Global media freedom agency, Reporters Without Borders, have for the first time compiled a list of the world’s 10 most dangerous places for the media.

In 2011, a total of 66 journalists were killed world-wide while doing their jobs. Of these, nine were killed in Africa, 20 in the Middle East, 17 in Asia, 18 in the Americas and two in Europe.

That is an increase of 16 percent from 2010, according to the Reporters Without Borders report.

Pakistan was the single deadliest country for a second year, where 10 journalists were killed in 2011.

The number of journalists arrested in 2011 – a total of 1044 – jumped by 95 percent, up from 535 arrests in 2010.

“Overall, 2011 took a heavy toll on media freedom,” states the report, posted on its website, www.en.rsf.org.    Read more[more]

As we drove from the airport to the hotel in Kigali in Rwanda, my mind was in turmoil: this was the tiny country where an estimated 800 000 men, women and children were butchered in the space of 100 days in 1994, at the time when South Africa was celebrating the dawn of democracy here. Apartheid probably killed more than 800 000, but not in a concentrated dose like Rwanda.[more]

Newspaper satirist Abebe Tolla, better known as Abé Tokichaw, fled Ethiopia fearing imprisonment in retaliation for critical news commentaries, media reported this week. His exit was overshadowed by the trial of opposition figures and journalists on charges of terrorism.

In an interview he gave to U.S.-based Addis Neger Online from an undisclosed location, Abebe said he fled the country because security agents threatened to throw him in prison. He did not even bid farewell to family members. Abebe alleged that state security agents pressured him for months to become an informant at his newspaper, the critical Amharic weekly Feteh. [more]

Outgoing Johannesburg Stock Exchange chief executive Russell Loubser's recent slapping of a female Mail & Guardian reporter's behind at a press conference serves as a metaphor for women's relative disempowerment in the corporate world -- including in media companies. His sexist gesture was made possible by women's continuing secondary status and limited access to power in the private sector, including in mainstream media companies. Notably, this blight on our demo-cracy receives little public attention.

Not so with black people's position. Justifiably, there has been an outcry about the slow rate of inclusion of black people in the upper echelons of corporate power, including in print media companies. But, predictably, the more gaping disparity has passed without comment. The only commendable change has been the boosting of the percentage of black editors from 7% before 1994 to 65% at present. Apart from that, Print Media SA puts black ownership at only 14% and black board membership at 17.8%. At print media companies, women across the races fill a paltry 4.4% of posts at board and senior-management levels among the top four companies (Avusa, Caxton, Independent Newspapers and Media24). At two of the companies, only one out of 10 directors is a woman.[more]

When Libya’s recently-deposed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was “killed like a dog” on Thursday, many other things died — or became seriously ill. One of them was journalism.

Journalism nearly became history. Some chap who was with the rebels in Sirte captured footage of the chaotic, but dramatic, seizure of Gaddafi and his bloody end.

Al Jazeera got it, and broadcast it as “exclusive.” Before long, other international broadcasters were using the same footage, attributing it as Al Jazeera material. By that time, the footage had, of course, been posted on the video-sharing site You Tube.

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A look back at the dramatic news events of the past summer shows that the media's coverage is often badly flawed.

In the last month, we have seen one engrossing news event follow another in quick succession. On July 5th, The Guardian revealed that the News of the World had been illegally hacking into the voicemail records of the victims of crime. In the week that followed, the revelations accumulated and the scandal cut short the careers of senior police officers and media executives. The frenzy of news and analysis had only just ground to a halt when attention shifted to the terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utoya in Norway on July 22nd. Then, after a brief detour to America and the melodramatic negotiations over the debt ceiling, we had riots and looting on the streets of Britain's cities and what looked like panic on the stock markets of the world.

High summer is meant to be a quiet month for news. In Britain, it used to be called the silly season - a time when news editors could run stories about the Loch Ness monster secure in the knowledge that nothing terribly urgent happens in August. Just as publishers held back their blockbusters until September, politicians waited until after Labour Day to launch eye-catching initiatives. Asked in September 2002 why he was talking about the menace posed by Iraq all of a sudden, Andrew Card, the White House Chief of Staff, won lasting notoriety when he explained that "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August". [more]

The bombs that went off across northern Nigeria on the day of the inauguration of Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's new president, were not the only breach of security recently. The Nigerian government's computers have proven susceptible to a group of hackers called the "Naija Cyber Hacktivists" (NCH). They proclaim their mission on their Twitter page:

"In source code we trust

We fighting for a cause...

MISSION: Hand over the whip to the horse"

The National Poverty Eradication Programme was the first to be attacked. A protest message entitled "a letter from hell" was posted onto its website. The Niger Delta Development Commission's website was the next to be hit. The hackers say their aim was two-fold: to force Mr Jonathan to cut back on the $6m being spent on the inauguration, and to sign into law Nigeria's Freedom of Information bill, recently passed by parliament, 12 years after it was first introduced. On May 28th, the president signed the bill.

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The world’s media has been taken over by headlines regarding the alleged attempted rape of a Guinean maid in New York by the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The speculation has turned into frenzy on the part of media houses and individuals all over the globe, vying for Strauss-Kahn’s blood. Many determined to prove his guilt by bringing up his past infidelity, womanising and corruption scandals as a justification of their positions. It is tough having to remind people that being a cheater and a ‘crook’ does not make one a rapist.[more]

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika finally did what ‘sovereign’ nations are on record for doing to ‘rogue’ ambassadors. He declared British High Commissioner Fergus Cochrane-Dyet persona non grata and asked him to leave the country immediately. And Mr Cochrane-Dyet’s offence was; a leaked cable to his bosses, which allegedly claimed the good Malawian leader was a combative president who was increasingly becoming autocratic and intolerant of criticism!

So is Mutharika becoming autocratic?

He is on record for calling upon his supporters to beat up his critics and some of who went into hiding after receiving alleged death threats. In February, Malawi’s Inspector-General of Police Peter Mukhito summoned associate Professor of Political Science Blessings Chisinga, over an example he gave in class. Dr Chinsinga had allegedly said crises like Malawi’s current fuel and forex shortages could lead to uprisings like those that toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt. [more]

It was February 2008 when Bahjo Mohamud Abdi received her first anonymous phone call. It was a man's voice asking her to confirm who she was. Abdi was a presenter and correspondent for the state radio in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Abdi confirmed her identity and thought no more about it. But then she received another anonymous phone call two hours later--informing her that she was talking to the "Somali Mujahadeen" and that they could see her in the local shopping center in downtown Baidoa.

Although young and one of the few women in the media business in Puntland, Abdi was rapidly becoming a veteran in the field having worked for different radio stations across Puntland and earlier as a reporter in Mogadishu. Radio Galkayo used shortwave signals and had a wide range across Puntland, Abdi told me. She often reported about attacks across the region and the insurgent Somali group, Al-Shabaab, did not like the negative coverage. Perhaps her worst crime, though, was the fact she was a woman working in the profession. Al-Shabaab diaspproves of women working, even in informal markets or within women's organizations. The only job for women that appears to be acceptable to them is joining their group as a militia.[more]

Social media did not ’cause’ the revolutions in Tunisia or Egypt. But if I want to find out where the next uprising in the Middle East might occur, that is certainly where I would look. Social media is now a useful indicator, if not predictor, of political change.[more]

2011 has been a remarkable year for rapid political change. Spurred on by Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate self-immolation, protests in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid spread throughout the nation and ultimately accomplished the unthinkable: they forced the end of a 23-year dictatorship. Inspired by the actions of the Tunisian people, protesters took to the streets in Jordan, Yemen, Algeria and, most notably, Egypt where protesters currently hold Tahrir Square in the center of Cairo and are pressuring Hosni Mubarak to step down. Mubarak has already offered several concessions, and it seems clear that Egyptian politics will shift sharply in the coming months. Seeking to address protester’s concerns, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has sacked his cabinet and ordered formation of a new government, while Yemen’s president Saleh has agreed to step down in 2013. [more]

American author Mark Twain once quoted a Mauritian as saying that heaven was copied after this Indian Ocean island paradise. Mauritius is cited today as one of the few havens of press freedom in Africa, but for Raj Meetarbhan, left, editor-in-chief of the island's largest newspaper L'Express, the country is fast losing its glow.Meetarbhan was literally shaking with anger one recent day as I walked into his newspaper's office in Riche Terre, just outside of Port Louis, the island's largest city. He had just been visited by two senior police officers who, he told me, were trying to strong-arm him into publishing, on the front page, a retraction to a story his paper had published a few days earlier on corruption. "We published a story a few days ago on alleged unethical business practices and corruption by a company whose owner is a very close friend of our prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam," he said. The company sent a rebuttal that was published in the newspaper within three days as required by law. "And now, today, I have received this visit from two senior policemen harassing me for not publishing the company's response on the front page of the newspaper!" exclaimed Meetarbhan.[more]

THE MEANS ARE THE MEDIUM, THE MESSAGE IS THE MESSAGE.

Unless your television is broken, you speak to no one, you lost your phone or some nefarious force turned off your Internet, you are aware of the recent protests and unrest in Tunisia and Egypt.Indeed, if you haven’t escaped the coverage of the events in North Africa, you too have been force fed by the media the idea that these protests are indeed “Twitter Revolutions.”First used to describe the unrest following the Moldovan parliamentary elections of 2009, this phrase — already dubious when first used — was gleefully reapplied in 2010 to Iran’s Green Movement. The Tunisian protests came to the fore once the use of Twitter was an exploitable fact, and now we’re seeing the same old game in Egypt. It’s a shame that “Twitter Revolution” is invoked every time there is the idea that social media is used to organize people, independent of actual use. This take on the story becomes a quirky novelty instead of people organizing — by all sorts of means — to affect incredible change in the world. [more]

There seems to be a contingent out there that analyzes each of the globe's various political conflicts and attempts to figure out, through plenty of speculation and the occasional Wikipedia look-ups of far-flung sovereignties, which uprising will mark the first true "social media revolution." A dictator toppled by Twitter or ousted through the efforts of a Facebook group? It's an enticing idea, particularly for those who are in the business of social media and have a personal stake of sorts in tallying each instance of social media's global value making headlines. Twitter punditry this week has been peppered with speculation about whether upheaval in Tunisia or the subsequent anti-government protests in Egypt might amount to the "first" true revolution spawned by social media. But this just isn't the right way to measure things: the occurrence of a "social media revolution," at this point, should be neither noteworthy nor remarkable. If a dictator is overthrown or a government ousted, it would be notable if Facebook or Twitter weren't used.

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On Sunday, the privately owned broadcaster Hannibal TV was forced off the air for more than three hours. The state-owned news agency Agence Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) issued a statement stating that an arrest warrant had been issued for the station's owner on charges of "high treason" for an alleged "plot to destabilize national security." The statement accused the owner of using the Hannibal broadcasts to undermine Tunisia's stability. The station's owner, Larbi Nasra, is a relative of the ousted president's second wife, Leila Trabelsi, a deeply unpopular figure among Tunisians. Nasra almost certainly relied on nepotism to gain a license to operate his television station; CPJ research indicates that the only individuals to be granted licenses to operate private radio or television stations during the former regime's 23-year rule were members of a handful of influential families within Ben Ali's inner circle. [more]

Parliamentary hearings on South Africa's Protection of Information Bill resumed last week with heated debate over provisions threatening to restrict press freedom and access to information. For journalists, much uncertainty remains over the final product and when it will be completed.

The bill, introduced in March 2010, would supplant South Africa's 1982 Protection of Information Act and regulate the manner in which government guards information. The original draft was drawn up by the Ministry of State Security in 2008 with the aim of regulating procedures for the classification of information and setting out penalties for the disclosure of secret state data. That same year, the draft legislation was rejected by a ministerial committee, which found the bill could lead to excessive government secrecy. [more]

WikiLeaks is now at the centre of a global battle between media and those in power but what’s new about what Julian Assange is doing? WikiLeaks is much more than just another journalistic scandal, it is a challenge to the way that power and news media operate in the Internet Age. In some ways WikiLeaks is a traditional investigative news operation. It gets its information from a source and the journalists decide what they will publish. It needs a platform, an audience and revenue just like any other newsroom. It can also be sued, censored or attacked. But because it is trying to operate online outside of normal national jurisdictions it is harder to hold to account. It can use mirror sites and multiple servers to avoid physical restraint.[more]

There were celebrations at Bulange, the seat of the Buganda Kingdom, when CBS was re-opened late last month. The station, in which the kingdom is the majority shareholder, operates from the same place.

I have since heard many Mengo loyalists and others shouting themselves hoarse about the latest victory against the central government. I would take a more cautious approach. Yes, CBS is back on air. And yes, the popular radio station has not met the tough conditions that the government set earlier this year. But this is not a victory for media freedom. At best it is a victory for business and politics. Here is why.[more]

When an official of UNMIL stood tall to boastfully announce the millions he claimed his organization has pumped into the local media to rescue it from mediocrity and paralysis, he failed to give specifics.There are enticing programs of improving the media here, but most of the money, if not all, go into infinite one day, two days, workshops and advertisement. Summed up, this was considered assistance to the media. Advertisement here, at reduced price for institutions like UNMIL on demand because of frequency, is considered ‘assistance,’ not service. Workshops, with impractical themes for individuals incapable of conceiving and writing a straight news story, let alone an in-depth news feature or analysis, are deemed the best training platforms. They are not and cannot be.

Workshops with parachute ‘experts’ brought in for highly attractive fees are almost endless here for media practitioners and others needing practical training at all levels. Millions are pumped into them annually, even from the government.

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From a distance, the ongoing debate about the ANC’s Media Appeals Tribunal proposal seems unrelated to the discomforting comments made by Malawi’s president, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, that he will close down all newspapers (read media) that report and continue to report that at least one million Malawians are facing hunger in his country. Indeed, the media tribunal debate and its sidekick, the Protection of Information Bill, reflect the sinister motives we have seen in countries like Zimbabwe via the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The truth, however, is that there are gaps in the debates and discussions in these countries. [more]

For Batswana journalists, news that their South African colleagues are busy warding off a proposed statutory media tribunal from the ruling African National Congress sounds all too familiar. For more than a decade, the government of Botswana has been trying to push a media law that would effectively shift the whole media under state control. This was eventually achieved as in December 2008, the Media Practitioners Act came to being after being pushed through parliament by the dominant ruling Botswana Democratic party. The implementation of the act has however been frustrated by fierce advocacy by Botswana media groups, with the key assistance of the Law Society of Botswana, which also refused to participate in the implementation as required.

Wrapped in a sheep's skin of general principles guaranteeing the operational independence of the media and the creation of a statutory press council that "shall be wholly independent and separate from the government, any political party or any other body," the act reveals in its fine print to have glaring contradictions. It calls for the creation of a new Media Council, whose key committees would operate under the exclusive control of the minister of communication, a political appointee. The latter has wide discretion to handpick the members of the complaints and appeals committees and can dismiss the members of the executive branch. Also problematic is a draconian registration and accreditation regime reminiscent of the one enforced in Zimbabwe until recently, as any publisher not registered by the Media Council could be fined as much as P5,000 (US$781) or face up to three months in jail. [more]

On Wednesday the 4th of August, Sunday Times reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika was arrested at the offices of the Sunday Times newspaper, in response to a complaint laid by the Premier of Mpumalanga province, David Mabuza. Many aspects of wa Afrika’s arrest have raised troubling questions about the appropriateness of the state’s actions, and have fuelled speculation that political pressure was brought to bear on the police to act against wa Afrika for his activities as a journalist. Wa Afrika’s account of his arrest is chilling. What concerned him the most was the fact that he was taken to Mpumalanga to appear in court, which led him to fear that he was going to be killed. His fears were well founded, as wa Afrika and Mail and Guardian journalist Lucky Sindane were on a hit list of people targeted for assassination, and two government officials on the list had already been killed. These events have reinforced already-deep concerns about the state of freedom of expression in South Africa. But there are those who are unsurprised by these events. Many small town political activists are all too familiar with the treatment wa Afrika was subjected to. These activists are rich repositories of information about small town repression, and the true state of South Africa’s democracy more generally.[more]

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has just released a document on the media for its National General Council (NGC) meeting, scheduled for September. The document, entitled 'Media transformation, ownership and diversity', claims to build on a resolution adopted at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference, as well as a media policy developed for its 2002 Stellenbosch conference. The document is bound to be controversial, as it raises once again the possibility of establishing a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT), to be accountable to Parliament. [more]

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has started! The international media onslaught against South Africa has begun a full two weeks ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2010. Britain’s Daily Mail leads with a story about how the Columbian national team was robbed ahead of the World Cup, while SKY News is poking around looking for dirt. It has started. Sickeningly predictably, it is bang on cue two weeks before the World Cup kicks off, Africa’s first. They just could not let an African nation host a World Championship, in a spirit of friendship, with a climate of competence and in an ambience of goodwill.

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World Press Freedom Day might be the appropriate occasion to remember a few home truths about media which sometimes get lost in donor efforts to use journalists for their own developmental agendas. This instrumentalisation of media is just a very bad idea! Yet it is done all the time, with the best intentions, of course. Let’s start with three widely shared assumptions on the role of media in Africa – and elsewhere:

• They are “watchdog, agenda setter and gatekeeper in the public forum” (as Pippa Norris call them in her book “Public Sentinel”, issuu.com/world.bank.publications/docs/9780821382004)

• They are of central importance to any good governance approach (as the UNESCO and the World Bank keep stressing)

• They are the bellwether of democracy (no fair election without free media) [more]

Julius Malema is the bête noire of South African politics. He would, of course, call this description “racist”, put forward by a “bastard” with a “white tendency” and an “agent” of imperialism. At least, that is what the president of the African National Congress Youth League recently called a white BBC-journalist who had dared to ask a pointed question during a press conference at Luthuli House, the headquarter of the ANC in Pretoria. Welcome to the ongoing slinging match between South Africa’s leading populist and the press. It is an intriguing match – and an emblematic conflict about the trials and tribulations of the young democracy 16 years after the end of Apartheid. [more]

I returned to South Africa two weeks ago after a six-month hiatus in Canada. Within days, national and international media sported headlines of Julius Malema, the leader of the ANC Youth League, and his inappropriate singing of "kill the Boer." Just days later, Eugene Terreblance, leader of Afrikaner Resistance Movement, well known supporter of the Apartheid regime and advocate for an all-white South Africa, was killed on his farm by two of his black workers. The two events coupled together created a media frenzy of statements that South Africa is imploding, that racism is rampant, and that the country is no better than it was under Apartheid. Columnists have predicted retributive killings on both sides. I received calls and e-mails from friends and family worried that I was trapped in the midst of bloody warfare, asking if I felt safe, positing that the "situation must be tense." When I met with two friends from Europe over the weekend, one asked me-in all honesty and sincerity-if I thought there could be "racial warfare" in the coming months and years. My first instinct was to blame these overly simplified statements and concerns on the people who voiced them, assuming they weren't well read and were coming from dated notions that Africa is a backwards, violent continent, where anything goes. But as I read more news from the West, it became clear to me that the international media had done such a poor job of depicting the Malema and Terreblance events that it was no wonder those outside thought that the country was going to hell in a hand-basket. [more]

On March 24, I received an e-mail from a close friend under the intriguing subject “What...?” On opening the e-mail, I discovered my friend was not impressed by two articles in that morning’s newspapers condemning the government’s recent proposal to amend the press law and introduce new restrictions on the publication of newspapers.“What is all the drama journalists are acting out in the papers about the proposed amendments to Wawawa Bill?” my friend wrote in the email. Wawawa is slang for journalists at my social club. He went on to ask me what was wrong with an amendment that would involve:[more]

Media Literacy is a boring phrase to describe an exciting issue. When we held a debate on it tempers became frayed, passions ran high and voice were raised in a way that is usually associated with hot political topics. Why? It’s because there are a lot of people out there who think that the new communications tools are revolutionising our lives in wonderful ways. There are also a lot of people who feel disturbed, excluded, threatened and even abused by the process. This is not the old Geek versus Dinosaur argument. This is a much more interesting debate about how human beings fit into media change.[more]

UNESCO plays a critical role in promoting media development globally. The organization’s Communication and Information Sector regularly sends out statements condemning attacks against journalists and updates on the state of media freedom in various countries. Yesterday, I received an e-mail announcing that UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) had chosen to support 84 media development projects around the world.

But the numbers worry me a little. The total package amounts to 2.1 million USD spread out over 84 projects. That’s around 25,000 USD per project. Allocations range from 7,000 (strengthening journalism training capacity in Cameroon) to 80,000 USD (much needed assistance to a Haitian journalists’ association). This list of projects tackles a limited set of issues compared to those addressed by the broad media indicators framework IPDC itself released in 2008. [more]

“FREELANCE journalist Stanley Kwenda was found dead on the outskirts of Harare. His remains were found dumped in a ditch along the Harare to Domboshava road . . . ”

An imagined worst case scenario, yes -- but one which after that strange and angry voice on the phone last Friday evening promised I would not survive the weekend, I could not say with certainty could never happen. I had to act immediately.

But the good news first. I am safe and sound in my hiding place. Who knows, all the news organisations that carried the story of how I fled Zimbabwe last week following the death threats would by now probably have been writing about my death.[more]

The straight connection between the military and the media used to be that you first went to the state broadcaster to announce your coup d’etat. That was it - and the other media took the cue.

The age of multi-party democracy has done away with this kind of straightforward relationship. In most African countries the government still determines what happens at the state - or now euphemistically called - “public” broadcaster. Nowadays the control is exerted in more subtle ways than by military means. But recently we can detect a more sinister development: The Return of the Military Man to the media sector through the back door.[more]

If you have been long enough in your field, you must have had the experience: There is a difficult area you have worked in for years with varying degrees of success. It’s complicated but important. Let’s say the field is media councils and the establishment of self-regulatory mechanisms against the continuous threat by governments to impose “media commissions” to control the press. Then a competitor enters your field, often one with a “U” as the first letter of its acronym. This competitor has all the good intentions of this world – and bags of money. Then UXXX or UYYYYY does a “needs analysis” which only too often means to ask stakeholders and local NGOs for their needs and to conveniently forget the analysis.[more]

You might know the problem. Your organisation wants to offer a workshop for parliamentarians. But then the representatives of the people prove to be rather elusive. And when you finally seem to get them to attend your particular workshop on media or other matters, they also prove expensive. “Per diem” is the word. It sounds Latin and holy, but it is Zimbabwean or Zambian and means – “we want to get additional money on top of our salaries to serve ourselves in the name of the people”.[more]