CJA E-letter
from the Commonwealth
Journalists Association www.cjaweb.com
President: Hassan Shahriar (
Vice-presidents: Doyin
Mahmoud (
Martin Mulligan (UK) emsquared2002@yahoo.ie
Executive director: Bryan Cantley bcantley@cna-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
Page 3 Cameraman
killed in Bhutto bomb carnage/Death in
Page 4 Kidnapped
Gambian reporter feared dead
Page 5 Gambians go on
line for independent news
Page 6 Reporters
suffer in
Page 7 Only one
journalist per 27,000 Ugandans
Page 8 Editing a fearless newspaper in
Page 9 Books: Starting
out in journalism
Page 10 News from
round the world
A message from the executive director
Two events
have set the stage for what I, as the CJA’s executive director, hope will be a
busy and compelling year ahead for the CJA.
The first was
my retirement as Vice-President of Member Services at the Canadian Newspaper
Association in June. This has allowed me to focus more of my attention on the
CJA and some of its key areas. I’m grateful that the CNA has allowed me to
continue to use its good name and workspace for CJA correspondence.
The second
was the generosity of the Commonwealth Foundation which recently released some
much-needed funding to help us administer the CJA. I will do my best to live up
to the Foundation’s expectations. My immediate wish list is not long but it
contains some ideas (many to be further explored) that should raise the CJA’s
profile.
·
Many
more training opportunities. I am compiling a long list of new and old training
professionals who very much want to put on seminars and workshops in
Commonwealth countries which have indicated a need.
·
A
CJA conference and general meeting will be held in 2008, likely in late October
or early November. A venue will be announced shortly.
·
The
CJA website needs to be revamped and modernised with more journalism resources,
including tips.
·
An
awards programme recognising excellence in journalism.
·
Organising
forums on important media issues.
·
An
examination of membership in the CJA, including a revitalisation of the
branches.
·
A
faster response mechanism to voice CJA objections to assaults on media freedom.
·
Frequent
correspondence with members of the CJA around the world.
I will be in
I welcome all
advice and ideas by e-mail at bcantley@can-acj.ca
CJA urged to lobby
Matthew Neuhaus, of the Commonwealth Secretariat, has
encouraged CJA members to lobby at the Commonwealth summit in
He said the summit would be discussing climate change and the disappointing progress towards meeting the millennium goals for improved health and education. It would receive a report from Professor Amartya Sen about paths to better societies, including the role of the media. It would discuss how developing countries can become developed.
Cameraman killed in Bhutto carnage
Muhammed Arif, a TV cameraman, was among the 138 people
killed when Benazir Bhutto’s welcome-home procession was bombed in
Arif was one of three Pakistani journalists to be killed
in recent weeks. Azar Abbas Haidri of the Islamabad-based Post was found shot
dead for unclear reasons in
Two journalists have disappeared this month in regions
near the Afghan frontier where the
Another Baluchi, Munir Mengal, a manager of Baloch Voice
TV, was rearrested in
September after being freed by the Baluchistan High Court. He was originally
snatched in
An Aaj TV producer and reporter were injured by a rocket while covering a clash between soldiers and religious militants in Swat on October 28.
Over 20 journalists were injured by police in
Student journalist killed in
Nilakshan Sahapavan, a student journalist in
Sunanda Deshapriya of
International media freedom organisations issued a joint
statement deploring the pressures on the media in
On October 26, the ministry of information withdrew the
licence of the ABC network of five radios. The network, and other stations, had
broadcast a report of an attack in
In October a government media spokesman said that anyone criticising the armed forces was a traitor. Iqbal Athas, defence correspondent of The Sunday Times, was singled out for attack. He has alleged corruption in an aircraft order. Four state TV journalists were sent on compulsory leave in September after publishing a letter to the management which sought to defend journalists’ integrity.
The army prevented a documentary for
Kidnapped Gambian reporter feared dead
Chief Ebrima Manneh, the Gambian journalist kidnapped
in July last year, may be dead, says the International Federation of
Journalists. The National Intelligence Agency and police have repeatedly denied
snatching him but he has been reported as being held in police stations around
the country and also being treated at the
Manneh
reported for the pro-government Daily Observer. He is said to have given
information to a foreign correspondent who criticised
the Gambian regime in an article about the African summit meeting in
The
Africa director of Amnesty International, another Amnesty official and Yaya
Dampha of the opposition paper Forayaa were detained for two days in October in
rural Gambia, where they had gone to seek Manneh and two ‘disappeared’
politicians. They found one of the two who had been held incommunicado for a
year. Plain-clothesmen
raided Dampha’s home on October 14. He was not there and is probably now in
hiding.
The
Accra-based Media Foundation for
International media freedom organisations meeting in
In
The Gambia in the 1990s several tabloid newspapers and private radio stations
emerged, giving the public an alternative to the official view. Things turned
bad when a military junta took power in 1994. It prosecuted editors for
publishing the Foroyaa newspaper (political organ of the opposition socialist
party) despite a ban on political activities. A few weeks later, it arrested
and unceremoniously deported Kenneth Best, proprietor and publisher of the
Daily Observer, back to his war-torn country of
As
a result, the chemistry of Gambian journalism has undergone a drastic change.
We now have more Gambian journalists out of the country than in. Most of those
still left in the country have resorted to heavy self-censorship, hardly
writing or broadcasting anything critical of the government. The constitution
requires state-owned radio and television to give space to divergent views. But
only those who sing the praises of President Jammeh
and his government stand any chance of appearing.
In
April 2000, Omar Barrow, a radio journalist with Sud FM radio station in
Three
journalists were recently arrested by the notorious National Intelligence
Agency and are currently appearing in court for various offences.
Fatou
Jaw Manneh, a Gambian journalist based in the
Of
course, delaying Ms Manneh’s trial may be a deliberate ploy to ensure she
remains in the country and does not return to the
The
two other journalists on trial are Mam Sait Ceesay, a press officer at
President Yahya Jammeh’s office and former editor-in-chief of the
pro-government Daily Observer, and Malick Sam Jones, a producer at the Gambia
Radio and Television Services. They are jointly accused of “passing sensitive
information to a foreign journalist” contrary to the Official Secrets Act.
As
a result of the heavy self-censorship arising from the continuous harassment of
the independent media and the virtual transformation of the public media into a
propaganda organ of the ruling party, Gambian journalists have now resorted to
online newspapers and radio.
Thousands
of Gambians both at home and abroad now depend on these online publications for
reliable news. Some make prints for relatives and friends who have no access to
the internet.
If
this is not enough to show the government that it is counter-productive to try
to muzzle the media, I wonder what else would. The longer the Gambian
authorities continue to muzzle the media, the more popular these online
publications will become.
The
detention of some of those whose names featured in the Freedom online paper’s
website last year shows that the government is indeed worried. It is, however,
hard to see how it can curb this online trend unless it allows journalists to
do their work without harassment, and allows the public media to cater for all
Gambians rather than just for the ruling clique.
As students and others protested against emergency rule
by the army-backed caretaker government in
In
particular, the authorities have striven to prevent coverage of protests on TV.
Information adviser Mainul Hosein said: “We request channels to stop televising
footage of violence until further notice because this might instigate further
violence.” So coverage stopped.
Human
Rights Watch says that tens of thousands of people have been arrested under
emergency powers. Many detainees can face indefinite detention without trial.
Rajshahi journalists have
rallied to the support of Jahangir Alam Akash, a Daily Sangbad reporter beaten
up after being detained on allegations of extortion which he denies.
Cartoonist Arifur Rahman was imprisoned for a month in September after Islamists protested against a cartoon showing a boy calling his cat Mohammad Biral (Mohammad Cat). Publishers of Prothom Alo, whose satirical magazine Aalpin published the cartoon, apologised saying they would use no more of Rahman’s work. They also fired a sub-editor.
Only
one journalist per 27,000 Ugandans
There’s one journalist
for every 1,300 people in
These statistics, which
indicate the current news and information available to people in these
countries, are quoted in an article by Mark Collins, director of the
Commonwealth Foundation. He drew them from the Africa Media Development
Initiative study carried out by universities in
Mark Collins’s main
purpose is to show what media, especially radio, can do to improve life in
rural and remote areas and for less educated people. He points to
There is, of course, a
wider picture as well as the grassroots endeavours outlined by Mark Collins.
Professor Amartya Sen has famously argued that democracy and the media have
made famine in
A journalist, Tim
Harford, went to
If mistakes and abuses
are to be remedied and the poverty they cause is to be overcome, people need to
know what is going on and the media need to tell them. Unfortunately, it is
becoming harder in some Commonwealth countries for the media to do the telling.
David Spark
by John Lawrence,
Chief Editor of the Macau Daily Times, and former trainer for the CJA
There are two things I've
always wanted to do: Write my own newspaper column and ― more recently ―
edit a daily newspaper.
I got the first chance in the
1980s and 1990s when I started the social awareness column The Cutting Edge (by
Watchman) while employed as training editor for the Nation group of newspapers
in Nairobi.
Of course, it's
history that I got myself summarily deported when I exposed a wee bit too much
corruption in the former British colony. It's not wise to write pejoratively
about an African country's immigration department.
The second chance came in
April this year when the yet-to-be-born daily newspaper the Macau Daily Times
advertised for staff through the Journalism Education Association in
The Macau Daily Times was
launched on June 1 this year, taking its place beside a burgeoning number of
English, Chinese and Portuguese newspapers and magazines in a territory that
has gained pre-eminence as the world's gambling mecca, outstripping Las Vegas
as it heads for an annual gaming turnover of about $12.5 billion.
The Macau Daily Times
achieves much from a very small editorial staff. Besides the chief editor,
there is a director, four young journalists and a designer, who produces the
newspaper on an Apple Mac, using the InDesign system.
There are some surprises in
this multicultural outfit. For a start, all four reporters did their
journalistic training at Australian universities. None of them had previous
exposure to daily journalism, apart from a young woman of Portuguese-English parentage.
The others are an Australian
who spent some years in the
The Portuguese and Chinese
elements are important at press conferences as the official languages are
Cantonese and Portuguese. It can be frustrating if you speak only English.
The Macau Daily Times is a
28-page tabloid segmented into local, Chinese, Asia/Pacific, world, business,
cultural and sporting news. It relies heavily on international news, taking the
AFP wire service. The ownership is Chinese, although the actual owners are not
named in the paper's credits. At present there is no staff photographer and the
journalists take their own pictures.
From an outsider's point of
view, albeit from that of an old
Expatriates, who now
outnumber the Portuguese population, find the Macau Daily Times instantly
appealing. Its forthright news reporting is also earning a growing readership
among locals.
BOOKS
Starting
out in journalism
The questions
which work best are those which create a platform for interviewees, a stage on
which they can outline their opinions and make their points.
This sound advice
is to be found in a fascinating few pages – for a print journalist – about news
on TV. They appear in a new book Essential Reporting by Jon Smith, a college
lecturer who has worked on several British newspapers.
If newspaper reporting is
governed by the space available, TV is governed by time. You can’t say much in
a minute. However, during that minute, you can convey information in three
ways: through pictures, spoken words and text. The words have to be written to
the pictures. This means they must relate to the pictures being shown. But
they should also add information to what the pictures are showing.
TV news is chatty and
friendly, a one-sided conversation with the viewer. It uses some of its
precious time to present a seamless experience, each item flowing from the one
before. The items themselves comprise several elements, probably some
introductory words from the newscaster, then perhaps a scene-setting clip from
an interview, then a story-telling package put
together by a reporter, finally perhaps a conversation between presenter and
reporter.
Jon Smith’s book is aimed at
young journalists, just starting newspaper work or a college course. It
discusses the qualities they will need for success and the multimedia skills
they will need to acquire. It discusses the situations in which they may find
themselves: dealing with handouts, phoning the police and other informants,
covering marches, speeches, meetings, deaths, press conferences, courts, local
councils and major incidents, doing interviews in person, on the phone or in
the street. It shows how to write up the information they have gleaned.
This book review
breaks one of Smith’s rules. It starts with a quote. But every rule is made to
be broken.
Essential
Reporting, by Jon Smith (Sage ISBN 978-1-4129-4751-0 contact
Michael.ainsley:sagepub.co.uk)
David
Spark
A finance official
was suspended for criticising the military government in a blog.
President Kibaki
refused in August to sign into law a bill that would have forced reporters to
reveal sources in court. Over 300 journalists marched against the bill.
The publisher of a
weekly in Akwa Ibom state was charged in October with sedition, a charge which
was supposed to have been dropped in 1983. Security men in the northern state
of Borno arrested journalists who criticised the state governor’s lavish
spending on gifts for his supporters for Ramadan. They wanted to know how the
journalists found out.
Two German filmmakers
became in October the first foreign journalists to be charged while covering
unrest in the
Cape Town’s High Court dismissed an
attempt by FirstRandBank to stop the satirical journal Noseweek from reporting
on a tax evasion scheme involving bank clients.
What appears to be a
government hit-list of 15 journalists, all on independent newspapers, has been
leaked. They include Abel Mutsakani of ZimOnline, who was shot and injured in
Chief executive
of
Police in September
raided a theatre, arresting two actors and James Jemwa, a journalist filming
the performance of a satirical play about
Our
thanks
We once
again thank our news sources including Canadian Journalists for Free
Expression, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the Inter American Press
Association, 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 International Press Institute, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(Australia), Media for Democracy in Nigeria, 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 (
Executive
committee
East Pacific Lance Polu (
West Pacific Reggie Dutt (
.
.