Wednesday 25 August 2010

CONVERSE COLUMN: How the ANC can break the press impasse

 

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]

 

 

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fesmedia Africa is the media project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Africa. We are working towards a political, legal and regulatory framework for the media which follows international human rights law, the relevant protocols of the African Union (AU) and declarations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or other regional standards in Africa. Our office is based in Windhoek, Namibia. Read more about us

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Africa has traditionally been at the centre of the international activities of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. In 19 Sub-Saharan African countries, FES is supporting the process of self-determination, democratisation and social development, in cooperation with partners in politics and society.

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is a non-governmental and non-profit making Political Foundation based in almost 90 countries throughout the world. Established in 1925, it carries the name of Germany’s first democratically elected president, Friedrich Ebert, and, continuing his legacy, promotes freedom, solidarity and social democracy.

 

Wednesday 18 August 2010

The African Media at 50 - from Hell on Earth to the Voice of Democracy

 

When on 18 March this year the Daily Nation, one of Africa's biggest and most successful independent newspapers, celebrated its 50th anniversary, Charles Onyango Obbo, a columnist for the Nairobi, Kenya, paper, wrote, "It has mostly been hell on earth for the African media for most of these 50 years. In fact the freest period for the African media generally has been the 15-year period between 1990 and 2005."

 

At independence in 1960 most newspapers were privately owned, organs either of the nationalist political movements and parties or of businesses mostly established by European investors.

 

But by 1970 most newspapers of any signifi­cance across the continent were government-owned. Any newspaper expressing independent editorial attitudes was censored, banned or so controlled that most of the owners gave up publishing.  One man, the Liberian journalist Kenneth Best, started the first daily in both Liberia and Gambia in the 1980s. Mr. Best eventually had to flee both countries.  [read more]

WORST PRACTICES

Thursday 02 September 2010

South Africa: Media Freedom Is Your Freedom (Or Is It?)

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]

[more]

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