Journalists in the traditional media dealt with their ethics through a set of established rules and practices. We should not accept gifts or freebies, or allow a conflict of interest in stories we cover. We should be immunised from the influence of advertisers. We should separate commentary and news reporting and convey the views of all parties to a story.

The watchwords were objectivity and fairness, and these values were reflected in codes of conduct and newsroom rituals.

Such rules were developed in the pre-internet age, when there were far fewer media outlets and they tended to carry weight and authority, even though this was sometimes illusory. There was a daily news cycle and much more time to verify the facts, speak to all the parties and “complete” a story before publication or broadcast.

Read more[more]

The continent's future is tied to its media. Free open media promises much for flourishing democracies and economic growth, but authoritarian states will struggle to let go of controls.

2012 is upon us after being the subject of much superstition, with beliefs ranging from this year being a time of transformation to more apocalyptic myths that the world's going to end because of indications contained in the Mesoamerican Long Count, or Mayan calendar.

A mixed bag for media in Africa

These madly divergent high and low road 'scenarios' are about as mixed as the media's fortunes in Africa. 2012 offers massive opportunity for the continent's media, but there's also great peril.[more]

Journalism isn't a profession you get into if you want an easy ride. This has certainly proven true for journalists covering Africa in 2011, many of whom paid with their lives. Challenges in 2012 include covering ongoing conflict zones, election periods, and continuing the fight for access to information.

As another new year rolls around, it's back to the grindstone – for the employed among us anyway. But for some people returning to work the stakes are higher than others. There are the obvious jobs that involve occupational hazards: soldier, policeman, spy, to name just a few. You can add “journalist” to that list. Journalists in Africa (and throughout the world) increasingly risk censure, intimidation, jail time, and even being killed – simply for doing their jobs.

2011 was a turbulent year for Africa's journalists – and not all of them escaped with their lives. According to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 12 journalists in Africa were killed last year: five in Libya, including Anton Hammerl; two in Egypt; two in Somalia; and one in each of Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, and Tunisia. In addition, three media workers were killed: in Somalia, Libya, and Côte d'Ivoire. And the true figure could well be higher. CPJ only includes in its tally journalists who have been killed in cross fire, while covering dangerous stories, or deliberately taken out as a result of their work, and the organisation is currently investigating the deaths of three more journalists – Charles Ingabire in Uganda; and two others in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

Read more[more]

A year after the start of democratic uprisings in the Arab world, Reporters Without Borders takes stock of censorship and violations of free speech during the “Arab Spring”. Journalists, especially photographers, have paid a heavy price.
Eleven media workers have been killed in the performance of their duty, among them several internationally known photojournalists. However, most of the victims were local journalists.
Reporters Without Borders takes a look at the methods used by the authorities to strangle the flow of information during the popular uprisings in six countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen) up to mid-November 2011.
It all began in Tunisia on 17 December last year when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the offices of the Sidi Bouzid governorate. His death set off a wave of demonstrations calling for democratic change which forced President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali out of office on 14 January and quickly spread to other countries in the region.

Read more[more]

African Journalists' Leaders Back Global Unions' Stand over Workers' Rights at UN Climate Change Summit

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its African group, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) joined the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to demand recognition of workers' rights at the United Nations Climate Change Summit 2011, COP 17 / CMP 7 ...

The FAJ in cooperation with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) will hold in Durban a major conference of journalists' unions leaders under the theme of "African Journalists & their Role in Tackling the Perils of Climate Change" during the Summit.

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Bush Radio 89.5fm providing coverage on COP17

Get your info – breaking news: bushradionews.blogspot.com

Bush Radio 89.5 FM will be providing coverage of COP17 to various radio stations and other media organisations in South Africa and around the world for the duration of the conference (28 November – 9 December 2011) in Durban.

You will be able to access updates, audio, video and pictures via the Bushradionews platform or by following us on Twitter and searching here #COP17.

This project is a continuation of a partnership between the station and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, which involved a in-depth training course for radio stations throughout South Africa, community dialogues and the creation of a COP17 focused newsteam lead by Bush Radio and drawn from other stations in South Africa.

Related posts:  Getting journalists ready for #COP17    Tackling climate change in Khayelitsha #COP17

Read more [more]

This year's "Golden Padlock" award for the Southern African country with the most secretive public institutions went to Botswana.

This was after no requests for information from public institutions succeeded in the period from June to August this year, said the Media Institute of Southern Africa, which conducted the survey.

Karen Mohan, a media law policy specialist from the institution’s Namibian chapter, said President Ian Khama's office issued a statement forbidding the staff of all public institutions to attend the awards ceremony.

Mohan gave a presentation on freedom of information in Southern Africa at a "No More Walls" conference in Windhoek last week that was attended by delegates from the European Union, the World Bank and the Namibian government, among others.

She said South Africa had lost its status as a beacon of access to information because of "worrying and disturbing" secrecy legislation in the pipeline.

"The rest of Africa should not be looking up to South Africa anymore as an example of good freedom of information laws. Liberia and Nigeria have more freedom of information."[more]

The Libyan fighters who dragged Muammar Gaddafi from that stormwater drain in Sirte, manhandled and finally killed him, made good use of an additional weapon they carried in their pockets: their cellphones.

It enabled them to capture his humiliation and death and share it with the world. Within hours, grainy, juddering but unmistakable images of the bloody end of Libya's former ruler flashed around the world, a devastating shot in the propaganda war against the last remnants of the regime they were fighting. At one level, it was a high-tech version of the very medieval practice of publicly humiliating offenders and defeated enemies, when thieves were put in the stocks to be jeered at, or the heads of the vanquished were displayed on stakes. But it was also about simple evidence: the images proved Gaddafi really was dead.[more]

This is the 200th edition of this column, written to appear on October 19 -- South Africa's National Press Freedom Day.

It's also the swansong of Converse. In fact, swans probably don't actually sing as they sign off. Most likely they issue a final honk to salute a life well-lived.

South Africa's swan equivalent is probably a hadeda -- nosing around the country's media in search of a juicy grub or two. And I've had much to feast upon over the duration of the column.

So why is this particular beak going quiet after seven years? In fact the fortnightly Converse contributions, which began back in July 2003, ought to have ceased at the end of 2009 when the Mail & Guardian gave notice they could no longer pay for them.

I delayed Converse's death by recruiting a funder -- the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung -- who saw value in supporting the column for a year.[more]

A decade ago Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki shut down his country's independent press, and arrested 21 journalists and politicians. He's detained many more of his citizens without trial since then. With no free media left to report on their fate, news of the prisoners has been hard to come by, but the ten-year anniversary of their disappearance has brought renewed calls by international NGOs for their release. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki may have been in power for a mere 18 years, but he could teach some of the longer-standing leaders around the continent a thing or two about running a dictatorship. Today, Eritrea is the only country in Africa not to have any free media: all the outlets belong to the government. And that's no exaggeration, as the Committee to Protect Journalists elaborates: “No independent press is now functioning in Eritrea. There are three newspapers, three radio stations, and two television stations in the country. All of them are owned, operated, and controlled by the government, functioning under the tight umbrella of the Ministry of Information”.[more]

Transparency and open information access in Africa are one step closer, following the adoption of a milestone declaration at the Africa Information and Media Summit (AIMS) in Cape Town on 19 September.

Set out in the AIMS declaration is a call for African governments to adopt a set of principles in promoting information access, including the need for them to pass and implement freedom of information laws. Less than a fifth of African countries currently have such legislation.

What makes the AIMS statement unique is its signing by the wide range of groups attending the summit – covering African media, governments, civil society and the African Union Commission. [more]

This is what is happening 17-19 September in Cape Town:

- Pan African Conference on Access to Information (220 information stakeholders including media NGOs, MPs, ministers and civil servants);

- Highway Africa 15thconference (more than 500 journalists from across Africa);

- Digital Citizens Indaba (100 bloggers from across Africa);

- Editors Forum meetings – SANEF, and The African Editors Forum;

- Three workshops for African journalism educators.

- The African Forum for Media Development.

The events coincide with Saturday’s proposed march on parliament by the R2K campaign which seeks to have a “public interest” clause introduced into the “Secrecy Bill”. The lead events are:

- The Pan African Conference on Access to Information, which is the product of nine media organisations from across the continent (www.windhoekplus20.org; www.pacaia.org), and which has 15 influential partners, including UNESCO and the African Union Commission.

- Highway Africa, the world’s largest annual meeting of African journalists, marking its 15th anniversary and themed on preparing for the Durban COP event (www.highwayafrica.com).[more]

The latest version of the draft declaration for an African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) is now available online for public commentary. The Declaration will be presented to over 250 delegates at the Pan African Conference on Access to Information (PACAI), which will be held in Cape Town from September 17th and 19th.

The African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) Declaration is part of a regional initiative to promote and set minimum standards for Access to Information on the African continent.

The APAI working group is proud to announce that after five weeks of public commentary, input, and revisions, the fourth version of the declaration has been finalized, reflecting the views and opinions of groups, individuals, and organizations from across the continent. Thus the declaration is a truly reflective document that represents the concerns of diverse sectors of society, particularly marginalized groups, who are disproportionally affected where access is denied.

[more]

Ethiopia's tightly-controlled media is not particularly known for sticking its neck out on controversial issues, but a new law recently passed by an overwhelmingly government-controlled parliament has had top executives wringing their hands over its potential ramifications. The law expressly bans any form of communication with groups designated as terrorist organisations, including reporting even a press release or interviewing their members.

According to the spirit of the law, any such act will be considered as disseminating terror-related information and the publisher of any such article can be jailed. Addis Ababa journalists and newspaper owners remain confused as to how to treat the new law which was endorsed in 2009 but has only become effective now. Dawit Kebede, a CPJ award winner and editor-in-chief of one of the country's remaining political newspapers, Awramba Times, says the law provides a pretext for the government to intimidate and even arrest journalists who fall afoul of its wording. Kebede said the regulations were a government campaign to oppress all forms of dissident activity.

[more]

Beyond the gaze of the international media, popular unrest has swept across many countries in sub-Saharan Africa this year. While protests and unrest have taken place across the continent for different reasons, many of the grievances have revolved around issues around democratic rights, including freedom of association and expression as well as frustrations around poor service delivery and continued social and economic conditions.

The biggest stand-off took place in Ivory Coast, where incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down from power for months after Allasane Ouatarra won a run-off election. Gbagbo was finally arrested on April 11 after a lengthy standoff with Outarra's supporters, aided by French and United Nations troops. Several other countries have had their share of turmoil as well. In Benin, supporters of an opposition presidential candidate claim he was cheated out of a victory; in Gabon, thousands of protesters staged rallies against what they believe was a massive electoral fraud. In Swaziland, people are protesting to press for change.[more]

The African Platform on Access to Information Working Group is proud to announce that the second draft of its declaration is now available for public viewing online, at www.windhoekplus20.org. The Declaration will be presented to over 150 delegates at the Pan African Conference on Access to Information, which will be held in Cape Town from September 17th – 19th.

The development of the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) Declaration is part of an intercontinental initiative to promote Access to Information on the continent 20 years after the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press. The APAIA declaration is intended to elaborate on the right of access to information on the continent, and to set out minimum standards for access to information at a national level.

[more]

Six months after they launched a revolution that ousted the regime, Egyptian bloggers have acknowledged that it takes more than a Facebook page on the Internet to overthrow a dictator."The Internet played a key role but it was not the only tool. The revolution really belongs to the people," said Wael Abbas, a veteran Egyptian blogger who has been posting his thoughts in cyberspace since 2004. The 18-day revolution that brought an end to the 30-year rule of president Hosni Mubarak and his regime was largely played on the street, but bloggers do not underestimate the importance of Facebook and Twitter. "The Internet helped to speed up things," said Hossam al-Hamalawy, who is known in cyberspace by the nickname "3arabawy" or the Arab. "But the revolution would have taken place without it," he said.[more]

The appointment of a new prime minister in Somalia amid protests and a media crackdown will do nothing to resolve the country’s problems of corruption and cronyism, political analysts say. But they hope the new appointee may be able to do something about media freedom in the country.Widespread violent protests broke out on the streets of Mogadishu and in the south and centre of the country in June in support of the country’s previous prime minister. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed had enjoyed popular support as prime minister for his attempts to deal with the Somali Islamist insurgency, runaway corruption and insecurity in Mogadishu, which is one of the few places the weak Somali government controls. But following the protests a number of journalists were arrested. And the spate of crackdowns on the media has made being a journalist in the country more risky.

Political analyst Mohamed Suley said that the appointment of Abdiweli Mohamed Ali as prime minister would neither bring about any change in the way local politicians work, nor solve the core problem of rampant corruption and cronyism in Somali politics.[more]

South Africa’s young democracy may have been a shining example to the rest of the world for a while, but dreams of real freedom of expression and of the media seem to be nearing the end of their usefulness to SA's ruling party.Mpumalanga has become a dangerous province for investigative journalism. There’s a shadowy force that threatens, arrests, assaults and otherwise intimidates reporters who ask inconvenient questions and publish uncomfortable truths. As Jacob Zuma’s fight to retain another term in office intensifies, the malevolence is spreading.

For the past two years Sizwe sama Yende has been uncovering graft in Mpumalanga, yet another of South Africa’s provinces that’ve become infamous for attacks on the media and downright dangerous for journalists. In this time Sama Yende has been attacked by an armed assailant, has had his car’s brakes tampered with, been offered a bribe and his employers have had to hire bodyguards to protect him. “There have been quite a few incidents. The first one was when I was accosted by someone as I entered my house one Friday night. That person had a gun,” says Sama Yenda, the City Press investigative journalist whose work exposed how wide spread corruption had become in Mpumalanga under ANC Premier David Mabuza.[more]

In May, Freedom House, a Washington-based non-profit organisation, released its report on global media freedom, in which South Africa's place in the rankings dropped from "free" to "partly free", mostly, it noted, due to the growing hostile rhetoric from top government officials, as well as official encroachment on the editorial independence of the SABC.

None of that comes as a surprise to local journalists, who are feeling the heat in every way -- from government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi's comments about plans for government's print advertising budget to the reappearance of media tribunal talk and the pressure to squeeze the Protection of Information Bill through Parliament.

The study, which surveyed 196 countries and territories, found that in this age of digital information overload the number of people worldwide with access to free and independent media had declined to its lowest level in more than a decade. The Mail & Guardian's state-of-the-media round-up for the SADC found things weren't so pretty. Well, that is if you like your reporting served up free.

Angola
Legislation supports freedom of expression and information in Angola. But, after emerging in 2002 from 30 years of civil war, the press was not ready for the transition to capitalist competition. That's according to a 2009 report by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) on the health of the country's media.

The country has a 58% illiteracy rate, which seems to keep newspapers from expanding outside of Luanda. The Journal de Angola, the daily state-owned newspaper, is the only publication available throughout the country. The Angola Press Agency is also government owned. This undermines any opposition voice, especially in rural areas, where government support is traditionally at its strongest.

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If Uganda was a human being, he or she would be a certified schizophrenic by now. In case you are wondering what the hell I mean, let’s first unpack this thing called schizophrenia. In ordinary language, it is a mental illness attributed to a breakdown in the relation between thoughts, feelings and actions.In its advanced stages it is said to induce delusions. It is also one of those afflictions that make even the most committed friends of the sufferer want to stay away. Who knows, one minute everything may be going well and then, the next, something happens! Readers of this newspaper would have noticed from the flood of articles about the country last week that the mayhem of the recent past which added another layer of dirt on the NRM regime, is making some East Africans wonder what is going on “in Uganda’s head,” and whether they want this neighbour in their midst.

Talking about thoughts, feelings and actions, Uganda is a country whose leadership, unsurprisingly, likes to put its best foot forward at all times. So they endeavour to do and say the sorts of things that they hope will make them look and sound reasonable and civilised.

Elections are staged on a regular basis so the country appears to be democratic. Those who equate democracy with elections are left feeling happy and comfortable.

And how do they deal with troublesome opponents with “criminally minded supporters” who interfere with other people’s freedom by engaging in mass action?[more]

While Kenya has made significant steps in terms of enabling the public to access information from government institutions, most African governments are still steeped in official secrecy, especially in southern Africa.The latest report by the the Namibia-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), reveal that most African governments have a culture of secrecy and have no regard for the release of the information for public use. For as long as the secrecy and anti-access to information laws remain in the statute books, African governments knack for secrecy remains unchallenged. The biggest culprit is the Official Secrets Act, the colonial relic that is found in the statutes of most African countries. One common denominator is that most African governments are keen to block the public from accessing official information under the guise of the threat the national security.

In Swaziland for instance, the idea that one needed an appointment to seek and get information is considered bizarre and disturbing. Another unusual example is the parliament of Mozambique, considered the most secretive in the country where citizens never get to know which laws have been passed. These are going on contrary to Article 19 of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights states that “Every person has the right to information and that public bodies hold information not for themselves but as custodians of the public good and everyone has the right to access it”. Mareike Le Pelley, who works with Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Namibia, argued that access to information is often lumped together with the freedom of information and that of the media. But access to information goes further to include public records, minutes about public office, budget, right to information about public bodies and what information they have about the citizens.

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As the media world changes with almost frightening rapidity with the onset of the digital revolution and new technologies, the survival of print will be more contingent than ever before on journalistic excellence and connectivity with the people.

I've been at several conferences where new media practitioners - note I do not call them journalists - have all but buried newspapers as something from a bygone era. As someone with over three decades in print, I've been called a dinosaur because I remain a 'believer', but I have nevertheless tried to listen intelligently as smart young men in suits talk about algorithms, stealth models, fast flips, going viral, and wondering where that leaves us.

And I've looked around at the audience - and seen the often-puzzled faces of idealistic journalists who believe in their craft; in the need to keep their readers, listeners and viewers informed; and who, especially under draconian regimes, have often paid heavy prices for doing so - and seen that they are wondering, too![more]

This week 20 years ago, journalists, lawyers and activists gathered in the Namibian capital of Windhoek to deliberate on the state of Africa's media. Little did they know then that this would set the ball rolling for a movement that would catapult the quest for the free flow of information to being one of humanity's top priorities. Namibia, which had become an independent republic in 1990, could still smell the fresh scent of freedom in the air. If ever there was a place to launch an idealistic initiative, that was it. It helped, too, that the winds of democratisation were blowing through the world. The dictatorships of Eastern Europe were collapsing, agitation for true liberation was gaining momentum in an Africa that had been betrayed by its post-independence political leadership and, in South America, the juntas were in retreat.

Inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Windhoek document stated that the "establishment, maintenance and fostering of an independent press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation and for economic development". The declaration went on to say that "the trend towards democracy and freedom of information and expression is a fundamental contribution to the fulfilment of human aspirations". [more]

Swaziland is bracing for mass protests Tuesday against King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, but so far sub-Saharan countries have failed to replicate uprisings in the Arab world.

In countries stretching from Djibouti to Zimbabwe, activists and opposition groups have tried to harness the spirit and tactics of the Arab uprisings to launch their own demands for reforms. They have publicised their calls for protests with cell phones and social media like Facebook, but so far few have managed to take off due to pressure from leaders willing to arrest dissidents and deploy heavy security. In sub-Saharan Africa's deadliest protest so far, two people were killed in Djibouti on February 18 when security forces quelled unprecedented protests against President Ismael Omar Guelleh.[more]

Will the protests across Africa result in real social and political reform, or just a changing of the guard, asks Sokari Ekine. In addition to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya – all of which remain in various revolutionary stages – protestors have taken to the streets in Zimbabwe, Senegal, Gabon, Sudan, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Djibouti, Cote d’Ivoire and most recently in Burkina Faso and Swaziland. Some protests have been single ‘days of rage’, others have lasted a few days or weeks. There are many similarities between the uprisings but also differences, often related the level of organising prior to the uprisings, for example the strength of trades union and student movements, political activism and so on; levels of repression and overall frustration of youth in particular with high unemployment and lack of freedom; the belief that civil disobedience can work; and the willingness to persevere not for days but for weeks on end.

Social movement scholar George Katsiaficas describes the mass movement of citizens uprising against their governments as ‘the eros affect’ – people coming together out of solidarity and revolutionary love for one another with a shared self-understanding. This contrasts with the enemy – authoritarian regimes which act out of hate, fear and repression of the masses.Katsiaficas points out that uprisings like the ones taking place in Africa at the moment often take place regionally, such as in Asia in the 1980s and 1990s – in Bangladesh, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Nepal, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand – and in Eastern Europe. It is also worthwhile considering the outcomes of these previous waves. How different are these countries today? In most cases there has been little real change in the power structures – different faces, same people.[more]

"The hottest place in hell shall be reserved for those who claim to be neutral in the face of injustice"

The Swazi media has, for the most part, been silent about – and at times even tacitly supported – King Mswati III's human rights abuses. And the foreign media hasn't been much help either. It's about time journalists speak up for freedom of expression, not to mention democracy.

A South African journalist friend once remarked that Swaziland was frozen in history. He wondered why Swazis couldn’t see what the French and the rest of the world saw centuries ago. After acquainting himself with the challenges facing Swaziland, the journalist could not understand how the world media and human rights organisations do not expose the atrocities that happen daily in this kingdom.

In jest, I told him that the world sees Swaziland as a cultural museum, only worth visits by tourists who want to witness firsthand what primitive Africa was and still is. I pointed out that stories about King Mswati III and his private life make it into the South African media, while stories about the political atrocities he commits every day are neglected. As a recent example, the story of a minister’s infidelity with the king’s wife made headlines in South African newspapers. [more]

The revolutionary uprisings in the Arab world have implications far beyond the region. Certain autocratic governments in sub-Saharan Africa clearly have gotten a message, although perhaps not necessarily the right one from these events.

Presumably the “right” message would be that it is time to take seriously the interests and concerns of citizens who have not been allowed to express them because of authoritarian suppression, and to do so before citizens conclude that regime change is the only acceptable option.

A “wrong” message, which at least a few sub-Saharan governments have “received” from the Middle East upheavals is that they need to redouble their efforts to suppress opposition and dissent before it takes the form of regime threatening protests. In all of the media coverage of these events in the Middle East and North Africa, very little attention has been paid to the meaning of these events for a fundamental transformation of the international order that has occurred simultaneously with the spread of democracy’s Third Wave in sub-Saharan Africa over the last two decades. [more]

A conference at Wits on media rights and regulations in Africa was a place of passionate debate that recognised depth of the problems we're facing. There was also a clear understanding that the fight for truth, and freedom of expressing it, will be fought across the continent for many years to come. “Regulations and rights: A Conference on the Roles and Responsibilities of African Media” took place at Wits University in Johannesburg on 9 and 10 March. The central message that emerged was that media throughout Africa are facing similar problems - most notably increasing repression by intolerant regimes. But, on a more optimistic note, the conference also heard there are plenty of people willing to fight this. It's going to be a protracted battle, though.

Given the increasing encroachment on media freedoms across the continent, the two-day conference couldn't have come at a more apposite time. More than 70 delegates from 20 African countries, gathered to discuss issues relating to access to information, self-regulation and accountability mechanisms, among others. As well as journalists, participants included media activists and academics, NGO representatives and legal practitioners. [more]

After all their well orchestrated gang-ups, delays and manipulations against the Freedom Of Information Bill, the House of Representatives have succeeded in passing a distorted version of the Bill penultimate week much against the wishes and aspirations of Nigerians. What are the contentious issues in the passed Bill? The take of the lawmakers that Nigerians should neither investigate nor discuss the Defence and Economy of their country is utterly ridiculous. It has rendered the Bill deliberately tepid and ineffectual. Sadly we have been vindicated in our foreboding on the sudden headlong burst of activity to pass the FOI bill. [more]

Freedom of Expression vs Hate Speech?

OURS is a vuvuzela democracy: noisy in a joyous and sometimes painful way, repeatedly testing our tolerance for unpleasant — even harmful — cacophony. This week, Kuli Roberts’s Sunday World column caused a storm because it played on crude and offensive racial stereotypes in a failed attempt to be humorous about coloureds. And our courts have been hearing attempts to silence African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema by declaring the Shoot the Boer song to be hate speech. These provide opportunities to consider the best way to deal with hurtful speech in a country with a painful history of racial conflict. The key question about Roberts’s column was one I asked about the David Bullard column in the Sunday Times, which led to his dismissal under similar circumstances: how did this stuff get into print? It should have been read by two or three people before publication: a subeditor, a proofreader and, hopefully, an editor. Editors don’t always have the time, but part of the job of the other two readers would be to alert him or her to a potential problem. In the Bullard case, it turned out that the material was approved by a duty editor, who was never properly called to account.[more]

"Why do we think that the conditions here are any different? What justification is there for believing that we are immune?" These rhetorical questions came from the mouth of a Moroccan political scientist at a drinks party during the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers' annual conference in Rabat earlier this month. The function was hosted in an opulent house and there were plenty of posh people around. He seemed to be addressing his question to them rather than me, yet he lowered his voice as he spoke, conspiratorially. This conversation took place in the sliver of time sandwiched, as it turned out, between Tunisia and Egypt. Since then, the revolutions have been coming thick and fast. Too fast for CNN and the BBC, even for Al Jazeera. The one thing that has become entirely clear is that these apparently great media empires can do only one ­revolution at a time.

They would have coped okay in 1989-90, when the so-called "velvet" revolutions of Eastern Europe conveniently spaced themselves a few weeks apart. One had time to digest the fall of the Berlin Wall before moving on to Prague, although it is also true that the gruesome if welcome end of Ceau-sescu in Romania on Christmas Day 1989 was surprisingly abrupt.[more]

International media is following protests across the 'Arab world' but ignoring those in Africa. Demonstrations are continuing across the Middle East, interrupted only by the call for prayer when protesters fall to their knees on cheap carpets and straw mats and the riot police take a tea break. Egypt, in particular, with its scenes of unrelenting protesters staying put in Tahrir Square, playing guitars, singing, treating the injured and generally making Gandhi’s famous salt march of the 1940s look like an act of terror, captured the imagination of an international media and audience more familiar with the stereotype of Muslim youth blowing themselves and others up.

A non-violent revolution was turning the nation full circle, much to the admiration of the rest of the world. "I think Egypt's cultural significance and massive population were very important factors in ensuring media coverage," says Ethan Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices, an international community of online activists."International audiences know at least a few facts about Egypt, which makes it easier for them to connect to news there," he says, drawing a comparison with Bahrain, a country Zuckerman says few Americans would be able to locate on a map.Zuckerman also believes that media organisations were in part motivated by a "sense of guilt" over their failure to effectively cover the Tunisian revolution and were, therefore, playing "catch up" in Egypt. "Popular revolutions make for great TV," he adds. "The imagery from Tahrir square in particular was very powerful and led to a story that was easy for global media to cover closely."[more]

Former media programme manager for Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa) based in Johannesburg,Sam Phiri, has been appointed permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Dr Phiri is a well-known media trainer in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, who for many years served with the now defunct Nordic-SADC Journalism Centre then housed in Maputo, Mozambique. His appointment has been hailed by media practitioners and other stakeholders in the country, including the Zambian chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) which has been trying to mediate the wrangle with government, which seems bent on statutory regulation of the media. Given his background, Dr Phiri, who launched his journalism career as a cub sports reporter at the Times of Zambia before graduating from the newly established School of Journalism at the University of Zambia in the 80s, is expected to help resolve the haggling between media practitioners and the government.

After 20 years of multiparty democracy, Zambia's road to media reforms still remains rocky and full of craters. It must be acknowledged that some aspects of reforms such as in media diversity have been achieved, but hopes of setting up a self-regulatory mechanism keep sagging.[more]

The answer is they are all current legal cases that go the heart of free speech in South Africa. * The ANC is appealing the ban on singing the “Dubula Amabhunu” (Shoot the Boers) song on the basis that it is not literally an incitement to violence. Winning their case would legalise controversial political speech over the offence taken by one body of citizens. * In contrast to this ANC stance, President Jacob Zuma has now launched a R5m case against Avusa media for the Zapiro rape of justice cartoon. Zuma is reported as saying the cartoon defamed him and left him feeling humiliated. Winning that case would limit free political speech. * The Constitutional Court is currently assessing the appeal by three teenagers who were earlier found guilty of offences for a photo-manipulated picture. This particular case could greatly limit what is permissible to say about authority figures. The judgement on the photo case is especially relevant for future jurisprudence about what speech actually impairs a person’s dignity. The issue goes back to 2006 when the Pretoria High Court convicted the three boys of harming the reputation and dignity of their deputy headmaster Louis Dey through having produced and circulated a crude photo-montage. As background to this case, a joke had been doing the rounds at the school based on the fact that “Dey” rhymes with “gay”. The adolescent jest is reminiscent of the old music album "The Pope Smokes Dope" (produced, incidentally, by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). The rhyme about Dey is the context in which 15-year-old Hennie le Roux took inspiration from a mash-up he had seen on the Southpark comedy series, where a character digitally transposes faces onto bodybuilders bodies.

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There’s renewed focus on newspaper ownership by the ANC, even as the ruling party is becoming less hardline about the Media Appeals Tribunal and the Secrecy Bill. Ownership was a prickly issue in parliament last week, when the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) presented its annual report for the 2009/10 year . The new chair of the Portfolio Committee on Communications, Eric Kholwane, didn’t mince his words. Newspaper ownership, he said, was still dominated by the pre-1994 “Big Four” companies – a description of Avusa, Independent Newspapers, Media24 and Caxton. Kholwane accused them of throwing the MDDA a few “dry bones” to chew on, while retaining the juicy, meaty bits for themselves. The four groups have renewed their contributions to the MDDA for another five years, but the amount remains static at a total of R4.8m per annum, with a drop to R4m during the last two years. The MDDA report attributes this “to the financial challenges engulfing the print media industry at present”. However, Kholwane’s concern was MDDA research that showed little advance in BEE stakes in the major press groups. He criticised the absence of a transformation charter in the industry. [more]

Imagine a forum on agriculture without the farmers present. The same logic applies to a bunch of people discussing a new law for SABC and community broadcasting without the central players giving their views. That’s what happened this week when the Department of Communications (DoC) convened hearings in Midrand into its draft Public Service Broadcasting Bill. The event picked up from written responses to the Bill which had been submitted in January. SABC itself conspicuously refrained from responding to the draft law at that original opportunity, and it was also absent from the list of those elaborating on their views this week. Apparently, the DoC will now meet the national broadcaster separately. The voice of the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF) has also been missing in all this, despite the fact that the draft law deals extensively with community media.

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If journalism was a human being, would that person be male or female? What’s the individual’s contribution to society? What shape is she or he in? Overweight or malnourished? Blood pressure up? Diabetes? Fitness status? It depends on which family member you’re talking about. In the “beat” specialisations in journalism, there are diverse siblings like economics journalism, political journalism, sports journalism, etc. But if we’re talking about health journalism, we’re frequently focusing on a creature in need of serious nourishment and serious exercise. Here’s a diagnosis of the generally low volume and weak quality of health journalism in our part of the world

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National Press Freedom Day on October 19 is a fitting anniversary to take stock of threats to South African journalism – and especially of the responses and what they might portend. According to a report released on the weekend, up till 2010, South Africans took press freedom for granted and became passive around the issue. Further, says the report, many South Africans have not seen themselves properly reflected in the media, and so have had little interest in supporting media freedom. There are also those who prioritise issues like housing or health and don’t yet see the importance of free expression as a precondition for progress on these issues.[more]

Many people don’t want to talk about it. Newspapers have been hammered for featuring an artist’s musings on it. But, unpleasant as it is, preparations have to be made for the unwanted, but inevitable, death of Nelson Mandela. Government has had the foremost responsibility to plan the immense logistics around an event that will cause the world to pause. For its part, the media needs to both prepare us for this eventuality as well as also ready itself to cover the story. Because no one can predict when the blow will fall, representatives of government and media have long been liaising on these issues and have elaborated a number of templates. Themes and messages have had to be thrashed out, venues have had to be decided, accommodation pre-planned and secured, routes demarcated, appropriate public mourning opportunities prepared for, foreign guests anticipated, etc. It would build public confidence if some of this was communicated. Meantime, however, we can begin to anticipate the bigger picture.[more]

Faced with mega-messes in education and joblessness (don’t mention Aids), the ANC conference this week thought it could make easy headway in regard to muzzling the press. It's not taxing to agree on the statutory Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT). Not like wrestling with the ongoing problems at the country’s state-owned, and biggest, media house – the SABC. But delegates forgot Amilcar Cabral’s slogan to avoid lies and claims of easy victories. The notion that a conference decision on the MAT will sort out the ANC's press problem is a delusion for many reasons.

* The politicians have under-estimated the price of making a scapegoat of the press. The many unpersuaded, but influential, constituencies wanting to protect press freedom against the MAT have had their genuine concerns disregarded. The ANC has lost their trust.

* There’s also damage to South Africa’s international reputation by having pushed ahead with the MAT. Evidently, the conference forgot that that when you mess with the domestic press, the institution’s international counterparts mobilise in defence. It’s the ruling party that will feel the fall-out.

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It’s a re-run: rather than only reporting on South Africa, SABC is itself once again a news story. And for all the wrong reasons. The broadcaster has re-entered the limelight in recent weeks with tales of shenanigans, accusations and counter-accusations, divisions and denials. That’s not to mention suspensions and protests, budgets and spending issues, corporate governance problems and resignations. Plus there’s a couple of assorted legal actions and an attempt to cover up the dirt in a behind-closed-doors meeting in parliament. South Africans should laud the broadcaster’s long-suffering staffers who continue to generate a flow of programming. But the long list of surface problems has a lesson: you can keep changing the people at the top, but if the difficulties don’t go away then the reason has to be deeper. It’s because they are systemic. What’s endemically broken at SABC can be assessed in terms of cultural, political and economic factors.

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The cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household, but his voice is the property of the neighbourhood. This proverb, cited by the author Chinua Achebe, applies perfectly to the press. For South Africa right now, it resonates with the way that our elected “neighbourhood” officials feel themselves to be justified in trying to regulate the rooster. Private property (the newspapers) and unfettered free speech have a public character, fooling the ruling party into feeling that it is entitled to intrude into those spaces. Worse, with the Protection of Information and the Media Appeals Tribunal, the ANC seems to want to shut the bird up entirely. The party evidently regards raucous crowing as an unwelcome noise that disturbs the public and distracts from their projects. Yet its control-oriented steps have unleashed an even greater cacophony. So where to from here for the ruling party?[more]

Let us not pretend that state control of the media is something new to the region, or that South Africa has a history of defending press freedom and shouting down the villains, writes GEOFF HILL. If a government nationalised the press or introduced the death penalty for writers who criticised the ruling party, there’d be an outcry. Correct? Well not always. At least not in South Africa. Let me explain. In 1975, the MPLA government in Angola, which had wrested independence from Portugal a year earlier, took control of the press and made it a capital offence for journalists to “commit crimes against the revolution”, or endanger the good name of the state. The African National Congress (ANC) in exile was dependent on the charity of regional leaders, so would have found it hard to comment, though given their current stance on Zimbabwe, and solidarity with oppressive regimes like Cuba or Libya, it is doubtful they would have said much anyway.[more]

Pinch me, somebody! Are the unprecedented protests by newspaper editors unnecessary hysteria? Is the press watchdog crying wolf? How could relationships crash so quickly from the “Team South Africa” ethos of the World Cup? Earlier this year, City Press newspaper discerned – in regard to the threats by Julius Malema and his bullyboys – that journalism in this country is not for sissies. But when the same paper stood its ground and exposed Malema as a liar, and when the ANC itself reprimanded the proto-fascist for BBC-bashing, the bad stuff seemed to have been a temporary cloud darkening the sky. Instead, things really seem to have become much worse for press freedom. Daylight has been replaced by twilight.[more]

If the ANC should have learnt anything from the dampening of debate during the Thabo Mbeki era, it is this: South Africa needs a free media. Everyone, each ANC tendency included, needs a space where news that is officially out-of-favour is free to try its luck within the arena of public opinion. Yet with some ANC people resurrecting the idea of a statutory Media Tribunal to control the press, it seems this lesson is not yet internalised. So, let’s put it baldly: whichever political tendency rules will use a Tribunal to halt bad publicity about it – including anything that benefits rival tendencies within the same party. You’d be naïve to think that politics doesn’t work like that. [more]

Africans with a sense of history will thank South Africa for the honour done to the continent by the successful hosting of the World Cup. This interesting remark was attributed to the columnist Charles Onyango-Obbo in this weekend’s Sunday Times. The newspaper got it right – this is how he assessed the football experience. But the man being quoted was also incorrectly described by the Sunday Times as being editor of Uganda’s Monitor newspaper. That’s wrong. He is a former editor of that paper, but left as long ago as 2002. Now an executive editor for the Nation Media Group, Onyango-Obbo is amongst the leading journalists in Africa and he really ought to be known as such by Sunday Times journalists.[more]

The SA media have hopped on the patriotic bandwagon over the World Cup, writes Franz Kruger in the Mail & Guardian. But there are worrying signs that there may be an outbreak of xenophobia, which may be the flipside of the patriotism and will need the best journalism the country's media can muster: The World Cup has created an extraordinary opportunity for seeing South African patriotism at its best -- but it has also shown an ugly side that may yet cancel out any improvements in our international reputation. Who can forget the flags that sprouted on cars and homes around the country in the weeks leading up to the kick-off? Traffic became a constant national parade. Patriotic fervour hit its peak just before the opening game against Mexico, and that Friday the entire country seemed to grind to a joyous, vuzuzela-fuelled halt. [more]

Not a vuvuzela was to be heard at the Public Viewing Area at Grahamstown’s Miki Yili field during the high-stakes Portugal-Spain game on Wednesday night. The large screen flickered desolately as seven spectators sat silently on the benches. An equal number stayed in their parked cars as if at a Drive-In cinema. There were more police and ambulance personnel present than the viewers. In contrast, the opening game of the Cup attracted crowds of thousands to the same facility. Wednesday night’s weather was pretty mild for Grahamstown, so that wasn’t the reason for the no show. In the city centre, public viewership was slightly higher. Fifteen people watched the game from the High Street pavement – on a TV set in the shopfront window of Grocott’s Mail newspaper. [more]

Four months in jail with hard labour is hardly the kind of punishment you’d expect to be meted out to a mere journalist. It’s a form of repression you may have thought belonged to the distant past. But in delivering exactly this draconian sentence to a media person earlier this month, a Zambian court has seen fit to defy modern enlightened opinion. The victim of such a Neanderthal attitude is the heroic editor Fred M’membe, founder of the Post. The paper is a long-standing independent crusader for democracy in his country. The “crime” that earned him this barbaric retribution was to publish a column by a US-based commentator criticising the Zambian judiciary for a reactionary decision.[more]

The proposed amendment to the Ugandan Press and Journalist Law has caused quite a stir in the international media and provoked condemnation by international advocacy organizations and diplomats. It would amongst other allow the statutory media council to licence newspapers and revoke licences if they determine that “material …is prejudicial to national security, stability and unity”, which is vague enough to be abused by the powers that be. Yet, international “pressure” cannot get anywhere without a national outcry. Missing local voices give governments ammunition to write off valid criticism as foreign imports, which do not resonate voices on the ground. Andrew M. Mwenda , editor and owner of the Ugandan Weekly “ The Independent” takes civil society and journalists severely to task and asks how local journalists and civil society can claim ownership, if they are not willing to invest money, time or efforts in campaigns to defend their freedom of expression. Read his column titled "Who Will Defend Our Freedoms?"[more]

Hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world will be watching the World Cup kick-off on a pirate basis, and there’s not much that FIFA or the broadcasters can do about it. Global copyright authorities are still debating ways to combat broadcast piracy. The issue is whether to extend protection of property in the content itself, to the ownership of the electronic signal that carries the content. The issue is ongoing at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), and driven by vested interests who are specially affected by unauthorised re-streaming of live sports events. This piracy cuts into the business models of the broadcasters who have paid for the rights, and it also cheapens the value of the rights for the key sporting associations. An example of such piracy was in the 2008 Olympic Games, where 453 online infringement cases were reported. In the European football season prior to that, one source recorded 364 unauthorised web-streaming sites (mainly peer-to-peer based).[more]

Sometimes it’s better to hope for forgiveness, rather than to ask for permission. This is what the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) must be thinking after the group asked FIFA to loosen its limits on journalists delivering coverage to cellphones. What they got instead was a tightening of coverage conditions. The story begins in January with Sanef writing to FIFA pointing out newspapers’ unhappiness with the restrictions. No reply was forthcoming, so the organisation tried again in March. What Sanef wanted was FIFA’s permission to publish World Cup coverage via technologies like cellphone applications. These are software programmes residing on phones – like the well-known Mxit service.[more]

The world's media eyes will soon squarely focus on South Africa, with millions from across the globe tuning in via multimillion-dollar broadcasts. Yet, even as the international media and big broadcasters move in, and journalists descend from all over the world, in South Africa, like much of Africa, community radio is still a key source of information and news for many communities, linking local activities and issues with international perspectives. While other news media, especially print, struggle to keep audiences, community radio listenership in South Africa is continuously rising. According to the South African Advertising Research Foundation, community radio is improving its weekly reach, rising from 7.340-million listeners to 7.713-million between February and May this year alone.[more]

Media coverage helped to make ANC Youth Leader boss Julius Malema into a significant celebrity. What the media now needs is its make its own star who can champion the cause of media freedom.The ANCYL’s attacks on journalists have gone beyond mere criticism. They are intimidating and dirty assaults that threaten the very fundamentals of media freedom. No one in the press is bowing to the pressure – yet. But that could happen unless there’s resistance. The question is whether to fight fire with fire, and to hit back at the spoilers of media freedom with equal rhetoric, aggression and sensation. [more]

The Media Institute of Southern Africa, a regional media and freedom of expression advocacy organisation, based in Windhoek and working through national chapters in 11 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries joins the rest of the world in marking the World Press Freedom Day on May 3 2010. MISA commemorates May 3 under the theme “Access to Information: The Right to Know”.The 2010 World Press Freedom Day comes at a time when the enjoyment and respect for media and freedom of expression has taken a serious downturn in Southern Africa. We mark May 3 under the shadow of a deterioration of media freedoms throughout the region notably in Swaziland, Zambia and Botswana.The optimism and renewed hope that came with the Government of Unity in Zimbabwe did not last. All seemed so bright; a promise of a new chapter in the media environment of freedom and media law reform for a country that has known repression for too long. The Government of Unity did not deliver. Not yet.[more]

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government has not carried out critical media reforms as promised under the country's September 2008 Global Political Agreement, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.The 26-page report, "Sleight of Hand: Repression of the Media and the Illusion of Reform in Zimbabwe," says that the Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the former sole ruling party, still holds the balance of power in the coalition government forged with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the former opposition movement, in February 2009. ZANU-PF promotes political propaganda and restricts independent reporting through repressive laws that remain unchanged, and it retains its control of security forces and key resources, Human Rights Watch said. "The Global Political Agreement promised reforms that would guarantee transparency and promote free, fair, and credible elections," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "But these have turned out to be empty promises. The power-sharing government is taking no serious steps toward reform."[more]

When 28 000 flights a day to and from Europe are cancelled because of a far-away island’s volcano dust, the people directly affected turn to social media big time.

As one of the many people stranded by the ash cloud, and unable to get home for five days, I also checked out the Internet buzz. Not much punch by the online media, but Twitter was humming with posts, including humour. Amongst the searchable keywords, known as “hashtags” in reference the # before a chosen term, was “#ashtag”. Following that keyword online, you could summon a chuckle at quips being tweeted and re-tweeted, like these: * “All that smoke from the Iceland volcano is God’s way of trying to elect a new pope”. * “Iceland's volcano is called Eyjafjallajokull. And pronounced your-travel-plan-is-screwed”. One website ( see www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/iceland_volcano_eyjafjallajoku.html) the US-based National Public Radio, helped out on the name of the culprit, explaining that you simply say: "AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul." They further included audio clips online, just to show that It doesn’t always have to sound like a swearword. [more]

Titled “The feet of the chameleon”, Ian Hawkey’s recent book on African football could equally be dubbed the “feat” of the chameleon. That’s because of the way soccer players on the continent have had to change their national colours in building their careers in exile – and usually against great odds. This book reckons that some 2000 Africans have made it to currently work as professional footballers in Europe. As evidence of the colour-change, Hawkey cites the 2002 World Cup where “the Senegalese team-sheet showed every single player had an address in France, all employed by clubs in the French league.” Feeding this pipeline, according to the book, are thousands of small African football “academies” – perhaps 450 in Cote D’Ivoire’s capital alone. Some big foreign-owned talent-spotting clubs and agencies are also in on the trafficking.[more]

East Africa’s powerful media house, The Nation group, celebrated its 50th birthday last week with a major media conference (see www.panafricamedia2010kenya.com )

Adding continental aspects to the event were two influential bodies that partnered with it: The Africa Media Initiative, a body that is gaining momentum in its quest to become a facility for attracting major funding into the continent’s media sector. Highway Africa( see www.highwayafrica.com ), which operates the world’s largest annual gathering of African journalists, and which launched its “Reporting Development News Agency” at the conference (see http:/reportingdna.org). The gathering drew a host of African politicians as speakers, including Kenya’s top leadership, the Rwandan president and the former leaders of Mozambique and Tanzania.

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As individuals, South Africa’s journalists express themselves in media platforms around the clock. But for the past five years, they’ve lacked a collective professional voice.

This may be about to change, with the launch this coming weekend of the Professional Journalists’ Association (see www.projourn.org.za) . The South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) closed down five years ago. The Media Workers Association of South Africa (MWASA) is very much broader than journalists, while also limited to concerns like labour disputes. Special interest groups like the Forum of Black Journalists rise and fall. In the past, the journalists’ unions strutted on the national stage, for example in being parties to setting up the Press Ombudsman office in 1996, and in giving testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997.

The PJA plans to revive this kind of public sphere presence. [more]

Karl Marx famously said the first time history repeats itself is tragic; the second is farce. He wasn’t exactly referring to broadcast licensing in South Africa, but his aphorism may apply.

This issue of who owns broadcasting is important for industry growth, for transformation and for democratic pluralism. But South Africa is in danger of missing the boat of legal reforms that balance these three issues.

Way back in 1993, the Independent Broadcast Authority Act set down limits on who may own radio and TV stations. We still have them today:

- No station can have more than 20% of its shares in foreign hands. - Concentration of radio ownership is limited to no more than four stations, and only two operating in a single broadcast area. - No company can control radio and television licences if it also controls a newspaper with 20 percent or more of its circulation in the broadcast area. [more]

A worldwide movement to promote people’s rights of access to information came to Africa this week. A centre set up by former US president Jimmy Carter (see www.cartercenter.org/accesstoinformation.html) convened a big-guns conference in Ghana to advance the cause across the continent. You might think: “Enough already”. There’s already too much information out there. You’re buckling under the pressures of email, the World Wide Web, Facebook, Twitter, satellite TV bouquets, etc. But “overload” is relative. Lots of people are still outside the information loop. And even in South Africa we still have authoritarian and corrupt officials who rely on information scarcity to resist accountability. Meanwhile, there are probably some facts that you personally would really like to know about...[more]

President Jacob Zuma’s believe in polygamy has become the subject of a heated debate in the South African media. Zuma, who is married to three wives and father of so far 19 marital children and now one extramarital, regularly hits the headlines with his sexual affairs. Journalists, opposition parties and women rights groups accuse the political leader of being a bad role model for the country and argue that his behaviour contradicts his government’s HIV-Campaign, which advocates the use of condoms and faithfulness to one partner . Zuma and his supporters on the other hand see the criticism as “cultural intolerance” and inacceptable interference in private matters.

As reaction to the latest revelations of the president’s fatherhood read Oliver Meth’s thoughts about the impact of the “world’s most famous polygamist” snubbing safe sex on the South African society.

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When a church bans a bishop from speaking to the media, you have to wonder what’s next. Blocking the man from addressing his parishioners?

In the apartheid days, more than 1600 dissidents were banned from speaking in public to more than one person at any given time. And everyone else was prohibited from quoting individuals thus “listed”. (see www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/lives-of-courage/pages/wall/banned/banned_a.html) This time around, it’s not a minority government doing the gagging. It’s the Methodist Church which reportedly suspended Bishop Paul Verryn for allegedly defying its instruction not to talk to the media.

However controversial the Bishop and his Central Methodist Church may be, one would have thought that a free South Africa would have been a beacon of free speech – and not least within the church.[more]

This media column is made possible by cooperation of Mail&Guardian and fesmedia Africa. Read Guy Berger's biweekly analysis at www.fesmedia.org.

This isn’t a movie for rugby nuts. All you need is soft spot for letting a classic narrative lead you through an epic and emotional journey.

Invictus is the screen version, simplified and embellished accordingly, of how Nelson Mandela cannily co-opted a symbol of apartheid. It’s a reminder about how he successfully converted Springbok rugby into a personal and national triumph.

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Yoweri Museveni used to be the darling of the West. After 23 years in power the Ugandan president still cuts a good figure at international summits. Only recently the US-Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice praised the Ugandan military’s peacekeeping deployment in Somalia. Western complaints about Museveni’s arbitrary rule and corruption inside his regime is only whispered behind closed doors.

Yet after having changed the 1995 constitution and lifting the Presidential term limits there is mounting criticism from Ugandan journalists and human rights activists of Museweni’s attempts at clinging to power which is challenged from within his ruling coalition.

Read Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi’s article for the International Press Service (IPS) on how President Museweni’s questionable preparation for the election in 2011 is “colliding with the Fourth Estate”.

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"Reporters Without Borders" launched its annual Press Freedom Index, which measures the state of media freedom in 169 countries worldwide. By using a methodology that focuses mainly on press freedom violations, the more structural limits of media freedom are not taken into account. Yet, despite defining and describing freedom of expression and freedom of media rather superficially, these results and rankings of the Press Freedom Index are often cited by international organisations and human rights groups. For a comprehensive assessment of the media landscape in 26 African countries read more about our own African Media Barometer and the country reports. Below you find the overview about the ranking of some African Countries from the Press Freedom Index of "Reporters Without Borders" . To be seen in context and read with caution.[more]

Ruanda was ranked 183 out of 195 countries in press freedom in 2008. Human Rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticise the Ruandan Government for imposing harsh and arbitrary justice. Despite this the government of Paul Kagame has been a donor’s darling for years. Guilt tripped over its shameful role in the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 western governments have largely refrained from challenging the actions of the Tutsi government in Kigali. A spade of new books take a fresh look at the more complex picture of the genocide and the Ruanda’s role in neighbouring Congo. Read “Kagame’s Hidden War in Congo” by Howard French in the September 24 issue of the New York Review of Books.[more]