. To get in you must have something that symbolises this season.” The first man pulled out a lighter and flicked it on. “It represents a candle,” he explained. “You may pass through into heaven,” said Peter. The second shook a set of keys and claimed “They’re bells”. Peter said: “Go through, my son.” The third man searched his pockets desperately. Finally he produced a woman’s glasses. “And just what Christmas phenomenon do these represent?” asked Peter archly. The man replied: “They’re Carol’s.”
Tony Deyal
Contents of this newsletter
Page 2 Leading Nigerian journalist shot/President backs Fiji members/
Page 3 Gambian wins press freedom award/New CJA executive director
Page 4 A hub of news about journalism
Page 5 CJA members seek Hong Kong journalist’s freedom
Page 6 Riots drive Tongan paper from office/ Time to submit training plans
Page 7 Back the human rights initiative
Page 10 News around the world
Page 14 Books What’s new
Leading Nigerian journalist shot dead
Godwin Agbroko, columnist and chairman of the editorial board at This Day newspaper, was shot dead in his car in Lagos on December 22. He died from a single shot in the throat. Three policemen and two other people were shot dead in the same area that night. Police think Agbroko was killed by robbers. But nothing was stolen from the car and his family suspect hitmen. During Nigeria’s military dictatorship, Agbroko edited several newspapers and was detained for five months in 1996/7.
Another former editor, Omololu Falobi, was shot dead in Lagos in October. At Onitsha in the east, robbers attacked the Vanguard office and killed a distribution assistant on Christmas Day.
CJA president backs Fiji journalists
The CJA’s president, Hassan Shahriar, quickly expressed the association’s concern when the army seized control of Fiji at the beginning of December.
He wrote to CJA members in Fiji:
We do not endorse such an intervention. It is a violation of the constitution and a negation of human rights. I hope the authorities will allow journalists to function without fear. Please tell our colleagues, especially CJA members, that the CJA will always stand by you. Please let me know if journalists are persecuted or harassed.
The Fiji Media Council issued a strong statement denouncing illegal moves by the military and reaffirming the concept of freedom of the press.
Fiji newspapers and broadcasters defied the military who gave guarantees of freedom of the press while at the same time turning up at media offices and seeking to put pressure on journalists. The Fiji Daily Post, an ally of ousted prime minister Laisenia Qarase closed down for several days. At a meeting in military barracks on December 14, its Australian editor Robert Wolfgramm was told he would be deported.
Amid all this, The Fiji Times set up a blood donor clinic to supply blood to a hospital which had almost run out. Fifteen soldiers were among the donors.
Gambian wins press freedom award
Madi Ceesay, general manager of The Independent and president of the Gambia Press Union, was one of four journalists who received International Press Freedom Awards in New York in November from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In March, the Independent was closed down by the government for unexplained reasons. The government intelligence agency detained Ceesay and editor-in-chief Musa Saidykhan without charge for three weeks.
Congratulating Ceesay on his award, Demba Jawo, CJA executive member and previous president of the Gambia Press Union, commended him for staying in The Gambia and continuing the struggle for press freedom despite intimidation and harassment. Demba also saw the award as recognition of what Gambian journalists have been going through: arson attacks on media houses and targeting of individuals, culminating in the murder of well-known editor Deyda Hydara in December 2004.
Madi Ceesay remarked in New York: “I’m optimistic that The Independent will reopen soon. We are trying our best to see it back on the news stands.”
Before joining The Independent, he worked for another independent paper, Gambia News and Report. While covering a clash in 2000 between government and opposition supporters which left one man dead, he was arrested and, with many others, charged with murder but cleared.
New executive director for CJA
The CJA has a new executive director: Bryan
Cantley (above), secretary of the Canadian branch and a vice-president of the
Canadian Newspaper Association for which he has worked for many years.
Josanne Leonard, executive director for the past two years, is becoming the
CJA's Caribbean Representative. She will be the main organiser of the
next conference, to be held in Trinidad or Jamaica. Until the conference, the CJA's headquarters will be
in Toronto, Canada.
These decisions result from a review by CJA vice-presidents Doyin Mahmoud (Nigeria) and
Martin Mulligan (UK), Chris Cobb (Canada) and Pieter Wessels (Australia). Chris Cobb led the
charge with the others thundering along in support. President Hassan Shahriar
writes: “Let us hope that the new arrangements help us enhance the CJA’s
prestige.”
A hub of news about journalism
Meanwhile the CJA website
www.cjaweb.com has been updated by Pieter
Wessels who is continually adding new material. He writes:
"We are looking at it becoming a hub of news about journalism, freedom of
information and expression, and the how and why of development, poverty
eradication and good governance. The site can also contribute to bridging the various gulfs in the Commonwealth.
“The issues, like the
Millennium Development Goals, have to be presented to reporters and editors in
ways that they can use, with ideas for local stories and suggestion of experts
who can speak simply.
"In time the site can also be used for distance and on-line training and
perhaps even offer a Commonwealth news service for small and medium-sized media
in developing countries. Just being able to let CJA members know when
Commonwealth VIPs and experts are visiting their countries would be of great
value to them and to the Commonwealth."
Pieter asks that all members with ideas for the site contact him at
pwessels@ozemail.com.au. Contributions from members are badly needed.
In other web news, the
CJA is working with local journalists in the Punjab to develop the Rural Media Network Pakistan website in Urdu. The present
website is in English and devoted to journalism and freedom of information and
expression. To publish it in Urdu – used by most local journalists - funding is
needed as the software is neither free nor easy to use. You can see the site at
http://online-rmnp.tripod.com.
CJA is looking at providing trainers to go into zones where security is not
100%. CJA branches in Fiji and Malaysia want to be involved. Both have excellent young trainers.
CJA Australia is looking for money to run five-day workshops in Central Pakistan
which will teach on-line skills while stressing freedom of expression and
information and good governance.
CJA is also seeking to help set up a broadcasting service for the indigenous
people of Sri Lanka, whose ancestors lived there before the Singhalese and
Tamil arrived. The next step is to give a young Sri Lankan broadcaster
experience with an indigenous broadcasting service in Australia. The Veddas or Wanniya-laetio in Sri Lanka consider themselves relatives of
the Australian aborigines.
Further, CJA Canada, with Australian help, is working
on a project to provide training about reporting AIDS and HIV for journalists
in Papua New Guinea. It will be a highly practical
course for working journalists, showing what reporters elsewhere in the world
have learned about reporting this difficult subject which most people just
don’t want to know about.
CJA members seek Hong Kong journalist’s freedom
Several CJA members have joined in an internet sign-in seeking parole on medical grounds for Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist jailed for five years in China on a charge of spying for Taiwan and buying information with Taiwanese money. Ching, China correspondent for the Straits Times of Singapore, has been in prison for 18 months and his health has suffered.
The sign-in has been set up by the Hong Kong Journalists Association. To join it, go to www.chingcheong.com and click on the bottom line. Add your signature at the bottom of the next page.
Fifty-seven-year-old Ching entered China in spring 2005 for research concerning a former leader, Zhao Ziyang. He was arrested in Guangzhou (Canton) and, according to the Chinese foreign ministry, confessed. (Criminal proceedings in China are often based on confessions.)
He is the first Hong Kong journalist to be charged with spying. His wife, Mary Lau, has called the charges ludicrous. She believes he was entrapped while seeking recordings of secret interviews with Zhao.
He was tried in secret last summer. His family say that the verdict ignored the case for the defence.
Riots force Tongan paper from office
November's violent riots in the Pacific kingdom of Tonga forced the Tonga Chronicle out of its offices when the central business district was set alight and six people died. Being the government newspaper it was able to set up a newsroom of sorts in the Prime Minister's Office.
While the riots were still going on the editor, Feleti Tu'ihalamaka, told CJA Australia by e-mail: "A few staff are not working due to their feeling insecure. Anyway, with the limited staff we are struggling." He asked for copy on reaction to the riots outside the country. Two CJA members immediately collected copy and sent it back by e-mail.
Feleti Tu'ihalamaka, who succeeded CJA stalwart Paua Manu'ata when he retired two years ago, said: "It is sad that Tonga has arrived at this stage." The riots have been blamed on Tonga's democracy movement, though the movement contests this. Journalists are struck by the similarity of what has happened in Tonga with recent riots in the Solomon Islands.
Sharon Robinson retires
Sharon Robinson above has retired after 24 years at the Commonwealth Foundation. She was civil society liaison manager for both the Foundation and the Secretariat and, as such, interested in talking to and promoting non-government organisations including the CJA. The CJA wishes her a long and happy retirement.
Do you want to run a training course?
It is time for proposals for training courses, workshops and other projects to be submitted to funders. Applications for money from the Commonwealth Media Development Fund and the Commonwealth Foundation close soon. So if you know of some training, workshop or seminar needed by journalists in your area please let us know now.
Writing proposals is a long and difficult task because funders do not give their money away. They have to be convinced that whatever we propose is necessary and even crucial. If you do know of a need or a project you think the CJA should back, e-mail Pieter Wessels <pwessels@ozemail.com.au> who is co-ordinating this aspect of CJA work at the moment.
Projects the CJA has been involved with over the years include -
training courses regional conferences committee work
workshops national conferences lobbying
seminars international conferences
public lectures consultancies
writing text books journalists associations
publishing text books education of journalists
Once you have made a suggestion the CJA will either help you to write up a formal proposal, or do it for you. Increasingly the CJA is working with other organisations both national and international to fund projects vital to working journalists. So, if there is a local funder in your area, suggest the CJA works with that organisation and arranges part of the funding.
If news is our business, CJA should tap into the work of CHRI and find common ground investigating policing, justice, torture and the right to information
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
International Advisory Commission
New Delhi, Oct. 10 & 11, 2006
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative continues to be a dynamic and useful Commonwealth non-government organisation. It is well-focused and well run and punching above its weight. It has huge influence in India, and indeed South-East Asia and, through its satellite operation in Ghana, it is applying its accumulating skills in disparate parts of Africa. Now it is also reaching into the Pacific.
It deserves the CJA’s continued support, which could have great mutual advantages. CJA members should be a lot more proactive and co-operative as CHRI pronotes rights to information in some tough and resistant territory.
These are my conclusions reinforced last month when it was my honour and pleasure to attend the annual meeting of the CHRI Advisory Commission in New Delhi. I have served as CJA nominee on that commission since 2002.
CJA’s representation is born of the fact that it was one of the three NGOs which first promoted the CHRI after the idea was bruited in 1987 — the two others were the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the now defunct Commonwealth Trades Union Council. Other NGOs — legal education, publishers, doctors — have come in since.
Maja Daruwala, the executive director, in her report on the past year gives an idea of the scope of CHRI activity. She writes: “Apart from its core competencies in access to justice and information, CHRI constantly endeavours to raise human rights concerns… In particular it targets the Commonwealth Secretariat, Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, periodic meetings of ministers, and the heads of government meeting. It also seeks to engage with the Commonwealth to further human rights.”
Access to justice – police reform, prison reform, special colloquia — is an ever-expanding activity.
A shift in emphasis that should be of interest to CJA members is CHRI’s eagerness “to break away from the usual good-intentioned activists who are content to narrowcast messages and rely on workshops.” CHRI is now seeking to develop “a strong capability to access and influence mass media.”
For more detailed understanding of CHRI, I would direct you to the website:
www.humanrightsinitiative.org. Alternatively, please feel free to reach me at e-mail: burt@mts.net
Murray Burt, CJA past president, past president
of the Canadian chapter
How to make international calls free
Do you know it is possible to make free, un-timed international and national phonecalls using the Voice Over Internet Protocol? Some CJA members have discovered the VOIP service Skype and are using it for the business of the CJA. To use the Skype service the people on both ends of the call need a broadband internet connection plus speakers and a microphone (or a telephone headset) on their computer. They must use the same software, and be registered with the service.
To get started you download a small and self-installing piece of software from <www.skype.com> and sign up for the free Skype service. Almost immediately you are up and working with a user name and password. From then on you can call any other person in the world with Skype for free. Calls are unlimited and untimed. CJA members using Skype say the quality is better than most international calls on the conventional telephone system.
Making sure your e-mail reached its destination
There’s handy new help for reporters who need proof of what's happened to an e-mail. ReadNotify at www.readnotify.com is an inexpensive service based in Australia that gives you written proof of mailing, delivery, and reading. It also lets you know if the e-mail has been forwarded and the location of any readers. You can use it to retract an e-mail or to get it to self-destruct after being read. The use in investigative reporting is obvious, but it's also a big help with a sceptical editor. Journalists can sign up for a free two-week trial to test it for themselves.
News from around the world
AUSTRALIA
Australian journalists are worried for their jobs because of new laws on media ownership which come into force this year. The laws allow more foreign ownership. They also allow a city newspaper owner to broadcast as well, or a city TV station to own a local radio, The Packer family has sold half its TV, magazine and on-line empire to a European investor, while retaining operational control. Journalists worry that, to increase profits to meet its new partner’s expectations, Packer will lay off staff. In Perth, TV owner Kerry Stokes has bought into the West Australian, the city’s only daily. Meanwhile, the growth of on-line media = which could bring more jobs - remains restricted by existing laws.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance is seeking full disclosure of relevant evidence at an inquest in February into the deaths of five Australian journalists during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. Some information has been kept secret.
BANGLADESH
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that threats against and attacks on journalists have increased as the January 23 general election approaches. A reporter for the Daily Star was attacked in Bogra where he had reported on political corruption. Three journalists in Satkhira in the south-west have received death threats. No one has been convicted for the murders of nine journalists since the year 2000.
BOTSWANA
The Media Institute of Southern Africa is pressing for a new directorate of intelligence and security to be properly accountable and under proper oversight.
CANADA
Tom Bower, a former BBC producer who has made a career out of writing detailed critical biographies of controversial press and business moguls, has just published one entitled Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge. Canadian press tycoon Black acquired The Daily Telegraph in LondonHe also acquired a spendthrift journalist-wife and a peerage. As swiftly as he rose, he fell, protesting his innocence while American lawyers looked into his company management. A reviewer remarks: “With the Blacks, you get two amazing characters for the price of one.”
GAMBIA
Two years after leading editor Deyda Hydara was shot, his killers remain unpunished. Reporters Sans Frontieres says no serious attempt has been made to catch them.
INDIA
After demonstrations by press unions, the government is to set up wage boards to negotiate pay and conditions for newspaper employees..
Abdul Rouf, deputy editor of the Srinagar News (Kashmir), and his wife Zeenat were detained in November and accused of sheltering armed rebels. Police did not release Zeenat despite a court order. Another journalist in Kashmir, Maqbool Sahil, has been held since September despite a court order for his release.
Three journalists were hurt on December 8 when police baton-charged people protesting against the acquisition of farmland for a car plant in West Bengal.
Fifteen Asia and African journalists attended a New Delhi workshop in November on reporting AIDS, TB, malaria and bird flu. It was organised by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.
KENYA
Swaleh Ali Mdoe, anchorman for the Kenya Television Network, was detained by police for a weekend in October. They also held his grandfather for a time. Mdoe has a Kenyan father but a Tanzanian mother and the government claims he is a Tanzanian.
MALAWI
A reporter from Blantyre Newspapers was banned from state functions in November on the ground he is a convict. He was given a suspended prison sentence in September for criminal libel.
MALAYSIA
The online newspaper Malaysiakini disclosed that editors were called in by ministers on December 12 and instructed to “manage” any public outcry over an increase in highway tolls. They got a similar instruction over fuel price rises in March.
Critics fear that a possible merger between the New Straits Times Press and Utusan Melayu will give the main ruling party, UMNO, a dominant position in newspapers.
The science minister in December threatened tougher laws for bloggers. He said: “We need to have stricter cyber laws to prevent these bloggers from disseminating disharmony, chaos, seditious material and lies.” The Southeast Asian Press Alliance wrote in October that decades of repressive laws, and the ownership of most media by supporters of the ruling parties, have created a climate of self-censorship in newsrooms and hampered the media’s ability to act as watchdog for the public.
MALDIVE ISLANDS
Despite promises of reform, the government continues to harass and arrest journalists working for opposition media and has failed to keep its promise to allow private broadcasting. Five international organisations concerned with media freedom make these points in a letter to the minister of information in December. The previous month, scores of people were arrested ahead of a planned opposition demonstration. They included Ahmed Abbas, a well-known cartoonist for the on-line Minivan News.
NIGERIA
Anti-corruption agents on December 2 raided Cosmo FM in Enugu, believing it to belong to the state governor whom they were investigating. They arrested two staff members and put the station off the air for two hours by yanking out cables.
PAKISTAN
The Rural Media Network Pakistan organised a writing workshop in November for 40 women teachers from rural areas. Guext speakers are pictured above.
Two Pakistani journalists were murdered during the autumn. The battered body of Malik Ismail, resident editor of Pakistan Press International, was found behind a petrol pump in Islamabad early on October 31. In North-West Frontier Province, a district correspondent for the Online news agency, Maqbool Hussain Siyal, was shot in September, on his way to see a politician.
Four men, apparently from the police, assaulted New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall in Quetta in restive Baluchistan on December 19 and detained her photographer, Akhtar Soomro, for a day. They accused her of being in Quetta without permission. But Baluchistan is not a restricted area for journalists. A BBC correspondent in South Waziristan, Diliwar Khan, was kidnapped by unidentified men for a day in November.
Taliban supporters, upset by an inaccurate report, stormed into the office of a North Waziristan journmalist, Haji Pazir, on November 28 and held his son for several hours.
Journalists are concerned about a report that the government plans to set up a Press and Publication Regulatory Authority
A ban on Sindh TV in November, which led to protests from journalists, was lifted after 17 days. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, the ban followed a news film about the murder of a policeman after an attack on a jail.
Since 2000, the number of daily papers in Pakistan has more or less doubled and circulation has risen by a third to around eight million. The biggest seller is the Jang, selling 775,000 copies a day. The biggest English-language seller is Dawn (138,000).
SRI LANKA
Police, using new anti-terror laws, questioned two executives at the state-owned Sunday Observer on December 20. They said the laws required the journalists to disclose their sources for a report published the previous Sunday. The Free Media Movement has protested that the new laws define terrorism in very broad terms. They prohibit “transactions” with anyone identified as a terrorist, unless specifically approved. In November a Tamil freelance, Parameswaree Maunasami, was detained under anti-terror laws. She works for a Sinhalese paper that is critical of both the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers.
The deputy pictures editor of The Sunday Leader was assaulted, arrested and had his camera smashed while covering a clash between police and villagers. He was accused of helping a monk to set himself on fire, which he denied. Two journalists from the weekly Sathdina Sinhala were arrested by soldiers on December 5 while meeting union leaders involved in a dispute at Sri Lanka Telecom.
SWAZILAND
The Times, Swaziland’s only independent newspaper, is being sued for libel by a man held on bombing and treason charges. It published his picture next to a headline reading ‘Bomber’. The paper apologised the following day. The picture was published in error.
ZIMBABWE
An independent council to regulate the media is to be launched on January 26. It includes respected citizens as well as media people. Through the media council, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe are seeking to open the way for repeal of parts of the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. This Act set up a government-appointed Media Commission and led to the closure of Zimbabwe’s most popular newspaper, The Daily News. It also set up a registration system which stops many journalists from working
New information minister Paul Mangwana and President Mugabe’s nephew Leo are reported to favour change. In November, the government told the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights that it was negotiating with MISA. But media commission head Tafataona Mahoso is fighting for his job and the government is pressing ahead with an Interception of Communications Bill which seeks to break Zimbabwean journalists’ e-mail links with broadcasters outside the country.
A magistrate at Gokwe on December 18 ordered two security men to return radios confiscated from 17 teachers. The Progressive Teachers Union had provided them.
The Zimbabwe Independent in November published details from a leaked copy of an inquiry report into the near-derelict national steel company Zisco. The report alleges that politicians have enriched themselves at Zisco’s expense.
BOOKS
What’s new
The Associated Press Stylebook Norm Goldstein
046500489X Basic Books Inc
Every journalist needs this revised and updated edition of the bible of the newspaper industry. More people write for the Associated Press than for any newspaper in the world. Writers have bought more copies of The AP Stylebook than of any other journalism reference work.
Satellite Newsgathering Jonathan Higgins
0240519736 Focal Press
A valuable and comprehensive work that is extremely easy to read and detailed where necessary. The new edition includes tales from the ground in Iraq, videophones, impact of IP, HDTV and the latest compression technologies like H.264 and Windows Media 9.
Competitive Strategy for Media Firms Chan-Olmsted
0805862110 Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc Inc
Introduces the concepts and analytical frameworks of strategic and brand management and illustrates how they can be adapted to media products.
Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies Peter J.Anderson, Geoff Ward
0754644049 Ashgate Due December 31
Explores current challenges, especially the responsibilities of journalism in the advanced democracies.Authors are experienced journalists and academics in the UK and elsewhere.
The Media Globe: Trends in International Mass Media Artz, Kamalipour, Hamelink
0742540944 Rowman snf Littlefield Inc
Diverse, well-respected scholars follow emerging patterns in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Australia.
Pieter Wessels
Our thanks
We once again thank our news sources including the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of Expression Institute (South Africa), the Free Media Movement (Sri Lanka), the International Federation of Journalists, the Media Foundation for West Africa, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Pakistan Press Foundation, the Rural Media Network Pakistan, Reporters Sans Frontieres and the South-East Asian Press Alliance
The CJA’s officers
Past presidents Derek Ingram (UK), Ray Ekpu (Nigeria), Murray Burt (Canada)
Executive committee
East Africa Sam Aola Ooko (Kenya), Cindy Wirtz (Seychelles)
Southern Africa John Gambanga (Zimbabwe)
West Africa Demba Jawo (Gambia)
East Asia Florence Yii (Malaysia)
South Asia Ashis Chakrabarti (India), Champika Liyanaarachchi (Sri Lanka)
West Asia S.M.Fazal (Pakistan)
Caribbean Josanne Leonard, Dale Enoch
North America Chris Cobb
Europe Syed Belal Ahmed (UK)
East Pacific Lance Polu (Western Samoa)
West Pacific Reggie Dutt (Fiji)