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 (
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
The CJA thanks
the Commonwealth Foundation for its financial support
Issue No 22
January 2008
Page 2 CJA to
confer in
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5 Books: Media can help
Page 6
Books:
Page 9 News from round the world
Governments hit by violence in
After
In
The
Pakistani media were already hard hit by the government after it declared an
emergency in November. Some newspapers were ordered to change critical
articles. Independent TV channels Geo and ARY One World were closed down along
with BBC and CNN services, and the government persuaded the
Jang
group staff in
Sindh
judges in December refused to lift the government’s ban on Geo, which refused
to sign a new code of conduct. (Geo resumed broadcasting from
CJA to confer in Sarawak in October
The
CJA will hold its next conference from October 14 to 18 in Kuching,
CJA
executive director Bryan Cantley is appealing for volunteers to help with
arrangements. He will also welcome suggestions for conference topics.
Governance, climate change and the internet are among those suggested so far.
If
you have ideas for training seminars this year, send them to
The
CJA website is to be redesigned. It carried a timely message about the
On
a visit to London Bryan Cantley met fellow Canadian Eduardo del Buey, director
of communications at the Commonwealth Secretariat. The secretariat now produces
a quarterly newsletter both in print and electronically. It contains stories
which Commonwealth journalists can use. Andrew Firmin of the Commonwealth
Foundation suggested that the CJA look at co-operating with the Foundation on
training. Journalists could demystify the Foundation’s work, for instance on
promoting the millennium development goals of better health and education.
Journalism
organisations are invited to nominate candidates for the Unesco/Guillermo Cano
World Press Freedom Prize, which is worth $25,000. Nominations should be sent
by January 30 to Unesco, Division for Freedom of
Expression,
CJA
Hamdan Amjad Ali above, secretary general of CJA
Pakistan, died in October while undergoing a heart by-pass. He was 68. One of
CJA Pakistan’s founder members, he attended the
CJA
President Hassan Shahriar worked with Hamdan at Dawn in the 1960s. He writes:
“He was a dedicated, cheerful and friendly person and his death came to me as a
personal loss.”
Let women play a greater role
Fauzia Shaheen, who succeeds Hamdan Ali as secretary general of CJA Pakistan, wants women to play a greater role in the media and politics there. She gave up a job with the Jang group because she wanted to specialise in political or economic reporting, not women’s pages.
She
then started her own Urdu monthly, Dastak. She also set up the Women Media
Centre in
Speakers
at her seminars suggest that prejudice against women in politics and the media
is rooted in the attitudes of a still feudal society. Many seats in national
and provincial assemblies are allocated to women but what they can do is
limited by the fact they are nominated by political organisations – they do not
have the strength of their own political support. However, television has
provided some new openings for women journalists. A leading woman writer,
Shabnam Gul, said that what was needed was commitment and resolve.
Journalists set up local watchdog
Some 20
The
group, which will meet quarterly, has Francois Kuilang of Radio Madumba,
Bangangle, as secretary general and Michel Ferdinand of Quotidien Mutations,
Bafoussam, as rapporteur. The other members are Dexter Nana of Ouest Echos,
Rostand Mell of Radio Batcham, Andre Djapa, CRTV Ouest, Carole Leuwe, Radio
Star, and Alexis Mouliom, Noun Community Radio.
The
seminar, organised and led by Andre Marie Yimga of the
Centre for Research into Education, Human Rights and Social Sciences
(CERDHESS), heard three lawyers discuss laws decentralising powers over
development, health services, school, sport and culture to towns and their
mayors. The general opinion was that this decentralisation was not going to
become a reality any time soon. The seminar, however, encouraged journalists to
present the views of local citizens to their elected representatives.
Local radio has flourished in
The radios began with entertainment but moved on to crime, politics and, in particular phone-ins, fed by increasingly numerous mobile phones. They also feature ebimeeza – round table discussions in the open air in which anyone can take part. And they have had help from the High Court, which struck out of the legal system a ban on publishing false news.
However,
Barney Jopson has pointed out in the Financial Times (
Two
years ago the government temporarily closed KFM, after a broadcaster there
accused it of complicity in the helicopter crash which killed John Garang, the
South Sudanese leader. Last year the
talk show Let’s Fight for Ourselves survived official
pressure by switching stations, only to be silenced by two armed men who poured
acid on its new station’s transmitter.
Governments
tend to see independent criticism as anti-government. A minister said that
criticising the government over an error was all right but criticism must not
be mischievous. This leaves journalists uncertain what will and will not get
them and their stations into trouble. As the minister pointed out, some
ministers are more sensitive than others.
BOOKS 1
Media can help Africa run better
How newspapers helped get money to
Collier
sees an important role for free media, especially cheap-to-run radio, in
bringing about improvements in governance. In his Ugandan example, the
permanent secretary for finance had discovered that only a fifth of the money
intended for schools actually reached them. So he decided to tell the schools
and the media, every time the ministry released money for schools. The
publicity worked. Three years later, schools were receiving almost all the
money released for them.
In
Media
freedom, Collier points out, is a safeguard against the politics of patronage –
in many countries the easiest way to get elected is to buy votes. However,
media freedom is fragile. Governments grant it reluctantly and are quick to
withdraw it.
Collier’s
answer is an international charter setting standards which governments would
feel under pressure to abide by. Media freedom, especially the freedom of radio
from government control, would be one of the standards. He thinks the
Commonwealth could introduce a charter of this kind, and he would like
The
Bottom Billion, by Paul Collier (
ISBN
978-0-19-531145-7)
BOOKS 2
Africa ’s media struggle with low incomes
The story of
Kwame
Karikari of the Media Foundation for
The
British colonial government’s interest in newspapers was not, however, great. A
century after McCarthy, the papers of Commonwealth Africa were privately owned
and served either the settler communities or black
nationalism. In the 1950s, the Mirror group from
The
British government, uninterested in newspapers, did set up radio stations.
Broadcasting was a government monopoly and that was how it stayed after
independence. For independent African governments, which abhorred dissent,
radio had a political, government-supporting role. They extended its reach throughout
their countries. But they also used it to educate people and tell them about
vaccinations and river blindness.
Over
time, popular dissatisfaction with one-party rule found expression in new
independent media, especially radio stations. These new outlets, set up - with
little capital - to promote political rights, have faced great difficulties. A
lack of trained staff has left them open to libel actions. Many publications in
Governments
have seized issues or closed private papers and radios, while continuing to run
state newspapers and broadcasting. Weak economies provide the private media
with poor incomes, leaving them open to influence from wealthier political,
religious and commercial actors and advertisers. In
Meanwhile,
the big international broadcasters such as Voice of America, the BBC and, to
some degree, South African Broadcasting dominate
Low pay and high gombo inFrench-speaking Africa
In French-speaking
As
in Commonwealth countries, newly independent francophone governments
monopolised the media. However, in the 1980s, a protest press mushroomed for
urban elites to read. Later, private broadcasting burst into life. Liberal
press laws were introduced, even if courts still sent journalists to jail. New
institutions were created: regulatory authorities (not all under the
government’s thumb); press houses, which offer meeting space and training;
journalists associations; watchdog groups concerned with standards. Foreign
donors put in money.
However,
competition is cut-throat – there are 30 papers in
The
civil servants who bought the protest press of the 1980s can no longer afford
to buy. Other buyers are put off by deteriorating quality and political bias.
Rumour-mongering and overblown headlines are rife. So media income and pay are
small. Both journalists and TV stations live on ‘gombo’ – payments for turning
up at seminars, stonelayings and other ceremonies.
However,
African journalism can still take inspiration from its giants, past and
present. The book pays tribute to many of them including William Dixon Colley
(The Gambia), Kenneth Best (Liberia and The Gambia), Sorious Samura (who made
the film Cry Freetown), Pius Njawe (Le Messager, Cameroon), Fred M’membe
(Zambia), Mohammed Amin (the Kenyan photographer), Carlos Cardoso (Mozambique),
Gwen Lister (Namibia), Percy Qoboza (South Africa), Lewis Odhiambo (who
promoted a code of conduct for Kenyan journalists) and Mavis Moyo (who has
promoted development through radio in rural Zimbabwe).
How the guerrillas faced down Nigeria
Rohimi Sankore tells the brave story of
Chief
Abiola, owner of
Babangida’s
successor, General Abacha, regarded the magazine journalists as the enemy and
he decided to crush four of them. Kunle Ajibade, editor of the News, was taken
before a court martial and given a life sentence on a trumped-up charge of
abetting a coup. Journalists from three other magazines got life sentences,
too. But in 1998 Abacha died.
The most trusted institution
In
A
fascinating and detailed study by Helge Ronning suggests that corruption may be
less common and serious than most people think. But some Mozambicans are adept
at diverting aid money to their private use and they are difficult to pursue
because, apart from their influential jobs, they are also members of the ruling
party.
In
a continent starved of trained journalists, John Mukela writes about the
Southern African centre in
Fifty Years of Journalism: African media
since Ghana
(Highway
http://highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/publications/files/50years.pdf
Note also Media Legislation in
Potentially excellent centres for training journalists
In addition Unesco has published
a study of African journalist training centres, by Guy Berger and Corinne
Matras (of
Using criteria relating to curriculum, outside links,
strategy, management and finance, Berger and Matras have selected and offer
advice to 12 potential centres of excellence in journalism training in
Mass Communication Department,
Department of Mass Communication,
Department of Journalism,
Department of Journalism, Tshwane
Ecole Superieure des Sciences et Techniques
de l’Information et de la Communication,
News from round the world
Over 50 journalists have
signed a statement of support for Rajshahi journalist Jahangir Alam Akash, who
reports for the Dainik Sangbad. He was arrested in October under emergency
powers and beaten so badly that, when released on bail in November, he could
not stand. He is accused of extortion, alleged by a local contractor whose
business affairs he had criticised.
THE
Twenty-one freedom of
expression organisations worldwide have written to President Jammeh, calling
for an independent investigation into the murder three years ago of editor
Deyda Hydara and for the release of journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh, seized by
intelligence men in July 2006.
The Media Foundation for
A Tema headteacher,
demoted a week after she gave a media interview about low enrolment at her
school, has been reinstated after protests..
Pittala Srisailam, editor
of online Musi TV in Andhra Pradesh, was arrested in December on his way to
interview a Maoist leader and detained. He is accused of being a courier for
the Maoist rebels. He denies any connection with Maoists and says that police
tortured him. Police had threatened him earlier. Musi TV supports separate
statehood for part of Andhra Pradesh (formerly
The Namibia Broadcasting
Corporation apologised after a radio presenter curbed a political discussion on
a phone-in programme.
The New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists has urged President Yar’Adua to make sure the
police pursue unsolved murders of journalists including Gordon Agbroko,
editorial board chairman at This Day, found shot in 2006, and Omololu Falobi,
director of Journalists Against Aids, shot as he left
his office in 2005.
Zubair Ahmed Mujahid, a columnist in Jang, was shot dead by a motorcyclist at Mirpur Khas, Sindh, on November 23. His reports had led to the arrest of landlords and police for mistreating villagers.
Riaz Mengal, a reporter in Baluchistan, escaped in November from kidnappers who seized him in October in a smuggled vehicle. He had reported on vehicle smuggling.
Javed Lehri, who reports for Azadi, a
Taliban threatened to blow up the Jang group’s press unless it stopped printing photographs of young women.
Five staff members were
killed in November when air force jets bombed the civilian-run radio Voice of
Tigers, shortly before a speech by the Tamil Tigers’ leader.
The news editor of the state-run TV, SLRC, was assaulted in December by a government minister whose speech went unreported.
Two French journalists,
reporting for France 24 TV about a Tamil family, were arrested near
Saed Kubenea, an editor
of the weekly Mwanahalisi, was blinded with acid on January 5 by
machete-wielding assailants. Colleague Ndimara Tegambwage, who was also
attacked, needed 15 stitches in a head wounds. Kubenea said he had received
death threats. His car was torched in June. Other journalists say Mwanahalisi
was prominent in exposing graft and embezzlement. Two suspects have been
arrested.
The Ministry of
Information banned Radio Lyambai in Mongu (
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 (