African Media News

The introduction of new media has challenged the traditional form of journalism in Africa; as global emphasis shifts to online real time reportage of events. Today, news is delivered in a unique way, combining audio and visual in such a way that its impact can never be over-emphasised. If the recent saga in Nigeria involving the kidnap of some journalists had happened in Europe, the whole world would have had the opportunity to have a firsthand insight into the kidnappers den as, with a mobile phone, the journalists would have recorded their ordeal and downloaded it on You Tube.[more]

South African journalists are finding themselves increasingly at odds with their own government over two proposals that have the potential to limit press freedom. The ruling African National Congress has proposed a Media Appeals Tribunal with power to discipline journalists who engage in what the party calls unethical behaviour. Parliament also is debating a "protection of information" bill that would impose restrictions on access to government information and punishment of up to 25 years in prison for those who violate the law.[more]

The South Coast Herald is considering laying charges against staff members of the Hibiscus Coast Municipality after an incident of alleged police intimidation against a journalist, writes Jackie Bischof for journalism.co.za. Siyabonga Mchunu, a photographer and reporter for the newspaper, went to cover an outbreak of taxi violence in Port Shepstone in KwaZulu-Natal on August 25, and alleges that in the course of taking photographs of an arrest on the scene, he was verbally abused by staff members of the municipality and that his camera was forcibly taken from him. He told journalism.co.za he was also ordered to delete photographs.[more]

The SABC’s defence of selling "news" coverage reveals that the extent of compromised journalism reaches across the majority of the public broadcast network, says Democratic Alliance shadow minister of communications Niekie van den Berg. Van den Berg says paying for any content during news or current affairs programming violates basic tenets of ethical journalism, and that the DA will be submitting questions to determine how many ANC provincial governments paid for positive coverage. [more]

The global leader in distribution of press releases -African Press Organization (APO) has stopped providing services to the Republic of Gabon, according to Dakar, Senegal headquartered organization.[more]

(Special Coverage On the State of Ethiopian Free Press )

After 2007 when the theology of EPRDF overtly changed, its mechanism for dealing with the media also changed, growing ever more systematic. As some pundits claimed, the major shift lay not only in its approach to the media in particular, but in its approach to all independent voices. Ato Meles dreams of a country of one party and ideology. For him and the party, they argued, democracy has only instrumental value–to purge other democratic forces and voices from the scene, using “democratic means”[more]

A Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has assured members of the inky-fraternity that the government would not do anything to fetter the frontiers of press freedom in the country. According to him, the government remains committed to good governance and rule of law, and believes that freedom of speech must not be criminalised. To him, it was important for people to air their views, no matter how hurting it may be.[more]

A number of public figures and governments in the Arab world are advocating for the implementation of specific legislation to regulate the content and use of digital media. Specifically, they want to implement a system in which blog or website creators must "declare" that they are creating a blog or website before doing so, and to establish a specific penal system for infractions committed in the virtual world. Underlying these measures is the intention to restrain what are being called "digital freedoms", especially as activists capitalise on the features of cyberactivism to champion their causes of political opposition and change. An article by Rachid Jankari, a journalist specialising in information and communication technologies (ICTs) and a consultant on online journalism and new media. He is also CEO of MIT Media (www.mit-media.com) and blogs at www.jankari.org. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews). [more]

To many in the ink fraternity, 21st August 2010, would go into the history books as one memorable night, especially for the 30 institution and individual Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) award winners. It was a night of music and dancing that lured the Vice President John Dramani Mahama, the Special Guest of Honour, and other dignitaries, from the comfort of their seats to the dance floor to boogie to the sweet melody of the prolific High-life singer Abrantie Amakye Dede.[more]

Alarm bells that vividly race back to mind was that, come the midnight hour of December of that year, the first minute on the clock would get reduced down to four zeroes. Doomsayers were equally in full swing concocting obituaries for the world coming to an end. Delivering us from this gloom and doom was a scientific response and view that assured all and sundry that the world was far from coming to an end.[more]

"...Without freedom a press will never be anything but bad." "We often deal with things that are so complex as to be beyond the limits or our intuitive comprehension. As such, we construct models, simplifications of the real thing, which allow us to study that which we seek to understand. Whether a model is right or wrong is simply a value judgment, whether it is correct or incorrect is something that will be evident in time. The most important question to ask should relate to the extent to which the models we develop promote the intentioned development of our understanding. The extent to which a model aids in the development of our understanding is the basis for deciding how good the model is. A model is a simplification of reality, and as such, certain details are excluded from it." (Gene Bellinger-The way of Systems)[more]

In the third part of the epistle, Catholic bishops say the army and the police should be non-partisan in next year's election. The bishops say media freedom is vital for participatory democracy. Election supervision and monitoring is the process of supervising the entire electoral process to ensure that the electoral Law that governs the elections is observed: ensuring regular, impartial, objective elections, guaranteeing voters and candidates the free exercise of their rights.[more]

A magistrate court in Dakar on August 26, 2010 convicted Express News, a pro-government newspaper of defaming Pape Samba Mboup, the Chief Director in the office of President Abdoulaye Wade.[more]

WHAT goes around comes around. Time has now come for the South African media to learn it the hard way. Many people might wonder why the recent furore over the proposed media tribunal in South Africa is not a surprise to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa).[more]

Despite facing a powerful enemy such as the ANC-led government, which some observers have likened to Goliath because of its intimidating moves, South Africa's independent media, David, refuses to back down, vowing not to give up but fight until the bloody end. This act of bravery by the media epitomises the intensity of the conflict over media freedom that has the potential to drag on for many years - typical of an African struggle against white rule.[more]

The noose is tightening around South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) as pressure mounts from all corners - locally and internationally - on President Jacob Zuma and his party to scrap the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill - two repressive projects critics believe will institutionalise corruption and abuse of power, and set the country on the path of other African failed states.[more]

Johannesburg — AN INDEPENDENT media tribunal and media self-regulation should be seen as complementary, the South African Communist Party (SACP) said yesterday. It called for a "calm and considered discussion around how sensitive information should be handled within our democracy". SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said the media's deliberate conflation of the media tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill had undermined the possibility of this discussion.[more]

Official complaints by ANC and government officials against newspaper stories have quadrupled over the past three years. However, despite allegations of widespread newspaper falsehoods and "an astonishing degree of dishonesty", the total number of complaints to the ombudsman by these institutions was still only 24 in the past year, out of tens of thousands of stories published. [more]

Naspers Ltd., Africa’s largest media company, said a draft law under debate in South Africa’s Parliament that would restrict access to government information is “deeply disturbing.” The Protection of Information Bill proposes giving government officials the power to classify documents in the “national interest” and jail anyone possessing them without authorization for as long as 25 years. The measure would hobble investigative reporters and violate constitutional rights to free speech, newspaper editors and civil-rights groups told lawmakers last month. [more]

ANALYSIS: South Africa’s rulers are being accused of eroding press freedom with a new Bill to ‘criminalise activities essential to investigation’, writes BILL CORCORAN. THE RECENT proposal by the African National Congress (ANC) party to introduce a state-appointed media tribunal and legislation that would restrict access to information has drawn sharp criticism from much of South African society.[more]

BLANTYRE, Malawi — Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika threatened on Thursday to shut down newspapers he accused of lying that up to one million Malawians will need food aid.[more]

Thirty years of Southern African Development Community, which offers little or nothing to celebrate, is enough time to reflect on journalism in the region. Six months ago, the Nordic-SADC Journalism Centre in Mozambique was on the brink of closure. A few weeks later, a website announced two or three editors' courses in South Africa to be conducted by an institute shaped along the lines of the NSJ. Little has been heard about thoroughgoing edification of journalism in Namibia after the glorious Windhoek Declaration and the meetings that led to the legal establishment of the Media Institute of Southern Africa. [more]

Johannesburg — SOMETIMES the national debate's confusions can help the grassroots citizens it usually ignores. This is surely why the Protection of Information Bill is being denounced by the media as a threat to journalists, despite the probability that it would do much to imperil the rights of citizens, particularly the poor, and little or nothing to threaten the media and those who work in it.[more]

Kampala — The Constitutional Court today delivered its long awaited ruling on the law of sedition challenged by journalist Andrew Mwenda and the East Africa Media Institute in a case filed in 2005. The Court has struck sedition off the laws of Uganda maintaining that it was inconsistent with Article 29 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, which provides for freedom of expression and of the media. The ruling increases the space in which journalists can freely do their work without fear of repercussions of the old colonial law.[more]

The Kenyan media has been lauded for fair and balanced reporting during campaigns for the referendum on the new constitution. A commissioner with the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) Ken Nyaundi said the media proved to be "an excellent partner in civic education and identifying demagogues out to split the country." [more]

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa's media obtained a court order preventing parliament from blocking them from a committee meeting on Tuesday in the latest incident pitting the press against the state in Africa's biggest economy. The government has faced criticism at home and abroad from two proposed media reform measures that some have said were similar to draconian laws to limit the flow of information during the apartheid era of white-minority rule.[more]

THE current debate on the feasibility and desirability of establishing a Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT), as a mechanism to offer a balance between the constitutional right of media freedom and the right to privacy, and, more crucially, rights and values such as human dignity, is becoming an interesting topic to deliberate. [more]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has sounded the alarm over the complete absence of safety for journalists in Somalia following the death of veteran journalist, Barkhad Awale Adan. Awale Adan was killed in the afternoon of Tuesday, 24 August 2010, during gunfire exchange between the Transitional Federal Government and the Islamists group, Al-Shabaab, in Mogadishu, Somalia.[more]

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Roman Catholic Cardinal Wilfrid Napier have called on their compatriots to oppose a proposed media law that critics say resembles apartheid legislation.[more]

He is right in saying "media diversity remains one of the critical challenges facing democratic South Africa". But wrong in blaming the media for the lack of media diversity. [more]

Johannesburg — THE Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu's) central executive committee meets today to discuss, among other issues, the proposed media appeals tribunal. Last week, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the federation would leave today's meeting with a "position" on the matter. Mr Vavi has described the proposed Protection of Information Bill as a "mockery" , and said Cosatu was confident that Parliament would not pass the bill in its present form.[more]

The surprise sacking of four key ministers by President Bingu wa Mutharika and the battle for succession at the top job continued to dominate the Malawi media this week. The Nation, under the headline "Moses Chirambo Dies In South Africa", reported on the death of the former Health Minister in events analysts claim might be linked to shock at the veteran eye specialist's sudden loss of job.[more]

IN WELCOMING the world to the World Cup in June, South African President Jacob Zuma boasted that the tournament exemplified his country’s leading role for all of Africa. Sixteen years after a multiracial democracy emerged from the oppressive apartheid system, South Africa has a constitution that, as Zuma put it, “enshrines human rights to ensure that this nation never returns to that painful past.’’ The nation, he said, “would never be the same again.’’[more]

The South African government has been accused of resorting to censorship policies reminiscent of the Apartheid era in a bid to silence its critics in the media. The ruling African National Congress is pushing a series of measures which would, opponents say, undermine freedom of speech, criminalise investigative reporting and threaten whistleblowers in the civil service with lengthy prison sentences.[more]

Johannesburg — International media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks South Africa's press as among the freest on the continent. Two proposed new measures are drawing unfavourable comparisons to repressive laws in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Nigeria and Zimbabwe have their Official Secrets Acts. In Kenya, it's called the Communications Bill. And in South Africa, it would be called the Protection of Information Act (POI).[more]

" 'Denial of freedom of expression makes a mockery of the profession of journalism' " Jacob Zuma. Dr Max Price, vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, said he would oppose the bill "vigorously" in its present form, because "the consequences of restricted access to information impinge profoundly on the university's ability to do research and analyse public policy". [more]

Independent and free media is not a given in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). However, as the country starts to think about next year's presidential elections, it is fast becoming a necessity. [more]

The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) has launched a book on the experiences of the Zimbabwean media from 2000 to 2005, writes a jocoza correspondent. Titled 'Journalists or Enemies of the State', the book was written by five journalists - Bornwell Chakaodza, Chakanyuka Bosha, Francis Harawa, Tapfuma Machakaireand Maxwell Sibanda. It was edited by John Gambanga and Bill Saidi who were both editors at The Daily News and Daily News On Sunday whose staff ranked among those affected by the government's hostile stance towards the media in the period covered by the book.[more]

After much criticism of the media by the ANC, the South African National Editor’s Forum has said it is willing in principle to look at ways to strengthen and improve the Press Council of South Africa and the Press Ombudsman, but is deeply concerned over the ANC’s aggressive stance towards the industry. But in looking at precedents, should the print media take seriously the ANC’s comparison of the broadcast media and the print media’s methods of regulation?[more]

THERE is growing concern among South African journalists and some individuals over government’s Protection of Information Bill, likely to be promulgated into law soon, and the possibility that there might be a media tribunal in the near future. I believe that the concern is justified. I have practised as a journalist for many years. I have travelled around Africa and some Arab countries as well. I have seen revolutionary movements promising access to information, freedom of speech and the media, but within a short time of coming into power, reneging on such promises. [more]

A Burundian journalist critical of state security forces faces life in prison if convicted, after being arrested and charged with treason on 17 July, report Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). A month later, another journalist was arrested, imprisoned and charged with defamation after writing an article about government corruption, says Journaliste en danger (JED).[more]

The House of Representatives has expressed it anger over a news story published yesterday in the New Broom Newspaper alleging that members of that August body received US$15,000 each to pass the Maritime Authority Act. The House voted to complain the management of the New Broom Newspaper and the Radio Veritas to the Press Union of Liberia for the publication and airing of the US$15,000 under-the-table cash allegedly received by members of the National Legislature to pass the bill. The Act is currently before President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to be signed into law.[more]

Media executives yesterday vowed to challenge an order issued by the Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court barring print and broadcast media houses from reporting or publishing any information about the July 11 twin bombings in Kampala. Others said they would not respect the injunction altogether. The injunction was issued on Monday by Nakawa Chief Magistrate, Deo Sejjimba, in the presence of Principal State Attorney Charles Richard Kaamuli after Mr Sejjimba had heard submissions supported by affidavits.[more]

Brezhnev Malaba, the editor of the state-owned Sunday Mail in Zimbabwe, has challenged the constitutionality of criminal defamation in the Supreme Court, writes a Jocoza correspondent. Malaba and reporter Nduduzo Tshuma were arrested in 2008 and charged with criminal defamation and breaches of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act. They were arrested for a news article published in the Chronicle that exposed top police officers for their alleged involvement in a major maize scandal at the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).[more]

Media executives yesterday vowed to challenge an order issued by the Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court barring print and broadcast media houses from reporting or publishing any information about the July 11 twin bombings in Kampala. Others said they would not respect the injunction altogether.[more]

The new constitution endorsed by 67% of Kenya's voters on August 4 crucially enshrines media freedom for the first time and scraps the Official Secrets Act that has been used to muzzle the media and protect corrupt government and military officials. "Freedom of independence of electronic, print and other media of all types is guaranteed," reads a provision in the Bill of Rights, described as one of the most progressive on the continent. “The state shall not, exercise control over or interfere with any person engaged in broadcasting, the production or circulation of any publication or the dissemination of the information by any medium."[more]

THERE is growing concern among South African journalists and some individuals over government’s Protection of Information Bill, likely to be promulgated into law soon, and the possibility that there might be a media tribunal in the near future. I believe that the concern is justified. I have practised as a journalist for many years. I have travelled around Africa and some Arab countries as well. I have seen revolutionary movements promising access to information, freedom of speech and the media, but within a short time of coming into power, reneging on such promises. [more]

US AMBASSADOR to SA Donald Gips yesterday cautioned the country to carefully consider the implications of establishing a media appeals tribunal. Mr Gips becomes the latest high- profile figure to enter the debate on the mooted tribunal, aimed at regulating the media in SA. The debate was ignited by the ruling party’s proposal that a media tribunal be established to monitor information published by media houses.[more]

According to a report compiled by the Journalists Union of Malawi (JUMA), the prevailing conditions endured by media practitioners in the country are demeaning, exploitative and not befitting professionals. The study showed that the reasons most journalists in Malawi are exploited are because a majority are young and single.[more]

A leading privately-owned Kenyan Somali-language radio station is now on air in Mogadishu.[more]

Maputo — Mozambique's President, Armando Guebuza congratulated on Monday two Mozambican journalists winners of SADC (Southern African Development Community) Media Award 2010. The two winners are Boventura Mandlate from the state's Radio Mozambique (RM), who addressed the issue of infrastructures in the regional integration process, while Alfredo Mueche of the weekly paper "Domingo", won in the category of photojournalism by depicting the problem of water in Mozambique.[more]

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) condemns the suspension from work of Mr Nuh Muse Birjeb, a journalist working with the Voice of America (VOA) Somali Service who is at the same time, the correspondent for London-based Universal TV in Puntland regions.[more]

Politicians feed on the affection of their constituents. It sustains them, for good or ill, making them powerful. Getting between a politician and his or her craving doesn’t bode well for news media. South Africa basked in klieg lit international attention during the football World Cup. The sounds, vuvuzelas included, and sights were stunning. Barely a month after television crews packed their kits, light stands removed, nasty noises returned as they do in the darkness.[more]

Harare — A fresh row is looming in the shaky inclusive government as it has emerged that Zanu PF is set to launch a new wave of partisan jingles. Already there is a storm brewing over a set of jingles by the Mbare Chimurenga Choir that are receiving more than their fair share of airplay on all Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) radio and television stations.[more]

When Winnie Wawasi Msengeti allegedly sent an unflattering SMS text to Grace Wahito, little did she know there would be consequences. Poor Winnie ended up in a court of law, and is now out on a Sh50,000 bail. [more]

Media watchdogs in South Africa on Tuesday slammed proposed media regulations as a "draconian" ploy to muzzle the press and protect corrupt officials.[more]

THE proposed Protection of Information Bill was a “mockery”, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said yesterday, and assured journalists the bill would not be passed as it is. This is the first criticism of the bill by a leader of the African National Congress-led (ANC) tripartite alliance and it strengthens the media industry’s case in its attempt to oppose the bill.[more]

Malanje — Deputies for the electoral area of Malanje meet Monday in the city, with officials and journalists of public media, listening to their concerns and the degree of cohabitation among employees.[more]

The jackboot arrest and detention of Sunday Times reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika last week alarmed all in the media world and has added impetus to the fight against the ANC government’s attempts to curb media freedom in the country. Wa Afrika talked to Gill Moodie about his detention, reporting in Mpumalanga and what it all means for investigative journalists such as himself. In the latest instalment of her "Backstory" series, Gill Moodie writes exclusively for journalism.co.za:[more]

When Ms Ammina Kothari, a doctoral student at Indiana University, School of Journalism asked to interview me for her research paper on the HIV/Aids and journalism in Tanzania, I realised how poorly the media has been covering stories on the pandemic. Indeed, I felt guilty on behalf of my fellow journalists that we have not done the best we could do in that regard and consequently, the media has been left occasionally replicating the overused stories. In other words, the media lacked the angle with which to approach the issue.[more]

Recent reports that companies in Kenya spent more than Sh20 billion in advertising in six months, which is equal to the sum spent in 2008, aroused little, if any, public interest. And yet without advertisers, the prices of newspapers would be prohibitive and inaccessible to ordinary readers.[more]

THE Society of Senior Zambian Journalists (SSZJ) has intensified consultations with various stakeholders with a view to resolving the impasse over the media self-regulatory mechanism. SSZJ chairperson, Ridgeway Liwena said in a statement yesterday the society arrived at the decision to consult during an emergency executive meeting held in Lusaka recently.[more]

Press freedom in Zimbabwe is still ranked as the lowest in the Southern African region, in a strong indictment of the lack of progress under the unity government. According to the 2010 Press Freedom rankings by the international watchdog, Freedom House, Zimbabwe has made slight improvements over the past year. This has seen the country jump five places up the official ranking, which rates countries from “free” to “partly free” to “not free.” Overall Zimbabwe sits at joint 181st out of 196 countries, only just making it out of the bottom ten “worst of the worst” countries for press freedom.[more]

The BBC Somali Service is back in Mogadishu. Shabelle, an independent media in Mogadishu started broadcasting the programmes of the British Broad casting Corporation (BBC)’s Somali Service. At two o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, the Radio Station transmitted the distinctive tone marking the BBC’s programmes in Somali language. [more]

Over the past couple of months, many editors, journalists and analysts have been surprised, indeed taken aback by the effectiveness of the ANC's march towards what would effectively be criminalising the free media. Here's how they're doing it.[more]

A district court in Bossaso town, the commercial capital of Somalia’s Puntland state, has sentenced a media director to six years in prison. The director of Horseed Media, an independent media house in the semi-autonomous state, Mr. Abdifatah Jama Mire, was sentenced to six years in jail on Saturday. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $500.[more]

The Nation has not always got it right. In its very first edition, the paper proclaimed: ‘‘Fit as a fiddle Sultan returns’’. They were referring to the Sultan of Zanzibar, who had undergone treatment in Europe. Unfortunately for the Nation, the 81-year-old monarch died six days after the paper hit the streets with its assessment of his health. That is one of the episodes narrated in Gerry Loughran’s history of the paper, Birth of a Nation.[more]

TWENTY years ago this month the South African Institute of Race Relations organised a seminar whose proceedings were published under the title Mau-Mauing the Media: New Censorship for the New SA. Among the speakers were several prominent journalists.[more]

There was nothing to be surprised about by Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s crushing re-election victory last week, nor the wave of Western media coverage that suggested the 90 per cent-plus margin of victory was somehow suspect. There has been a string of critical reports implying that Kagame is a typical African dictator. His decision to bar a Hutu presidential aspirant, Victoire Ingabire, and an earlier move to shut down two vernacular newspapers have been cited as proof.[more]

SURELY not all the people and sectional interests that have come out in support of, or in opposition to, the idea of setting up a media tribunal are driven by snow white motives. This, I suspect, is why the debate has been characterised by scaremongering and fog. What we have here is a clash between the nature of politics and the nature of news, the blurring of the fine line between the two, and how both have the capacity to engage in egregious forms of Orwellian manipulation when the stakes are high enough.[more]

The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) on Wednesday sent an open letter to President Jacob Zuma urging him to address the press freedom concerns.The IPI is a global network of publishers, editors and leading journalists. [more]

THE move to gag the media is, ironically, a silver lining around the darkening political cloud. Going by past experience, if the government succeeds, it will signal the end of a tragic period with a red flag stirring the slumbering and eclipsed spirit of genuine patriotism.[more]

RESIDENTS of Masaka and Jinja are the next beneficiaries of the digital television transmission. The National Broadcasting Council has granted a formal permission to Star TV, a new Chinese pay television service provider, to operate a digital terrestrial television in Jinja and Masaka, Star’s expansion into the east and central regions means that the public will tap into opportunities of watching, not only international channels, but also local ones whose signals could not reach the areas. [more]

BARBARA Masekela, former ambassador to France and a prominent figure in the African National Congress, has tendered her resignation from the board of the SABC, with several more resignations possible, Business Day has learnt.The board has been plagued by division since its appointment in December. [more]

THE Government is opposed to the launch of the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) launch on August 26 as announced by the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) in Lusaka yesterday, chief Government spokesperson Ronnie Shikapwasha has said. Gen Shikapwasha said in its current form, the proposed ZAMEC is a rebirth of failed Media Ethics Council of Zambia (MECOZ) and only seeks to serve the narrow interest of the MLC and not the nation.[more]

Regardless of Rwanda’s presidential election outcome, one thing is certain – an independent press did not monitor the election results. The government has systematically silenced the independent media in the run-up to the election. In the lingering shadow of the genocide, 16 years on, the government has ensured there is little room in Rwanda’s political landscape for a free press.[more]

The dominant discourse in the study of development is about how much aid developed countries give to developing countries, and very little discussion of how much wealth goes the other way, from developing countries to developed countries. To their credit, African scholars and activists, a handful of politicians and a few global justice activists make this point, albeit infrequently, with the consequence that considerable sections of African societies, including Malawi, have come to view their entire world from the perspective of a people forever destined to be objects of Western pity.[more]

THE debate on the proposed media tribunal is likely to stay in the news amid pressure on President Jacob Zuma to clarify his government’s position on the arrest last week of Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika. Mr wa Afrika was arrested by police on Wednesday, driven to Nelspruit in Mpumalanga and denied legal representation for hours. He was granted bail on Friday.[more]

AS CALLS for the withdrawal of the controversial Protection of Information Bill mount, parallels between the bill and Zimbabwe’s draconian media laws are being drawn. In 2002, the Zimbabwean government passed the Access to Information and Privacy Act, effectively gagging the independent media.[more]

August 9, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The SPLM’s deputy secretary-general, Yasir Arman, has criticized the Sudanese government for suspending BBC Arabic radio relays in north Sudan, accusing the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) there of seeking to “control all media sources.”[more]

JOHANNESBURG—South Africa's ruling political party, the African National Congress, has thrown its weight behind tighter controls for the media, sparking a noisy debate over the role of the press in the country's 16-year-old democracy. The ANC, which came to power in the country's first multiracial elections in 1994 and has dominated the political landscape since, has floated a series of proposals that could reshape South Africa's media industry and backed a controversial bill to safeguard government information.[more]

The ANC says journalists should be held legally accountable for inaccurate reporting. South African journalists have launched a campaign against proposed legislation which they say would curtail press freedom and threaten democracy.[more]

The Sudanese government has halted the broadcast of BBC service in Arabic on FM radio frequencies after suspending its agreement with the British public broadcaster for reasons it said had nothing to do with its newscasts, according to an official statement. In a statement carried by the official Suna news agency late on Sunday, the information ministry alleged that the BBC had imported technical equipment via British diplomatic courier.[more]

Ugandan police searched the home of a leading local online editor whom they accuse of sedition over two articles published online by his outlet The Ugandan Record, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za. Timothy Kalyegira becomes the first online journalist to be charged with the colonial-era penal code and his lawyer is furious over the move.[more]

Harassment of journalists is gradually but steadily becoming the trend in Africa. In fact, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), is extremely disturbed and concerned by the growing tendency towards enactment and enforcement of more repressive, complicated and legal sanctions against journalists.[more]

One out of 10 delegates participating this week in US President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Forum was a journalist. The forum, a US initiative meant to spark discussion on the future of Africa in a year when 17 countries on the continent are celebrating 50 years of nationhood, did not overlook freedom of the press, as I witnessed in its final event on Thursday at Washington’s museum of news, the Newseum.[more]

The Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu, on Wednesday threatened to arrest any government ministers who disclose information on cabinet meetings and proceedings to the media, plus the journalists who use such information.[more]

CAPE TOWN — The Democratic Alliance (DA) is to request a meeting with President Jacob Zuma in the hope of persuading him to withdraw the controversial Protection of Information Bill that is being discussed in Parliament.[more]

The government is seeking to meet media owners and senior editors urgently in a move designed to dispel the perception increasingly held that it intends to seriously limit the freedom of the press.[more]

Since the 1994 coup d’état that saw President Yahya Jammeh rise to power, the Gambian media has been forced to work under repressive and restrictive conditions. The disappearance of editors and journalists, destruction of property and threat of imprisonment and harm by Jammeh’s National Intelligence Agency officers mean Gambian media outlets must either praise the ruling party or close their doors. Alagi Yorro Jallow, once an editor of a now closed private Gambian publication, discusses the Gambian government crackdown on the media and regulations under which a Gambian journalist must work.[more]

The African National Congress’s (ANC’s) full-frontal attack on the press is, when you think about it, totally inevitable. Here is the short history of post-liberation SA: an ANC administration takes over in 1994 with high hopes, enormous international support and an inclusive government. The public service it inherited is dutiful, compliant, functional but hardly efficient. What’s more, it’s steeped in the apartheid mentality of cloistered defensiveness.[more]

Alfred Opubor, Nigeria’s first mass communication professor, used to drum it into our ears in the University of Lagos no sooner than we were admitted in the mid 1970s that “facts are sacred, but comment is free” and “every conscientious reporter must take steps to speak to all relevant parties before filing a story”. What the professor with a rich, sweet baritone voice and the cultivated idiosyncrasies of an Oxford scholar was telling us are, of course, cardinal principles of journalism worldwide. They are as axiomatic as they are trite.[more]

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - Concerned about the crackdown on media by autho rities in Rwanda in the run-up to next week's election, the International Press Institute (IPI) Friday called on President Paul Kagame to ensure press freedom in his central-eastern African country.[more]

We had a good chuckle over the Herald’s opening line in its editorial Comment on Monday that read “We couldn’t agree more with President Mugabe...” Doesn’t the Herald invariably agree with President Mugabe? Has it ever done anything other than agree with President Mugabe? Isn’t it rather sad when a paper doesn’t have a view of its own but must wait for the president to pronounce on something and then rush to agree with him![more]

In the immediate aftermath of the July 11 World Cup bombings in Uganda, Timothy Kalyegira,(in picture) a controversial but hugely intelligent and critical journalist, through his The Uganda Record website immediately questioned the innocence of the Ugandan government and President Museveni in regard to the terror attacks. In his articles that are based on logic and analogy and highly placed sources (he locates some of his sources in intelligence circles), Kalyegira has been critical enough to pull out holes in the official version of the bombings and the investigations.[more]

With this striking image — “a people’s statute book is its bible of freedom” — a young journalist reminded the public of the threat to democracy posed by new censorship laws introduced in 19th- century Germany. [more]

I read the article in question and was surprised, not by the incredulity of the allegations for those aren’t new from Tim, but by what passed for ‘evidence’ to support them. Over the years Tim and myself have had a few interesting discussions that always end with either side agreeing to disagree.[more]

The Secretary General of the Press Union of Liberia Philip Sandi has made an impassioned plea to all groups funding the 2011 elections to ensure technical and financial support to private media entities and individual journalists covering the 2011 elections. [more]

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's social media was abuzz with users urging their friends to vote peacefully in Wednesday's referendum, or keeping followers abreast with events throughout the east African country.[more]

Google Uganda, on Monday launched two local language operations enabling about five million people access services in native languages. The launch of the Runyakitara and Luo languages at Makerere University in Kampala brings to five the number of local languages available on the Google Uganda domain.[more]

Timothy Kalyegira, a former Daily Monitor columnist and current publisher of an online newspaper, yesterday became the first Ugandan to face sedition charges arising from the use of new media. Police on Monday summoned Mr Kalyegira to appear for interrogation over reports that questioned whether it was really the Somali-based militants, the al-Shabaab, that bombed and killed atleast 80 people and injured others in Kampala last month.[more]

Radio France International’s FM signal in Benin was restored Tuesday after 14 hours of silence.[more]

"Telecom Namibia needs to change course and focus on profitability or face the risk of becoming another indebted state-owned enterprise (SOE) with decreasing significance for Namibia's telecommunication sector," leading telecoms expert Christopher Stork has warned in his latest review of the industry.[more]

With just a week to go to a presidential election on 9 August, the Rwandan authorities are openly flouting the rules of the democratic game. Press freedom violations, including the jailing of journalists, the closure of news media and the murder of a newspaper editor a month ago, have intensified in the run-up to the election.[more]

Chairperson of the Press Council of South Africa, Raymond Louw, on Monday took issue with a call by the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP) for a statutory media appeals tribunal. [more]

While I agree with the ANC that the news media in this country needs to be more accountable, trying to do this with the establishment of an independent appeals tribunal will end up creating a watchdog that not only has teeth but rabies as well.[more]

Despite a raft of objections to the government’s “secrecy bill” in last week’s public hearings, chief state law adviser Enver Daniels has declared the bill fully constitutional and has dismissed some of the submissions as “emotional and hysterical”. Significantly, Mr Daniels also emphatically rejected the numerous calls for a public interest defence for journalists and whistle-blowers exposing wrongdoing by the state. [more]

The Plateau Criminal Court in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Cote d'Ivoire, has convicted three detained editors of the privately-owned Le Nouveau Courrier newspaper over a charge of an "administrative theft".[more]

The Press Association of Zambia (PAZA) has objected to the removal of the appointments committee from the amended Independent Broadcasting Authority Act on grounds that it allows excessive powers to the minister of Information and Broadcasting Services.[more]

OnThursday, July 22, I woke up to news that Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, a Paris-based organisation, had called on Rwanda’s development partners to withdraw their financial support, particularly for the upcoming presidential elections. Of course RSF is as ignorant on the proportion of donor contribution towards the August 9 election budget, as it always is or pretends to be on Rwandan media, which it claims to speak for.[more]

The Big Read: The breadth, meaning and scope of what "the national interest" entails have been in the news of late. The topic comes up when clipping the wings of freedom of expression of the media - a new media tribunal is being discussed - and in the debate raging around the propriety and constitutionality of the draft Protection of Information Bill. [more]

The outcry over ZANU PF jingles being played twice every hour on state radio and television continues to rumble on, with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) vowing it will continue running them. Last Tuesday Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai used a cabinet meeting to protest the continued airing of the jingles, describing them as offensive and against the ‘spirit’ of the inclusive government. [more]

We will never be able to understand how or where these hapless people get their income until we understand their work conditions. In most cases, the journalist provides his own work tools – his computer, flash drives, and in a rare case that I know of, personal printer.[more]

SWAZI JOURNALISTS have been warned not to write bad stories about their country, and if they ignore a member of the Royal Family says they will die, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza.[more]

Chief state law advisor Enver Daniels on Tuesday dismissed an avalanche of criticism of the Protection of Information Bill as largely "emotional and hysterical" and insisted the draft act was constitutional. "In looking at these submissions, some of them are quite emotional and hysterical," he told Parliament's ad hoc committee scrutinising the bill, adding that very few of the objections aired have swayed the legislature's legal advisors.[more]

SOUTH African editors yesterday vowed to resist attempts to institute a state-appointed media tribunal and rejected legislation that they said restricted public access to information. The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) said yesterday that there was an existing system of media self-regulation, involving the Press Council and Press Ombudsman.[more]

On July 19, the 15th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union officially got underway in Kampala. Hundreds of delegates from Africa converged for what promised to be an eventful occasion. The significance of the event was not lost to local and international media, who dispatched journalists to cover proceedings. [more]

SINCE independence in 1980, a number of strategies have been hatched by successive boards that presided over the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation — renamed the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) following its unbundling into several strategic business units nearly a decade ago in failed attempts to transform its performance from being a perennial loss-maker that unashamedly suckles from the drying nipples of a sickly Treasury — into a self-sustaining business that contributes revenue to the same.[more]

THE Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) yesterday appeared to defy a Tuesday Cabinet directive to stop playing ZANU-PF jingles, which ridicule other partners in the shaky coalition government. The Financial Gazette has it on good authority that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy, Arthur Mutambara, ganged up against President Robert Mugabe at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting over the abuse of the State-broadcaster for partisan purposes, resulting in the decision ordering the dropping of the musicals.[more]

Edetaen Ojo is the Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, a group, which for more than 10 years has been in the forefront of campaigns for the passage of Freedom of Information Bill into law in Nigeria. In this interview with SNR CORRESPONDENT, Emma Maduabuchi, Ojo argues on the importance of the bill and why it should be passed into law. Excerpts:[more]

Justice Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court in Lagos has described the Nigerian Press Council Decree No. 85 of 1992 as amended by the Nigeria Press Council (Amendment) Decree No. 60 of 1999, as “oppressive, overbearing and grossly not compatible with the standard of a society.”[more]

Media groups have slammed a move by the Securities Commission of Zimbabwe (SEC) to register financial journalists as securities investor advisers, which some analysts say will be an effective media gag. In terms of the Securities Act, financial journalists will now be required to pay a license fee of $2 000 by December 31 2010, to report in their field. Media practitioners argue that this would result in over-regulation of media practitioners because financial journalists are already accredited by the statutory Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC). [more]

It seems the media in South Africa is again under dire threat of "anti-freedom" legislation reminiscent of the apartheid era, a group of three former newspaper editors said on Monday. The three, who each spent decades opposing press censorship in the apartheid era, issued a joint statement on the draft Protection of Information Bill -- now before Parliament -- and the proposed statutory media tribunal.[more]

A NEW RESEARCH REPORT paints a gloomy picture of the African continent's move to digital broadcasting, saying over half of the continent's countries would not make the switch ahead of the deadline, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza. The report by Balancing Act reveals over half of Africa’s 52 countries are unlikely to make the 2015 deadline set by the ITU for the transition to digital broadcasting.[more]

The Times Editorial: The South African National Editors' Forum ended its annual general meeting yesterday with a strong warning about potential threats to media freedom. Sanef "expressed its strong rejection of renewed proposals for a state-appointed tribunal and a growing slate of new legislation that is hostile to the free flow of information to South Africans". [more]

The moment the press of Liberia and ordinary citizens craved for so long berthed yesterday when members of the House of Representatives moved to pass the Freedom of Information Bill which lingered in the corridors for almost two years.[more]

The media’s shifty reaction to the SA Communist Party’s (SACP) online newsletter Red Alert – making the case for proper oversight over the fourth estate – was ­hardly surprising.[more]

Sixteen years after genocide, Rwanda is a relatively peaceful place. But recent events have raised doubts as to whether stability is coming at the expense of basic freedoms. Earlier this year, Rwanda suspended two newspapers critical of President Paul Kagame and arrested a presidential candidate, all in the name of a law preventing “genocide ideology.”[more]

CAPE TOWN — Parliament was warned yesterday that the government’s secrecy bill would not only offend press freedom but would also make it almost impossible for MPs to perform oversight over the activities of the executive.[more]

Ibadan — The release of the four kidnapped journalists unharmed by their abductors last Sunday in Abia State excited the Oyo State council of Obas and Chiefs, which described the moment of the 'incarceration' as tormenting and agonizing for the nation.[more]

tabled a new piece of legislation for comment — the Icasa Amendment Bill. On first reading it appears that its purpose is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). [more]

A meeting of the Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA) and its affiliate national unions and associations, this week, concluded in Kigali with a statement condemning what they called ‘politically motivated reports’ by some international media organisations. [more]

Recently, the East African Journalists Association (EAJA), in conjunction with the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) met in Kigali and agreed to change the trend set by the Western media watchdogs on the situation of media freedom in Africa. For many years, we have been treated to these skewed reports, the bitter truth being that we knew they held no element of fact, but rather based on sentiments and at times politically driven.[more]

THE advertising sector is watching the growing debate about whether publishers should introduce paywalls to online sites with some concern — unsure about the effect it will have on their businesses.[more]

WINDHOEK – The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has appointed former Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) marketing guru, Albertus Aochamub, as its Director General, the Board Chairperson Sven Thieme announced yesterday.[more]

Fear, loathing and anxiety, in the media, reminiscent of the PNDC days are here again, only one and half years after a change of administration from the NPP to the NDC. Following the arrest last week of Mr. Ato Kwamena Dadzie of Joy FM on the charge of antiquated criminal libel laws, Ghana's journalists have started cowering for cover. Only three months ago, the police acted in similar fashion when they picked up Nana Baafi Darkwah from Top Radio after he claimed that NDC leader Jerry John Rawlings had a hand in the burning of his residence in Ridge.[more]

The amended version of the Protection of Information Bill is worse than the original. Today and tomorrow a barrage of opposition will be directed by civil society organisations at meetings in Parliament against an amended version of the Protection of Information Bill. [more]

KATSINA—UMBRELLA body for editors in the country, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, has advised Nigerian journalists not to allow the ordeal of four of their colleagues who recently regained freedom from kidnappers to discourage them from performing their duties in any part of the country.[more]

A LOOK at the media in recent weeks shows that the ANC and its alliance partners, or at least their talking heads, are again, and rather predictably, getting a bit grumpy with the media and again raising the spectre of introducing a “media tribunal” (the mind boggles!)[more]

SWAKOPMUND - President Hifikepunye Pohamba has praised the print and electronic media for playing positive roles in educating the public during elections. Pohamba’s commendation was made in a speech read on his behalf by Deputy Prime Minister, Marco Hausiku, at the 12th annual general conference of the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC (ECF-SADC) in Swakopmund on Monday.[more]

SOWETAN’s digital platform, Sowetan LIVE, which is being relaunched today, has seen a 76% increase in users year on year, according to media rating agency Nielsen’s June rankings. The site, with an 82% local, largely black readership in living standards measures 7 to 8, has grown from 247236 unique users in June last year to 436354 unique users last month — evidence that digital is alive and growing among black audiences.[more]

THE telecommunications regulator has suspended its plans to issue four radio frequency licences, after companies objected to its auction process. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) had planned to auction the lucrative and scarce radio frequency spectrum, which is in the 2,6GHz and 3,5GHz bands. [more]

MANY years ago, in one of his albums, the late Reggae exponent, Peter Tosh asked this question: “Everybody is talking about crime, tell me, who are the criminals?” This becomes more relevant in our life as a country today.[more]

All the reporters in the world working all the hours of the day could not witness all the happenings in the world... and none of them has the power to be in more than one place at a time. Reporters are not clairvoyant, they do not gaze into a crystal ball and see the world at will, they are not assisted by thought-transference. Yet the range of subjects these comparatively few men manage to cover would be a miracle indeed, if it were not a standardized routine

– Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1946.[more]

The acting news editor of top radio station Joy FM, Ato Kwamena Dadzie, has been charged for false publication intended to cause fear and harm in the West African nation Ghana. However, media moguls have reacted angrily to the incident that stands to ruin Ghana's press freedom reputation.[more]

Top officials of Al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist movement vehemently opposing the Transitional Federal Government, opened a radio station in the central regions of Somalia on Sunday. Sheikh Abukar Zaila’i alias Ibrahim Al-Afghan, a senior Al-Shabaab official and Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Raghe alias Sheikh Ali Dhrere, the spokesman of the movement, attended the opening ceremony in Galgadud region.[more]

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has launched his campaign for the August 9 polls and promised free elections despite attacks, assassinations and arrests on the opposition. Human rights groups have also berated him for not protecting lives of innocent ones ahead of the tensed voting[more]

The Rwandan government has made remarkable strides in infrastructure, the economy, healthcare and gender equity in political representation, but their continued attack on independent thought and criticism is disheartening – and dangerous. As the August presidential election looms, it is important not only to hail Rwanda's success but also to ask hard questions about government abuse of authority.[more]

Good journalism should never be free of charge online. This is the view of Bronwen Auret, GM for BDFM Digital, part of the publishing joint venture between Avusa Media and Pearson, and publishers of Business Day, the Financial Mail, Summit TV the Home Channel; Ignition TV and Bignews. BDFM is currently planning to introduce paywalls for its BusinessDay and FinancialMail websites. [more]

Zimbabweans who do not have satellite dishes and decoders for alternative broadcast are stuck with what has become a regular feature of domestic television and radio programming: a jingle reminding them that President Robert Mugabe is still ruling. The jingle, touting Mugabe and his two deputies as "the winning team" and suggesting that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party are the "losers", is being played every 30 minutes on both radio and television.[more]

MultiChoice, Nigeria’s leading premium pay-TV provider, has introduced new activation options by short messages (sms) to help subscribers activate or reactivate their decoders after a period of inactivity, or loss of signal. Segun Fayose, Head of Corporate Communications, MultiChoice Nigeria, said the initiative is to help subscribers activate or re-activate their DStv services after payment of subscriptions has been made and service is not restored. He added that the innovation is a direct response to the yearning of subscribers who would rather use such a service than dial in to its customer service centre.[more]

THE media play a fundamental role in democracy through objective and thorough covering of elections in Namibia and in the SADC region. The role of the media, civil society and NGOs in election events was the key topic at the 12th annual conference of the SADC Electoral Commissions Forum being held in Swakopmund this week.[more]

Police in Burundi are holding a journalist for alleged "treason" for an article questioning whether the security forces could deal with an attack like one that hit Uganda a week ago, an official said. The July 11 bombings in Kampala claimed by Al Qaeda-inspired rebels killed at least 75 people watching the World Cup final in what the insurgents said was retaliation for Ugandan troops serving in Somalia, where Burundi also has soldiers participating in an African Union force.[more]

The Rwanda Information Office (ORINFOR) has announced plans to become a public service broadcaster. This means that the institution will start running programmes, publications and new media outputs that are driven by public and not political interests.[more]

The western media has been reporting about a hunt of journalists in Rwanda and an intended move to invoke the legacy of genocide and national security to silence independent voices in the media. Some international media organizations have apparently not been reading the articles for which journalists are incriminated, they have instead copied to us the same rhetoric/ statement used for all those arrested journalists in the past, in the name of media fraternity.[more]

WINDHOEK – The analogue system, widely used in the country for broadcasting and radio communication purposes, could soon be a thing of the past, as Namibia readies itself for full digitalised broadcasting in conformity with a global request set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that regulates information and communication technology issues worldwide.[more]

Malanje - Journalists from State-owned and private mass media institutions Tuesday in Malanje will discuss the topic “Freedom of press as ethics and professional deontology”, during the regional seminar on “violence at within society”, which runs as from Monday in the city.[more]

A comprehensive project to make a host of legal information available to users via a web interface was launched in Windhoek this week. This ambitious undertaking known as the Namibian E-Laws project is a tool to improve access to the law, not only by legal practitioners but also by the officials in the Ministry of Justice and by the public in general.[more]

ONLINE publishers would have more luck convincing advertisers to recognise the value of space and good content on their websites than convincing South Africans to pay for online information, internet publishers said yesterday. The recent economic slump took its toll on media and made many question their financial models, particularly their dependence on advertising.[more]

Somalia’s pro-government Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jama ordered two radio stations in central town of Aabudwaq to stop airing programmes that support radical group Al-Shabaab. The affected independent media, Caabud-waaq and Badbaado, operate in area controlled by the pro-government militia.[more]

Four journalists who were kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria were freed on Sunday. The journalists spent seven days in captivity and were reportedly released in a forest in a remote area of Abia state. Although the kidnappers originally demanded a ransom of 250 million naira (1.3 million euros), a police spokesperson said no money was paid.[more]

Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu recently ordered all ZBC radio and television stations to play ZANU PF propaganda jingles, produced by him, at least twice every hour.[more]

ABUJA—SENATE President, David Mark said, yesterday, the solution to the increasing wave of kidnapping and general insecurity in the South East lay in government declaring a state of emergency in Abia and any other state where it is rampant.[more]

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) is today discussing the pros and cons of paying for online content. A number of key players in the digital media industry have converged on Avusa media building in Rosebank to discuss one of the most contentious issues in the online industry.[more]

The Federation of african journalists (Faj), the African regional organization of the International Federation of Journalists (Ifj), has learnt with deep sorrow the sudden and untimely death of prominent Cameroonian journalist and press freedom defender, Pius Njawe.[more]

The contemporary media has some members who are sitting on a moral high throne, putting everyone under their microscope and pretending to do their duty without minding the consequences of their actions or in-actions. You cannot accuse the media of bias, with the burden of trust placed over their shoulders, which, as an organ of public opinion, are destined to perform its task in concert with social conscience, being independent in all things and neutral in nothing.[more]

The darkest of clouds hangs over South African journalism this week, following the admission by a former Cape Argus reporter that he took money from an ANC politician to assist in his intra-party battles. Former political reporter Ashley Smith says the then-premier and now ambassador-elect Ebrahim Rasool gave contracts to his wife’s company and worked with him and his political editor, Joseph Arenes, to plot against Rasool’s rivals in the ANC. Arenes and Rasool deny it.[more]

KIGALI - One of the two suspects in the murder of local journalist, Jean Leonard Rugambage, yesterday told court that he shot Rugambage out of anger and pleaded for forgiveness and a lighter sentence.[more]

STATE House has advised the media in Zambia to be extra cautious with stories they source from disgruntled politicians which are totally wrong and bent on tarnishing the name of President Rupiah Banda.[more]

Rhoda Kadalie’s column (Stench of secrecy in Rasool spin scandal, July 13) is true to form, trying to score a point based on her political perspectives regardless of the facts. She makes an astonishing array of errors of fact, shepherding them together to reach the conclusion that I conspired to cover up allegations that journalists on the Cape Argus were financially rewarded for giving favourable coverage to a faction of the African National Congress (ANC).[more]

A new text service to report hate speech in Kenya has been launched ahead of a referendum on a new constitution.[more]

THE Third Session of Zimbabwe’s Seventh Parliament is set to bring in media reforms as outlined in the Global Political Agreement signed between Zimbabwe’s three main political parties in 2008. Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC signed the GPA ahead of the formation of the inclusive Government in February last year.

[more]

Yonas Embye has been holding weekly one man protest in Uganda calling for the release of Eritrean journalists held unjustly in his native country Eritrea. The journalist and rights activist was jailed for four years before he eventually escaped.[more]

Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza has instructed his attorney to sue several newspapers for millions over reports he claims have defamed his character and impaired his dignity, his lawyer said on Tuesday.[more]

FOUR NIGERIAN journalists that were ambushed and kidnapped have narrated how they ran into armed gunmen along Ikot-Ekpene-Aba road, write Kunle Akogun and Gboyega Akinsami in ThisDay.[more]

Johannesburg — WORLD Cup local organising committee head Danny Jordaan can be forgiven a bit of a gloat as he basks in the glory of SA having hosted a brilliantly successful event.[more]

The International Press Institute in Vienna, Austria Thursday 8th July named Gambian publisher and editor Pap Saine an IPI World Press Freedom Hero in honour of his courageous work for press freedom. Pap Saine is the Co-publisher and editor of The Point, and the dean of Reuters’ correspondents in West and Central Africa.[more]

The Federal Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Federal High Court, which rejected a 20.4 million Br defamation claim by real estate pioneer Ayat SC, against Independent News & Media Plc (INMP), publisher and distributor of Fortune newspaper.[more]

ON JUNE 30, the Cape Argus emblazoned across its pages the revelation that two of its journalists were paid by former premier Ebrahim Rasool ’s office to pursue his agenda. Ashley Smith, I suspect, decided to reveal all because he felt aggrieved that he was fired, while fellow journalist Joseph Aranes was reinstated in another position. In an editorial in that same edition, editor Chris Whitfield professed his and his predecessor’s ignorance of the saga, explaining that they investigated immediately upon hearing rumours about what was taking place. [more]

The pernicious and pervasive form of corruption in Nigeria today requires proper definition, characterization and examination relative to the role of the mass media in tackling it for a better society. Corruption, like the so-called oldest profession, prostitution, itself a form of corruption, means to destroy or break, from its Latin origin. Its established synonyms which are horrible include: bestiality, depravity, dishonesty, improbity, crookedness, barbarism, solecism and vulgarism.[more]

Following the kidnapping of the Chairman of the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Wahab Oba and three others, Minister of Information and Communication, Prof Dora Akunyili, yesterday in Abuja said the incessant cases of kidnapping in the country leading to the ugly incident involving four Nigerian journalists over the weekend is a challenge to national security.[more]

Inspector-General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo, has told the evil men involved in kidnapping business to prepare for war with the Nigeria Police Force.Less than 24 hours after President Goodluck Jonathan directed the IGP and other security agencies to smoke out kidnappers of four journalists, the police boss and senior officers of State Security Services (SSS) yesterday relocated to Abia State.[more]

SEACOM, the broadband cable operator, said yesterday that a major fault in its cable north of Kenya would be fixed only around July 22, more than a week later than first hoped.[more]

After decades of enduring tyranny, the democratic experiment, which began after the deserved exit of Mr. Charles Taylor following the self-inflicted fall of the military junta, is taking its casualties. Both Mr. Taylor and junta leader Gen. Samuel Doe blamed the media for all their self-made woes, and they did not relent in unleashing harsh punishments including death in their futile dream of seeking compliance.[more]

South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu has thrown his weight behind the Declaration of Table Mountain which calls on governments in Africa to review and repeal laws restricting the media. The Declaration of Table Mountain issued in 2007 at the annual conference of the World Association of Newspapers in Cape Town, South Africa, calls on African governments "as a matter of urgency" to abolish all laws that restrict press freedom, to release jailed journalists, abolish draconian press laws and recognise the importance of press freedom for economic, political and social development.[more]

More than ten civil society organizations and two government agencies have established a consortium on Freedom of Information in Liberia. The consortium will work with government to advance the right of access to information in Liberia by passing the Freedom of Information bill into law, raising awareness about the importance of the right of access to information in a democratic society, and pushing for the full implementation of the law.[more]

City Press breached the press code with an opinion piece in April that implied Ventersdorp mayor Kabelo Mashi was murdered by right-wing extremists, the deputy press ombudsman has found.[more]

There is very little journalists like to talk about more than journalism, by which we mean not the trade itself, which is often a strange mixture of pressured and dull, but the big stories.[more]

The Opposition camp in Parliament has called for the immediate nullification of the Newspaper Act of 1976 which gives the minister of Information, Culture and Sports excessive control over media operations in the country.[more]

Kenya’s state broadcaster faces a massive crisis. It is burdened with crippling debt, demoralized staff, ancient equipment and its credibility is at a low ebb. As Dennis Itumbi writes exclusively for jocoza, various stakeholders blame each other, but solutions are in short supply. [more]

The Attorney General (AG) on Friday defended the counter-claim against the currently closed CBS radio, saying it was filed at the High Court to protect the general public. [more]

Close to N$350 000 was not small change to lose for an already struggling Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). In fact, this was “a burden” for its “financial dire straits”.So said Ben Biwa, former NBC board member, in the fraud trial of the former director general of the NBC, Gerry Munyama, in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.[more]

The Media High Council has called upon all media organs that have not fully registered as stipulated in the new media law, to do so by Friday July 18, or face not being registered, making them illegal.[more]

The financial dire straits the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has been experiencing for years were placed under the spotlight again yesterday during the trial of its former boss, Gerry Munyama. Testifying on behalf of the State in the High Court in Windhoek, former NBC Board chairman Uazuva Kaumbi said during his term, which lapsed in May 2005, Cabinet had to come to the national broadcaster’s rescue with a N$100 million bailout.[more]

The darkest of clouds hangs over South African journalism this week, following the admission by a former Cape Argus reporter that he took money from an African National Congress (ANC) politician to assist in his intraparty battles. Former political reporter Ashley Smith says then-premier and now ambassador-elect Ebrahim Rasool gave contracts to his wife’s company and worked with him and his political editor, Joseph Aranes, to plot against Rasool’s rivals in the ANC. Aranes and Rasool deny it.[more]

The Prosecution has revealed the names of two suspects who were arrested recently in connection with the murder of local journalist, Jean Leonard Rugambage. Rugambage was shot dead on June 24, as he entered his home in the Kigali suburb of Nyamirambo.[more]

The trial of the Daily Monitor editors, who allegedly doctored President Yoweri Museveni's letter, failed to take off on Monday. Pauline Among, a state attorney, informed court that the state attorney who was meant to handle the case had been transferred.[more]

Sam Rogers of e.tv recently won the top prize at this year’s CNN MultiChoice African Journalist 2010 Awards for her 36-minute documentary on Tanzania’s albino people, who face discrimination every day and are victims in a growing trade in albino body parts.[more]

The Nampula City Court on Thursday acquitted journalist Anuncio da Silva, Nampula correspondent of the weekly paper "Canal de Mocambique", of libel charges brought against him by Luis Vasconcelos, President of the Nampula Road Transport Organisation (ASTRA).[more]

I’ve been on the Mo Ibrahim Governance for Development in Africa (GDIA) Fellowship at the University of London for the past two months, but, trust me, I’ve kept a close tab on events in Nigeria. As I was putting finishing touches to my research, news broke that President Goodluck Jonathan had reversed his decision to withdraw Nigeria from international football for two years. At first, I said: “Another Yar’Adua is born!” The late President Yar’Adua was popularly known for changing his mind every second. [more]

Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, has called on relevant security agencies in the country to join forces with the Nigeria Police to smoke out the criminals who abducted officials of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Abia State,Sunday morning.[more]

In countries that have liberalised their airwaves, radio has become one of the most crowded sectors. Some countries have well over 100 radio stations. The stars of this upsurge have been vernacular radio stations that broadcast in local languages, often on a local or regional basis.[more]

International media rights groups say Somalia's U.N.-backed government is threatening and harassing journalists covering the violent fighting in the capital, Mogadishu. According to media watchdogs, Somali journalist Mohammed Ibrahim received death threats and was hunted down by government intelligence officials for assisting the New York Times newspaper on a story that caused a furor in the United States.[more]

A cheeky campaign putting the country’s elite military junta under the spotlight in neighbouring South Africa has prompted both giggles and gasps in and around Johannesburg. The unusual campaign which has been well received by Zimbabweans in Johannesburg features a bus embellished with the pictures of the members of the Joint Operations Command (JOC).[more]

The best way to get students to learn faster is to have them involved in classroom activities. That is why teachers in Pader District have resorted to using Daily Monitor newspapers as one of their teaching tools. As Steven Tendo writes, the project has borne fruits:[more]

The Somali National Union of Journalists (NUSOJ) wants government forces held accountable for what they say was a deliberate mortar and grenade attack on the media during a press conference held by Islamist group Al Shabaab that left eight journalists badly injured, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

Senior ANC members in Western Cape yesterday hit back at former premier Ebrahim Rasool, saying they would not spare anyone who besmirched their reputations.[more]

Scientists have found a new use for social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter — disseminating their research findings. Though the practice is yet to take root in East Africa, social media are fast gaining popularity among the scientific community in many parts of the world.[more]

It's a four-and-a-half-hour flight or a three-day drive to get from Uganda to the World Cup in South Africa. Combine that with ticket prices of 80 dollars (65 euros) apiece for the cheap seats, and the first World Cup on African soil is beyond reach for almost all Ugandans, whose average income is just over one dollar a day[more]

Anybody who grew up around the 80s and 90s in the eastern and southern parts of Nigeria will recall with nostalgia the activities of a few individuals who made listening to radio a pleasure. I remember how as young men growing up in Aba, the commercial city of Abia state we were all addicted to Radio Rivers 2 (FM Stereo). I can still recall their 'Radio Rivers Two, FM stereo' trademark station jingle.[more]

All departments in the provincial government are to be audited to establish what money may have been paid to a company linked to former Cape Argus journalists who are alleged to have spin-doctored stories for former premier Ebrahim Rasool.[more]

The MISA regional secretariat has stated that the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) should not be killed before it is born. In a statement issued after meeting information minister Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha, MISA stated that statutory regulation in all its forms should have no place in a fledgling democratic nation like Zambia.[more]

When the head of the Catholic Church in Malawi, Archbishop Tarcicius Ziyaye, Friday officially launched the products of Montfort media, a newspaper, two magazines and a TV station, it was the culmination of a humble journey that started 25 years ago with the publication of a church leaflet.[more]

Civil society organisations yesterday condemned the Protection of Information Bill as a violation of press freedom and of the right to information contained in the constitution. The bill, which sets out the grounds for classifying government information and provides harsh penalties for any transgression, is before Parliament for a second time after the first attempt was similarly criticised about two years ago[more]

When the Broadcasting Corporation Board of Directors sent its managing director and corporation secretary packing, media pundits were not surprised. Five years from now, anyone appointed to replace the MD will suffer the same fate, unless the cancer killing KBC since the late 1980s is cured.[more]

A former Cape Argus journalist has finally owned up to long-standing allegations that he secretly served as an embedded spindoctor to former ANC Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool while working as a political reporter for this newspaper.[more]

Namibia -based Trustco Group, which last month was awarded R24,7m plus interest in arbitration proceedings against the SABC for breach of contract, said yesterday it would ask for more money. [more]

If the media covered America the way we cover Africa, here's what we would know of the United States over the last decade. That in 2000 there were fiercely disputed elections in which the presidency was seized by the candidate who won fewer votes than his rival. That a year later, one of the country's major cities was rocked by a devastating terror attack, costing thousands of lives. And that in 2005 another key city was submerged in record floods, destroying homes and leaving a thousand dead after the dominant tribe left the minority tribe to their fate. Surely we would speak of America as the dark continent, cursed to face constant suffering.[more]

An independent report on media coverage of the 2009 campaign for Mozambique's presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections, requested by the National Union of Journalists (SNJ) found that the ruling Frelimo Party received the greatest share of the coverage, not only on publicly owned media, such as Mozambican Television (TVM) and Radio Mozambique, but also in the print media, regardless of their ownership and political stance.[more]

The newsheet "Canal de Mocambique" has apologised for publishing a false story on trafficking of children between Mozambique and South Africa.On Monday, the paper claimed that 20 children, aged between 9 and 16, were found inside a truck from Mozambique at the Komatipoort border post in South Africa. The children were supposedly found inside cardboard boxes, covered with blankets.[more]

Relationships between some Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) members have reached rock bottom. The main characters in the latest saga are SPYL secretary Elijah Ngurare, executive member Clinton Swartbooi and Henny Seibeb – an employee at the ruling party’s headquarters.

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Minister of Communication and Information, Professor Dora Akunyuli, and Association Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) have disagreed on the modalities of operation in the telecom sector. The minister last week in Abuja bared the minds of the Federal Government and Nigerians concerning the poor quality of telecom services in the country over the 78 million subscriber-base and the huge investment over the years. [more]

Premium television channels providers are increasing investments, hoping to cash in on new opportunities as Kenya gears up for migration to digital broadcasting.East Africa Capital Partners (EACP), the majority owners of Wananchi Group, have invested Sh1.54 billion in the telecom to expand its satellite and cable pay-TV offerings.[more]

The selection of a head of news at the SABC will go ahead as planned with the interview panel resuming its assessment of four candidates for the position, a senior staff member close to the broadcaster’s board confirmed yesterday. [more]

It is very easy these days for Government Officials to accuse Journalists of being engaged in what they term as irresponsible Journalism. These authorities often blame the journalists of writing without conducting any form of investigation. They often blame the media for writing speculations just to sell their papers. Now Foroyaa is calling on those who levy such allegations against the Media to practice what they preach. We have been trying to investigate many issues of Public Concern, but all too often officials hide behind the claim that they are public servants and could not comment without authorisation from the Head of the Public Service. [more]

You don’t have to be very bright to guess what I am not going to tell you. What you are reading today is a completely different column from what it should have been, because for a political journalist who has been in the ‘mix’ long enough, there is only one issue I should have been writing about today - Wednesday June 23 – to be published Saturday June 26 of course.[more]

Namibian Broadcasting Corporation Board Chairperson, Sven Thieme, says the appointment of the director-general for the national broadcaster has not yet been finalised.[more]

It is very sad and tragic that one of us was murdered in cold blood on Thursday night as he returned to his home. The media fraternity lost one of its own, Jean Leonard Rugambage, and he can never be replaced.[more]

Jonathan Shapiro's cartoon of "Lady Justice" about to be raped by ANC president Jacob Zuma with the help of his political allies did not constitute hate speech, unfair discrimination or a violation of any human right enshrined in the ­Constitution, the South African Human Rights Commission has found.[more]

Jean Leonard Rugambage, a Rwandan editor of Umuvugizi, a vernacular newspaper that was closed by government has been shot dead.Rwanda National police spokesperson, Eric Kayiranga told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that an assailant shot the acting editor of Umuvugizi as he drove through the gate of his home in the capital, Kigali, around 10 pm.“At the moment, we are yet to establish who is involved in the killing and police are currently conducting investigations and we will provide information as it comes,” the police spokesperson added.[more]

THE SABC BOARD has won its battle over the controversial appointment of Phil Molefe as head of news, write Xolani Mbajwa and Gaye Davis in the Saturday Star. An interview panel will continue its assessment of candidates for the position and make recommendations to the board, in terms of an agreement brokered by Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda.[more]

After analysing the content of speeches made by certain politicians in the recent past, it is obvious that matters were bound to come to some unpleasant end. While the speakers appeared to exercise freedom of expression, a fundamental right when addressing rallies and media, it was clear their acts were infringing on the rights of other Kenyans. Consequently, recent arrests and appearance in court of a number of politicians in the ‘No’ camp was no surprise to many political analysts.[more]

Editors have called for an end to a monopoly of live broadcasts of parliamentary proceedings. The Editors Guild on Thursday said the monopoly enjoyed by state broadcaster KBC to provide live feeds to other media houses compromised quality. [more]

Television programming in Zimbabwe has steadily changed over the years. Viewers can now look forward to watch good programmes on the country's two local television channels without feeling bored or better still cheated as was the case before.[more]

The Malawi Law Society (MLS) has joined Malawi media practitioners in condemning government for preventing private radio and television stations from covering important events live, describing it as illegal.[more]

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma ’s personal life continues to tax our journalistic ethics. The allegation that one of his wives was cast out of the homestead after an affair with a bodyguard, who later committed suicide, came from an anonymous letter delivered to four newspapers. It was surprising to see these allegations appear in the media with little clarity on the veracity of the letter and its contents.[more]

The country’s largest mobile phone operator, Econet Wireless, has been forced to pull the plug on the use of some of its numbers for an audio news and information service recently launched by the MDC-T. [more]

Assistant Secretary General, Slaj United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon has denounced the use of the criminal libel law; re-echoing something the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has been saying for ages.[more]

Three Vernacular stations are on the spot over hate speech in Kenya, allegedly aired as part of the ongoing constitutional referendum campaigns, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza. The National Cohesion and Reconciliation committee has already warned that the three risk being pulled off air in accordance with a new law outlawing hate speech in the country and their editors face long terms in jail.

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In the dim and distant days before the World Cup swept all else before it, there was another story that dominated the headlines: allegations of infidelity against one of President Jacob Zuma's wives. In the latest of her Backstory series, Gill Moodie unpacks the story of this story: smears, sourcing and privacy. [more]

At the receent launch of The Last Flight, a book and documentary of the activities of the defunct Biafran Air Force, by Captain August Okpe, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), an ugly incident that completely embarrassed journalists was witnessed.[more]

A tabloid newspaper has been censured by the press ombudsman for not clearly stating that pictures it published of a man seemingly about to "bite" a cat and "slaughter" a dog were staged, according to a report on iol.co.za. [more]

Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change party, the MDC, has launched a unique new radio news service via telephone, writes Dumi Sigogo for jocoza. The audio news service, known as The Voice of Real Change, is a first by any political party in Zimbabwe and in the region.

[more]

The SOS Campaign has challenged the SABC board to explain its lack of action on what it sees as “serious corporate governance breaches at the broadcaster”, including censorship of comments critical of the appointment of the head of news. SOS, which represents a wide selection of community and industry bodies, said the public was losing faith in the SABC’s ability to reinvent itself as a “well governed, strong, powerful, democracy-enriching institution”.[more]

The press ombudsman yesterday dismissed a complaint against the Sunday Times by a senior member of staff at the South African embassy in Harare.[more]

The Advertising Association of Ghana has rejected a 600 percent increase in monies they pay to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly for outdoor advertising permits.[more]

The board of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has decided to re-advertise the post of director general and extend the application deadline. In a media statement NBC board chairman Sven Thieme said the board decided “to further enhance the recruitment process of the coveted position.”

[more]

Authorities in Ethiopia expelled a Voice of America radio journalist who had been reporting near a rebel area in the east of the Horn of Africa country, a media watchdog said Saturday.[more]

The Communications Commission of Kenya will on Monday kick off the registration of Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) cards. This is in pursuant of a government directive last year that all SIM cards have to be registered, to boost national security and help fight phone-related crime. [more]

A Judicial Court in the northern town of Nampula on Wednesday sentenced Vasco da Gama, former correspondent of the weekly paper "Magazine Independent", (MI) to four months in jail converted into a fine, and payment of compensation of 50,000 meticais (about 1,470 US dollars) to the Renamo political delegate in that province, Lucia Afate.[more]

Information and Broadcasting Services Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha has said the Government cannot be an enemy of the media because if it were, it would not have facilitated for their consultative travel around the region. [more]

Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Joel Kaapanda, speaks to New Era about the Communications Act, for the first time since the much-publicised piece of legislation was gazetted in November 2009. Since coming into effect almost eight months ago, many Namibians have jokingly asked if their communications to others, telephonic or otherwise, were being intercepted.[more]

Journalists and bloggers around the world will remember May 17, 2010, as a celebration of their vocation, their commitment to truth, and their right to information. On that day, President Barack Obama signed legislation that reinforced the commitment of the United States of America to ensure freedom of the press, including bloggers, around the world—the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. [more]

Africa’s hosting the World Cup this year demonstrates that the continent is emerging as an important player on the world stage. Yet Africa is a continent where optimism and pessimism for the future exist side by side. It is a continent with the much-needed natural resources, yet progress is stymied by lack of infrastructure, good investment policies, poverty, violence, political and economic inequalities[more]

The managing editor of NewsDay was forced to resign from his post at the weekend following reported poor performance of the daily newspaper that was launched about a week ago.The newspaper is part of the Alpha Media Group owned by Mr Trevor Ncube.[more]

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has, upon request by the Namibian government, offered to second an expert to the country to help with the full implementation of the newly gazetted Communications Act.[more]

President Ernest Bai Koroma says there should be no discrimination in the use of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) facilities and equipments. He made this statement during the commissioning of the SLBC facilities and handing over of its equipments to the chairman Board of Trustees of the station, Prof. Septimus Kaikai.[more]

President Sirleaf's recent briefing of the nation, through "The Analyst" interview, has produced three results, two of which are commendable. The third, though, raises a fundamental issue that requires a renewed commitment on the part of the administration, if the President’s commitment to transforming Liberia through institutional and administrative reforms must become a reality. First, the briefing gave the Liberian citizens and foreign diplomats a panoramic view of what obtained during the President’s much-heralded and near-controversial Washington trip. It no doubt helped dismiss speculations about the supposed diminishing impact of US-Liberia relations on the nation’s recovery agenda. Second, it dealt a coup de grace to opinion held by many that the intervention response of the international community to Liberia’s recovery efforts depends solely on the spur-of-the-moment hankering of the political opposition and pressure or interest groups. The briefing did not tell the full story, but it gave each and every thinking Liberian and the civil society the opportunity to gauge the future of the country and, based on that, decide in what way and manner to engage the government. All this is fine and we think the President has done a great job.[more]

The government’s failure to table before Parliament The Media Services Bill, alleged threats and harassment of journalists reporting negative stories about high senior politicians, have marred the country’s human rights record.[more]

Members of the National Council are of the opinion that the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) is doing a great service to the nation despite having serious financial constraints.[more]

The former correspondent of the extremist Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and proprietor of a Kinyarwanda publication, Kamarampaka, has lost his appeal to a life passed by a Gacaca Court in Kimisagara Sector, Nyarugenge District.[more]

The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Abuja Council has called on the FCT Commissioner of Police, Mr. John Haruna to concentrate on tackling security issues in the territory rather than threatening journalists. [more]

The telecommunications regulator has extended the deadline for the scarce radio frequency spectrum licenses to the end of next month[more]

African gay activists in Africa and in the diaspora are increasingly using the Internet to have their voices heard, while still trying to figure out how to advance homosexual rights on the continent. [more]

President Goodluck Jonathan has approved re-appointment of Oluremi Oyo as Managing Director/CEO of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). The approval, for another term of three years, came through a letter to Oyo from Minister of Information and Communications, Dora Akunyili.[more]

While the 32 countries are battling on the field for World Cup glory, off field South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and SuperSport, a pay per view channel, are involved in a broadcasting war here in South Africa.[more]

More than 11 million South African television viewers watched the Soccer World Cup opening match between South Africa and Mexico, The Nielsen Company said. [more]

Kenyan Broadcasters will have to apply for new licenses in the next three months and subscribe to a new programming code as the government began implementing the Kenya Communications Amendment Act of 2009, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional director Kaitira Kandjii has called on the Zambian government to stop viewing the media as an enemy.[more]

Local commercial radio stations have a nasty habit of ‘theft’ of other people’s works and the powers that be in this country’s journalism circles, whether it’s the Editor’s Forum or the newly established office of the Media Ombudsman, should step in to restore order in this regard.[more]

Perhaps it is time for the Ministry of Information to tell the country what is happening in terms of the hastily passed Communications Act which provides for the interception of communications. I ask because I have been told that my calls, possibly e-mails also, are being scrutinised, and many other folk, ruling party members too, are similarly said to be under the watchful eye of the so-called intelligence services.[more]

Zimbabwe's Chief Law Officer has conceded that the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, which criminalizes publishing or communicating false statements, is vague and should be redrafted, writes Dumi Sigogo for jocoza.[more]

M-NET and e.tv are putting pressure on the government not to adopt Japanese digital broadcasting technology, saying that it would cost an additional R2,2bn in decoder subsidies and jeopardise meeting the deadline to switch off the analogue signal. [more]

As the World Cup kicks-off this weekend, a battle over who has the rights to broadcast the games on television and radio is set to emerge. [more]

Following a series of meetings between the president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists and the chairman, board and other commissioners and members of the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), the annual spectrum fee for radio stations has been halved for community radios throughout the country.[more]

Police yesterday promised to take action against one of their members who attacked a Daily Monitor photographer as he took pictures of policemen and members of the Kiboko Squad beating up opposition supporters.[more]

President Ben Ali’s decision, to hold periodic meetings bringing together ministers and various stakeholders in open debates to be aired by the national television received wide international media coverage.[more]

The activists on the flotilla that sought to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza last week had multiple video cameras beaming live images from their ships on to satellites, and from there to the internet, and it was made available to any television network that needed images. They had media people posted in third countries, available to answer questions and feed information.[more]

No matter how you view it, journalism all over the world is a profession under siege, according to a panel of experts which discussed the profession in Kampala, Uganda, recently. [more]

Independent film and documentary producers have warned that they will be forced to close their doors if SABC’s new board does not soon issue proposals for new local programmes, as promised.[more]

Somalia’s Al-Shabaab militant group has issued a religious ruling “Islamic Fatwa” against Somali British-based Universal TV and its staff.

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Post editor-in-chief Fred M’membe yesterday wondered what President Rupiah Banda and his corrupt system had achieved from his incarceration.[more]

At least five newspapers in Sudan are protesting a move by government to re-introduce pre-publication censorship, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza. One of them has suspended publication for a week in protest at the moves. [more]

The world's biggest sporting event is about to become the world's largest experiment in social media, too. The FIFA World Cup 2010 kicks off on Friday, and already there’s buzz about the role the social media will play in the action off the field — and perhaps on. [more]

What do the sudden “resignation” of Telkom CE Reuben September and the recent “appointment” of SABC head of news Phil Molefe have in common? For one, the chairmen of these two companies don’t seem to know how to behave. [more]

Days before kick-off, answers to who cashed in on the millions spent on the Soccer World Cup will finally be forthcoming after a Mail & Guardian court victory on Tuesday to access tender documents[more]

President Yoweri Museveni has summoned Cabinet for an impromptu meeting to discuss the fate of Buganda Kingdom’s closed Central Broadcasting Station FM radio. Details emerging indicate that Cabinet was meant to meet on Friday to discuss the outcome of the Cabinet sub-committee report and adopt a final position but the meeting was cancelled and postponed to Monday.[more]

Sudanese newspaper Ajras al-Huriya said on Sunday it would suspend publication for one week to protest against censorship by government and security authorities. Several other papers reported they were directly or indirectly censored over the course of last weekend in Africa's largest country, particularly with regard to news about a doctor's strike or the International Criminal Court.[more]

The country’s first independent daily newspaper in seven years was this week being sold on the streets. Last Friday NewsDay, owned by Alpha Media Holdings, distributed free promotional copies of the paper. But on Monday morning it was time for the real business to begin as they began selling an estimated 20 000 copies of the paper to excited but slightly nervous readers.[more]

The Presidency is up in arms with the media, accusing reporters of undermining the right to privacy and dignity of president Jacob Zuma and his family after several newspapers last week published 'saucy' revelations about Zuma's second wife Nompumelelo Ntuli (MaNtuli)'s alleged extra-marital affair with her late bodyguard.[more]

The South African government has been ordered to release a hidden report on the 2002 elections in Zimbabwe, after a successful court bid by a local newspaper. Since 2008 the Mail & Guardian has been trying to have the report released, amid widespread speculation that it contained evidence showing that Zimbabwe’s 2002 disputed election was not free or fair. [more]

Among self appointed messiahs, newspaper columnists here or anywhere else rank quite high. From the privacy of our studies, we pontificate and adjudicate. Assured of the unnamed immunity of our media affiliation (fourth estate of no realm!), we condemn, prescribe and generally treat authority and our fellow citizens sometimes with patronising condescension. If the columnist in question is tolerably knowledgeable, we can put up with the arrogance. [more]

A REPORT reveals that 33 journalists have been killed so far this year, with those deaths that took place in South America largely linked to coverage of drug trafficking. [more]

The SA National Editors' Forum has condemned the jailing of legendary editor Fred M'membe of The Post, Zambia's most popular newspaper, for four months with hard labour for contempt of court.[more]

A recent set of exposes around corruption around the World Cup came out of an unusual partnership between journalists at a couple of newspapers and academics. Writing exclusively for journalism.co.za, Gill Moodie looks behind the story to see what new pathways it opens for investigative journalism[more]

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is divided over whether or not to retain former chairman of the disbanded Media and Information Commission (MIC) Tafataona Mahoso as chief executive officer, with veteran journalist Henry Muradzikwa threatening to resign if he is appointed.[more]

A Zambia court has sentenced The Post's Editor-in-Chief Fred M’membe to four months imprisonment with hard labour for contempt of court following his conviction two days earlier. Passing sentence in Lusaka on Friday, Magistrate David Simusamba also jailed Mr M’membe to four months simple imprisonment, on behalf of The Post newspaper, which was also facing contempt charges.[more]

When the vice-Prime minister and minister of finance barred journalists of La Sentinelle group from a press conference he was holding, he flouted a sacrosanct principle which is the right of access of journalists to information.[more]

The introduction by registration of five new publications marks a bold era for the Fourth Estate in Zimbabwe. It also poses challenges especially to four interest groups that include journalists, media houses, political organisations and readers who form the point of convergence for all the activities by the foregoing groups.[more]

It’s probably early days yet, but this debate is bound to become more intense and even ferocious with time. This is the debate on the unfolding invasion, perceived in some quarters as career threatening, of the conventional journalism turf by so called “citizen journalism.” [more]

There was some reason to hope, as the administration of President Jacob Zuma took office last year, that the era of idiocy at the SABC might be over. Retired general Siphiwe Nyanda, the new communications minister, was, after all, a military man who could knock together the heads of warring managers and directors at the broadcaster.[more]

Two staff members from Zimbabwe’s first independent daily newspaper in seven years, were arrested on Friday when the paper hit the streets for the first time.[more]

An informal meeting of donor countries labeled ‘Friends of Zimbabwe’ has been urged to support foreign based media outlets, the constitution making process and civil society groups working to safeguard people’s rights. [more]

Intervention by Communications Minister Gen Siphiwe Nyanda in the dispute over the appointment of SABC’s head of news would undermine the broadcaster’s new board, says the Save Our SABC coalition. [more]

Elections are about citizens having their say. They exercise this sacred right by casting a vote to decide how they are governed and by whom.[more]

Journalists have been urged to be bound by their professional ethics during the forthcoming presidential elections, especially by giving all candidates balanced coverage during the campaigns.[more]

ON world Press Freedom Day the Ugandan press asked the Government to grant them more liberty and freedom to keep the public informed.[more]

By Henrique Almeida LUANDA (Reuters) - A new player in Angola's media market believed to have strong links to the government said on Friday it had bought three of Angola's most independent newspapers, raising fears of censorship in the African nation. Media Investments, whose owners are unknown, said in a statement it had acquired Semanario Angolense, A Capital and a 40 percent stake of Novo Jornal, all of which have been popular for reporting on government corruption.[more]

A Lusaka Magistrate has convicted Zambia’s leading editor Fred M’membe on contempt of court charge.[more]

Although the Central Broadcasting Services radio is still closed, the poll says most Ugandans are satisfied with the way the Central Government has handled Buganda Kingdom and its other demands like land, the role of the Kabaka in politics, and federal system of government, writes Monitor Reporter.[more]

A 60 day long reality television programme aimed at reversing youth problems in Nigeria will soon make its debut, National Orientation Agency (NOA) Director General Alhaji Idi M. Faruk has said.[more]

The stakes and expectations are high as South Africa hosts the 2010 FIFA World Cup.[more]

Die Son tabloid newspaper has been ordered by the Western Cape High Court to pay Cape Town attorney Natheem Albertus R150 000 in damages for defamation.
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The crisis at the SABC deepened yesterday as it emerged that the head of radio news had asked for early retirement under pressure, and CEO Solly Mokoetle told senior staff that Phil Molefe had been appointed head of news.[more]

NINE JOURNALISTS working with the Southern Sudan Television and Radio are still being held at a secret location a week after their arrest following a strike to demand improved working conditions, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

The Freedom Front Plus has lodged a complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission against e.tv journalist Deborah Patta over "intimidating journalism".
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PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has urged media houses in Africa to define and play their role in the socio-economic transformation of the continent.[more]

Freetown — President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, Umaru Fofana says the civil war in Sierra Leone may have ended eight years ago but that there was a sustained war against the country's journalists.[more]

A Somali media outlet has secretly moved its headquarters from insurgent-controlled market Bakara in the capital Mogadishu, Radio Garowe reports.[more]

Having fully settled as President of Nigeria, there is urgent need for President Goodluck Jonathan to address the issue of the position of Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).[more]

The switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting could be delayed by at least a few months, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda said yesterday, as the technical standards to be used in the manufacture of set-top boxes were under review.[more]

The Government has commended the Japanese government for supporting the growth of the media industry in Zambia. [more]

PORT HARCOURT—The Nigerian Guild of Editors, has said Nigeria has just survived the throes of death from militancy, saying  that the nation will only know peace when peace returns to the Niger Delta region, adding that the nation was waiting to heal its self-inflicted wounds.[more]

The hostile relationship between the ruling party and the private media might be the factor behind the alleged abuse of the state media by the ruling party. [more]

Ghana National Media Commission chairman has advised the Government to review some of the proposed regulations in the Media Bill that could infringe on the freedom of expression and attract international attention. [more]

The international outcry following the jail sentence handed over to a gay couple in Malawi didn’t receive the same kind of coverage in Africa as it did in the West. For most African media, reflecting public opinion, the maximum sentence is justified.[more]

On Saturday, at the plush Serena Hotel in the heart of Kampala, Uganda, the country that Winston Churchill famously called the “Pearl of Africa” 27 of Africa’s finest journalists were honoured by two of the world’s leading media houses, CNN and Multichoice.

Personally, it is a great delight to see that what began as a simple idea and desire to help turn a situation around, has developed into one of Africa’s and probably the world’s most recognised and prestigious Journalistic Awards. [more]

Harare – The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) yesterday issued licenses to four daily newspapers, including The Daily News that was banned by the Media and Information Commission (MIC) in 2003, turning a fresh page for the country’s media landscape, which had been suffocated by the shortage of alternative voices in the dailies section.[more]

Tension between the Muslim community and the Mail & Guardian newspaper eased this week after the paper apologised for publishing a cartoon depicting prophet Muhammad. [more]

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) held a press conference in Harare on late Wednesday and announced some very good news for Zimbabweans - the licensing of four daily newspapers and one weekly.[more]

Nation Media Group exerted its position as the leading media house in the region by bagging four of the 15 awards at the CNN Multichoice Africa Journalist of the Year Awards.[more]

The Chief Justice, Benjamin Odoki, has asked the Government to consider reviewing the existing media laws in light of the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the law on publication of false news.[more]

The presence of media hangman Tafataona Mahoso in a structure viewed as ushering in a new dawn for Zimbabwe’s strangled media has become a sore point for local journalists and watchdog groups.[more]

The contretemps last weekend in which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was taken to task by permanent secretary in the Media ministry George Charamba for seeking to address members of the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is illustrative of the problems the commission faces in the fulfilment of its duties. The announcement on Wednesday that licenses will be issued to a number of publishing houses, including this one, doesn’t really change the character of those problems.[more]

Somalia’s hardline insurgent group, Al-Shabaab has suspended all its relations with the London-based Somali TV channel, Universal, accusing it of deliberately broadcasting insulting materials including sacrilegious cartoons disgracing Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

[more]

Pretoria - The Angolan Social Communication minister, Carolina Cerqueira, Monday in Pretoria, South Africa, spoke of the need for press attaches to publicise Government achievements, as a way of promoting the image of the country abroad.[more]

The granting of licenses to five publishers this week could change the media landscape in Zimbabwe for the benefit of consumers and journalists, media organisations and employers have said.[more]

The Media High Council (MHC)has warned Agnes Uwimana, the owner and editorial director of Umuryabo, a biweekly Kinyarwanda publication, that her paper faces strong measures if she continues to publish defamation and falsehoods that violate the professional ethics of journalism.[more]

The four candidates on the SABC’s shortlist for head of news still had to go through evaluation, scoring and assessments when the surprise announcement came last week that Phil Molefe had been appointed to the post.[more]

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has accused 'untrained journalists' using rumours in their analysis of events in the country of hurting the country.[more]

President Yoweri Museveni has met representatives of Central Broadcasting Service (CBS), advertisers and fans, who apologised for the mistakes made that led to the closure of the station in September last year.[more]

I've been toiling over the idea of making a pertinently relevant and strong case, on why we need to support and protect our Sierra Leonean owned news media. Not only by reading the various published articles and stories, but conscientiously giving them financial support without the asking.[more]

The Mail & Guardian could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had refused to run with Zapiro's cartoon. But what would that have meant to media freedom and to freedom of expression in SA? The Mail & Guardian made international news recently after the paper published a satirical cartoon by Zapiro depicting the prophet Muhammad lying on a coach and moaning to a psychiatrist: "Other prophets have followers with a sense of humour!"[more]

The majority of SABC board members this weekend revolted against board chairman Ben Ngubane after he and the broadcaster’s CEO Solly Mokoetle appointed a new news chief without consulting the rest of the board. Barely six months after it was constituted, the board is in crisis and has requested a meeting with Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda to discuss the deteriorating relationship with Ngubane, a senior source said yesterday.[more]

The Mail & Guardian newspaper told the high court in Pretoria yesterday that there was no legal basis for President Jacob Zuma to continue to suppress a report related to the 2002 Zimbabwean election. The report, written by then Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and Constitutional Court judge Sisi Khampepe for former president Thabo Mbeki , dealt with “legal and constitutional challenges” in the run-up to the disputed election.[more]

Believe me when I tell you that I did not think of mines when I set out to comment on the increasing unacceptable targeting of journalists outside due process, and the new dimension it took at a venue where justice is to be accessed by those who complain about the absence of due process. But the more I thought about what journalists have been through worldwide and especially in this country, the more I recall the mindless killing of those who have a responsibility to monitor governance, the more the words mines, mining and minefield pop up in my day consciousness.

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It is high time Ghanaian Journalists ignored the continual "empty noise" made by some politicians and concentrate on issues that affect majority of the people, says a media consultant, Professor Kwame Karikari.[more]

Ethiopian government and ruling party officials intimidated voters and unlawfully restricted the media ahead of the 23 May 2010 parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has charged. In assessing the polls, international election observers should address the repressive legal and administrative measures that the Ethiopian ruling party used to restrict freedom of expression during the election campaign, the human rights group said.

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One of my favourite programmes at the moment is National Public Radio’s “Wait, wait don’t tell me”. It’s fabulously funny, especially on the topic of people who listen to public radio. Public radio listeners are mercilessly lampooned as sad, highbrow wannabe intellectuals who think poring through policy documents on healthcare constitutes an interesting pastime.

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A journalist appeared before a court in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula on Thursday, accused of libeling parliamentarian Lucia Afate, who is also the Nampula political delegate of the country's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo.The journalist, Jose Vasco da Gama, had written an article in the weekly paper "Magazine Independente" (MI) on 25 May 2009, claiming that Afate had married Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama at a Moslem ceremony in the Nampula district of Mossuril.[more]

Two editors of the Daily Monitor newspapers have been freshly charged with forgery. Prosecution on Monday morning presented an amended charge sheet to Makindye court chief magistrate Joyce Kavuma after the editors' lawyer challenged prosecution to revise the charges to specify the offence as per the Penal Code Act.[more]

Police in Gweru have clamped down on a community radio station by denying them clearance to hold a road show this weekend, as any independence of the airwaves remains restricted.[more]

A South African cartoonist has angered Muslims after printing a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.[more]

Dozens of armed Al-Shabaab fighters stormed Somaliweyn Radio - an independent broadcasting house - in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, managers said on Friday. According to the station's website the militants took FM transmitters after the insurgents had seized the area from government forces.[more]

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) is again in the hot seat over its handling of a license application, this time for hotly contested commercial radio licenses in Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban.[more]

The media in Somalia is going through its most difficult period as journalists face worst times ever, stated Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle. He accused Islamist rebels of infringing on freedom of expression and the independence of the media.[more]

Maputo — A journalist appeared before a court in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula on Thursday, accused of libelling parliamentarian Lucia Afate, who is also the Nampula political delegate of the country's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo.[more]

A bid by a Muslim group in South Africa to stop the publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad has failed.[more]

Press rights defender Beatrice Mtetwa said she was shocked by Mahoso’s return and that progressive members of the commission should resign if ZANU-PF insists that he serve as the panel's chief administrator. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's formation of the former Movement for Democratic Change on Thursday condemned the engagement of former Media and Information Commission Chairman Tafataona Mahoso as chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe Media Commission constituted to reform the sector.[more]

“The media's power is frail. Without the people's support, it can be shut off with the ease of turning a light switch” - Corazon Aquino[more]

SABC chairman Ben Ngubane and CEO Solly Mokoetle came under fire yesterday for appointing Phil Molefe as group executive of news and current affairs without consulting the board.[more]

Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) expressed concern over media reports portraying some Magistrates in some parts of the country as confrontational to journalists. It has therefore commenced investigations to confirm the authenticity of the incidents. The NBA in a statement signed by its 1st National Vice-President, and National Publicity Secretary, Ikeazor Akaraiwe and Murray Abdulrashed respectively, NBA said its attention has been drawn to newspaper reports portraying Magistrates in confrontation with the media. [more]

Mozambican journalist Salomao Moyana, director of the weekly paper "Magazine Independente", has called in the police to investigate anonymous death threats that he has received in the form of text messages to his mobile phone.[more]

Concern has been expressed over the increasing range of the state broadcaster after new transmitters were installed last week, bringing radio broadcasts to communities who usually don’t have access. The TransMedia Corporation, a branch of the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings, installed transmitters last week in an effort to increase the broadcast range to communities such as Beitbridge, Plumtree, Mudzi and St Albert in Mt Darwin. Since independence these areas have never no access to ZBC radio broadcasts, a situation that the Finance Ministry asked TransMedia to rectify, and gave them US$800,000 for the task.[more]

The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) and the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) said in court papers filed this week that the Supreme Court of Appeal had paid “little or no attention” to the right to freedom of expression when it ruled that The Citizen newspaper had defamed Robert McBride by calling him a murderer.[more]

Facebook is among the most powerful internet companies in the world. It has 400-million users . It is the most visited website in the US. Its initial public offering, which is expected within a year or two, would be the biggest Silicon Valley event since Google’s IPO in 2004.[more]

The Attorney-General’s office has dropped its case against Masvingo Mirror publisher, David Masunda and his editor, Golden Maunganidze, for lack of evidence. The two newsmen were facing charges of criminal defamation after Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi filed charges following a news story that appeared in the weekly paper, insinuating he was involved in a scandal.[more]

Journalists in Zambia and beyond the borders have a task to get thousands of news consumers back to trusting them when it comes to covering elections. They should fight hard to stand on the side of many recipients of news, frustrated and angry at the bickering among politicians that is believed, rightly or wrongly, to be fuelled by the media.[more]

Members of the Bayelsa State Council of the Nigerian Union Journalists (NUJ), yesterday expressed concern over the rising cases of abuse and harassment against media practitioners in the state by policemen and thugs hired by politicians.[more]

Nation Media Group shares will now be traded in four East African countries after shareholders on Wednesday unanimously passed four key resolutions meant to enhance the company’s presence in the region and boost its profitability.[more]

Newspapers and magazines continue to show a decline in circulation, with weekly newspapers showing a 15% drop, weekend newspapers a 4, 5% drop and dailies a 2, 3% decline since 2007.[more]

Scores of journalists have been accredited by the new Zimbabwe Media Commission, but the licensing authority has delayed the registration of new media outlets. The ZMC, formed in February this year after a delay of many months, started operating a month ago and is supposed to drive media reforms. But so far there is little evidence that this will be the case. The delays in issuing new licenses are proving very costly to potential media investors' and hundreds of journalists remain unemployed.[more]

Cross River State government has concluded modalities to revitalize its media outlets for government’s programmes, projects and policies to be received by the citizenry.Governor Liyel Imoke disclosed this to news men,Tuesday, at the end of an on-the-spot assessment of renovation work at Cross River State Television Transmitting Station, Odukpani and inspection of both television and radio equipment at Cross River Broadcasting Corporation, Calabar.[more]

The Government has asked for more time to reach an out of court settlement in the CBS case, saying it is yet to form a negotiating team. Last year, over 100 CBS radio employees dragged the Government to court seeking orders to have the station re-opened. They argued that its closure was unjustified and had rendered them jobless. [more]

May 3 was the World Press Freedom Day to celebrate the importance of the media in advancing democracy, accountability, human rights and freedom of expression. However, all is not rosy with the media in Uganda. The state has made a media bill seeking to stifle the press freedom that was being celebrated on May 3. If it’s passed into law, it would severely spoil the media environment.[more]

The trial of two Daily Monitor editors accused of forging president Museveni’s letter by altering it is expected to commence on Thursday.The two are Mr Daniel Kalinaki, Daily Monitor’s managing editor and Mr Henry Ochieng, the political editor.[more]

The Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has condemned the killing of journalists in the country, saying it was unacceptable as only a truthful and courageous media could move the nation forward.[more]

The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has been overwhelmed with 64 applications for national and regional TV licenses following the re-advertisement for TV license bids a month ago.[more]

Often upstaged by TV and print, which 'unfairly' get the biggest chunk of adspend*, radio continues its prophetic journey regardless but confident that it holds the "overwhelming" power to move mountains and help solve problems. Delegates who attended the inaugural 2010 Radioworks conference yesterday, Tuesday, 18 May 2010, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, discovered the secret of that power[more]

A local version of the world's biggest online video sharing platform YouTube has launched in South Africa. The internet search giant Google announced that - www.youtube.co.za - is to give South Africans a way to easily discover local content and content producers.[more]

Rwanda is now blaming the foreign media for sensationalizing the August election and writing "falsehoods" while defending its decision to ban two weeklies in the country terming the move as "long overdue", writes Denis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

The Zimbabwe Media Commission last week postponed a crucial workshop to expedite the licensing of new newspapers because of financial problems amid reports that commissioners were also in disagreement on who to hire as resource persons. ZMC sources said the postponement would result in further delays in licensing new newspapers.[more]

Journalists have been advised to use their mighty pen despite hurdles they face to demand the introduction of legislation on freedom of information.

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Media practitioners in Malawi have questioned the rationale behind the demand from the Media Council of Malawi (MCM) that government starts providing it with subvention as one way of maximising its financial resources. While a large section of the practitioners are convinced that this could compromise the council's independence, MCM executive director Baldwin Chiyamwaka said there is no way this could be the case because in other countries this is happening without experiencing what is being feared.[more]

President Yoweri Museveni has commended the Vision Group for its rapid expansion that has made it a dominant and profitable multimedia company. [more]

The Media High Council (MHC) has called for the amendment of some articles of the new media law citing that the current legislation ‘seems to add value to media development and professionalism but could instead hinder its growth and development.’[more]

I’ve said it here before. I have an aversion to journalistic reportage and language and that’s probably why I’ll never succeed in communicating objectively.[more]

BUKAVU, DR Congo, May 12, 2010 (IPS) - Six journalists have been murdered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past six years, four of them in the Eastern region. Official investigations have failed to clarify the circumstances of any of these killings.[more]

On its website, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), the broadcasting and telecoms regulator, manages to list only two “frequently asked questions”. You can’t blame them, because we have stopped asking them the right questions. It is time to pay attention to this body, which is in such a poor state it is starting to outsource its most basic functions.[more]

Banjul, May 13, 2010 - Non-governmental Organisation (NGOs) from Africa have called upon the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) to urge member states to abolish repressive laws which continue to suppress freedom of expression.[more]

Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights”-Junius. It is a great privilege to be called upon to address this esteemed gathering of members of the proficient Fourth Estate of the Realm.[more]

New proposals to license the media contradict Uganda's constitution, and should be rejected in their entirety, writes retired judge Prof GW Kanyeihamba in The Independent, Kampala.[more]

Battle for the soul of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) took a turn for the worse yesterday after it was discovered that Engr. Stephen Bello, who has been in charge since the retirement of Ernest Ndukwe, has begun a restructuring.[more]

Police interrogators on Monday spent six hours trying to force the Editor of the Masvingo Mirror, Golden Maunganidze to reveal his sources on a story he wrote linking the Tourism Minister to the disappearance of gifts meant for Robert Mugabe.[more]

Naturally, when someone comes out to defend and advocate for your rights, you’re expected to be grateful. Such is what many would have expected from the Rwandan media in the wake of the ever-growing criticism of the Rwandan government on press freedom by international media watchdogs, mainly Reporters Sans Frontièrs (RSF) and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).[more]

The Speaker of the Gambian Parliament, Mrs Elizabeth Renner prevented the independent media from covering the proceedings of the Parliament last Monday as members were about to commence debate on a 22 million dollar loan from Venezuela.[more]

Amnesty International (AI) has expressed deep concern about a legislation proposed by the Ugandan government to provide for restrictions on the media because it will violate the right to freedom of expression. The draft Press and Journalist (Amendment) Bill, 2010, awaits cabinet discussion and, if supported by the cabinet, will subsequently be tabled in Parliament to be enacted into law.[more]

By now, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame should have become used to featuring on the annual list of the media watchdog, Reporters Without Frontiers.

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A SURVEY OF KENYAN AUDIENCES has revealed widespread disenchantment with radio and television services, with respondents feeling they are not getting the information they want, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za. [more]

Media, Information and Publicity minister Webster Shamu has attacked inter-party negotiators over public media reforms in a move which betrayed his growing fear of losing control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and Zimpapers.

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The Rwanda Journalists Association has accused the French NGO, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), of publishing false and baseless reports about the government’s treatment of journalists in the country.[more]

The information minister Kabakumba Matsiko, says Ugandan media cannot regulate itself because it “is still in its infancy” and needs nurturing and ‘guidance’ (The New Vision, May 4).[more]

A dispute has arisen over whether MultiChoice met an Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) deadline for the hotly contested digital mobile TV service license, with two applicants saying it handed in its application late.

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The Editor of the Masvingo Mirror, Golden Maunganidze, was on Monday being interrogated by police in Harare over a story he wrote linking Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi to the disappearance of gifts meant for Robert Mugabe.[more]

Since Nigeria returned from military rule to civilian democracy in 1999, whose initial leadership was bestowed on the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, many high profile assassinations have taken place without the government tracking down and punishing the killers, over the years. Journalists are now victims of assassination by evil persons who do want the truth to be unveiled. Political opponents are maimed virtually on a daily basis.. [more]

A senior official with Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Mabere Masasi has lashed out at scribes in the country for working without following their professional ethics.[more]

The proposed Press and Journalist Amendment Bill 2010 has raised concerns from the journalism fraternity and human rights organisations because of among other things, the excessive powers given to the Minister of Information to renew licenses of newspapers. The Bill also calls for stricter regulations on the stories that are seen by government to prejudice to national security. Sunday Monitor’s Risdel Kasasira talked to the deputy NRM spokesman Mr Ofwono Opondo and the Executive Director of Human Rights Initiative, Mr Livingston Ssewanyana about the Bill.[more]

KIGALI - The President of Rwanda Journalists Association (ARJ) Gaspard Safari, has accused Reporters Without Borders (RSF) a French media watchdog, of producing forged and defaming reports about the government’s treatment of journalists in Rwanda.[more]

With a few developments in recent times, Nigeria is still setting the pace in technological developments in Africa and indeed the Middle East and African emerging markets. This is as Nigeria can now join a few other countries of the world to provide its citizens the opportunity of watching the 2010 World Cup LIVE broadcasts on their cell phones.[more]

This week The Namibian carried at least two stories which showed how ignorant some people are about access to information and their blatant disrespect to other people’s right to information.[more]

A report by a lobby concerned with preserving peace and cohesion in the run-up to the referendum hit the nail on the head last week when it pointed out that vernacular radio broadcasts could be used as instruments of good, but were, on the whole, more likely to be used with bad intentions.[more]

Kwara State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Hon. Ben Duntoye, at the weekend called on the media owners in the country to embark on insurance policy for journailists under them in order to guide against unforeseen circumstances during their day to day duties.[more]

The paradox is instructive. On the day set aside to remember and celebrate the principles of press freedom outlined in the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic Africa Media, media workers in Nigeria under the auspices of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) were on the streets of Lagos protesting the killings of journalists, which has become rampant in the country.[more]

Rwanda’s government is blaming the international media for creating hype about the forthcoming presidential elections.[more]

With the newspaper industry worldwide in turmoil, it’s not surprising to find newspapers trying different things to survive.[more]

Police in Bulawayo and Masvingo have blocked belated World Press Freedom Day marches by journalists in the country. The marches, organized by the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists and the Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations, were meant to take place in Masvingo on Friday and Bulawayo on Saturday. However a separate media festival set for the Harare Gardens on Saturday, looks set to go ahead.

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The World Economic Forum denied yesterday that it was limiting the access of journalists to some sessions of its conference in Dar es Salaam because the media had misrepresented comments made by Trevor Manuel , as head of the government’s planning commission, at last year’s meeting in Cape Town.[more]

We were intrigued by the president’s remarks in an interview with the People’s Voice. He said while Zanu PF’s enemies were the imperialists –– the British and Americans, for the MDC-T the enemies were Zanu PF and the people of Zimbabwe.[more]

The debate about the media and their influence on politics has come to the forefront during these elections. Our guests express contrasting viewpoints on this topical issue. Power of the Press or Power against the Press?[more]

Maputo — The Mozambican government, through its Information Office (GABINFO) launched in Maputo on Wednesday, a public debate on the new Broadcasting Law to be introduced in the country.The debate will be extended to all Mozambican provinces, with the aim of gathering different viewpoints to improve the proposed Bill, particularly on the articles still open for discussion.[more]

There has been an outcry after it was revealed that media hangman Tafataona Mahoso has been appointed chief executive officer of the secretariat of the new Zimbabwe Media Commission. But Godfrey Majonga, the chairman of the ZMC, has said Mahoso’s position is temporary.[more]

There have been calls for the establishment of a Pan African media outlet by many individuals. One of such individuals is the Sudanese-born British entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim, who has pledged seed capital for a Pan African media outfit that will celebrate the continent's successes by telling African stories that other media ignore.[more]

A prominent Somali journalist was shot dead by an Islamic group and his body left on the streets in what observers say is a chilling message to critics of the militia groups that have ordered music removed from broadcasts and Christian bells silenced in schools, writes Dennis Itumbi for jocoza.[more]

Harare – Five prospective mass media houses have submitted applications to operate new newspapers in Zimbabwe, among them NewsDay owned by media mogul Trevor Ncube, Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) officials said on Wednesday.[more]

The media in North-Western Province says it may not be doing enough in highlighting development programmes in the booming province as it is failing to access information from relevant authorities.[more]

A team from the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has been seconded to the SABC at the request of the broadcaster’s new board to conduct a more detailed inquiry, after the auditor-general’s investigation into fraud and governance issues that contributed to the SABC’s descent into R800m of debt.[more]

Media practitioners in the country have been warned that they are not spared from stiff competition posed by free movement of labour when the East African Community Common Market Protocol came into force next July.[more]

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos has condemned incessant killings of journalists in the country, saying it portends grave danger to the nation’s democracy and called for investment in security.[more]

It has been a long time coming - more than two years after the Independent Communications Authority of SA issued a handful of new broadcast licenses - but MultiChoice finally has a degree of competition for its DStv satellite subscription television offering.

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BENIN — NIGERIAN journalists have been advised not to be discouraged by the non-passage of the Freedom of Information, FoI, Bill by the National Assembly.[more]

Media, Information and Publicity minister Webster Shamu has attacked inter-party negotiators over public media reforms in a move which betrayed his growing fear of losing control of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and Zimpapers............[more]

Now that the political gladiators are up and about throwing their hats in the ring, ready to battle it out with all manner of forces for the 2011 general elections, it has become necessary to remind of them of the dictates of democracy to secure the people’s votes. The imperative of this is underscored by the fact that many Nigerian politicians are given to leaving the substance of seeking the common good, for the good majority of the citizenry to chasing after the shadows of self aggradisement. And this begins right with the manner of campaigns.[more]

Police in Angola have threatened legal action against local media after the case of a senior police officer charged with rape was made public.[more]

Harare – Media watchdogs in Zimbabwe on Monday attacked the government-appointed media commission for commemorating World Press Freedom Day instead of attending to the urgent matter of licensing new players in an industry that has been tightly controlled by President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party since independence in 1980.[more]

Harare – The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) on Tuesday started distributing accreditation forms to journalists and media houses wishing to operate in the country.[more]

After the police denied him the right to demonstrate publicly against internet censorship and repression, a Tunesian journalist and blogger forced his way in the presidential palace to complain about the working conditions of journalists in the country. Read the full story in french:[more]

“(Writing) crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides,” a monk wrote in the margins of a manuscript he was copying in a medieval monastery.

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The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has again vowed to rein in bogus colleges by standardizing media training, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

Minister of Information Webster Shamu has said the much awaited privately owned daily newspapers, The Daily News and NewsDay can be expected to be published in June, as the Zimbabwe Media Commission started inviting applications for licensing on Tuesday.[more]

The role of modern information communication technologies (ICTs) comes into sharp focus this week as the world marks World Press Freedom Day.[more]

Luanda - Angola's minister of Social Communication, Carolina Cerqueira, on Sunday here highlighted the role of media in guaranteeing the citizens’ right to information, one of the premises of the country's Constitution, ANGOP has learnt.[more]

Information Minister Kabakumba Masiko said yesterday that the government is ready to compromise on the proposed amendments to the press law in the country as criticism of the proposed legislation continued to mount.[more]

STATUTORY media regulation is not an option for Zambia, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional secretariat programme specialist for freedom of information and media law Sampa Kangwa-Wilkie has said.[more]

BULAWAYO, May 3, 2010 (IPS) - Fourteen months after Zimbabwe's government of national unity was formed, harassment, arbitrary arrest and general intimidation of journalists remains common.

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There are powerful people behind press freedom violations whose responsibility is not always apparent. Whether presidents, ministers, religious leaders or the heads of armed groups, these predators of press freedom have the power to censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and, in the worst cases, murder journalists. Reporters Without Borders has produced these portraits:[more]

FIVE metropolitan municipalities owe the cash-strapped SABC more than R5m for advertising, and at least R4,5m of that amount is more than three months overdue, according to Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda.[more]

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, on Monday infuriated the National Executive and members of the Nigeria Union of Journalist, NUJ, when he declined to come out to receive the members who thronged his Marina residence to present a letter of protest over the spate of killing of journalists to him.[more]

Educate and empower the population, Musoni tells media[more]

An Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Ugochukwu A. Ogakwu will on May 5 rule on a suit seeking the nullification of the Newspaper Registration Act.[more]

ust last Saturday evening, Edo Sule Ugbagwu, a correspondent with The Nation newspaper was murdered by yet to be identified gunmen. This occurred a few months after Bayo Owu, an Assistant Editor with The Guardian was killed in similar circumstances.[more]

YESTERDAY was World Free Press Day, an event which ironically takes place at a time when large portions of the press are trying to become less “free” and more “paid for”. Seldom in history have journalists been more obsessed with business models than they are now.[more]

ACTING Information and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dora Siliya has said statutory media regulation will bring pride to the journalism profession.[more]

Barely ten days after the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Ogun State Council, raised the alarm that lives of journalists practising in that state were in danger, a reporter with The Nation newspapers, Edo Sule Ugbagwu, was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Lagos.[more]

Journalists protesting against the death of a Cameroonian newspaper editor have clashed with riot police in the capital Yaounde.[more]

World Press Freedom Day came amid steadily advancing encroachments on the media freedom of South Africa and its neighbours, the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef) said on Monday.[more]

THE on-going media regulation stakeholders’ conference in Lusaka has adopted the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) constitution and the code of ethics.[more]

FREEDOM House, a media watchdog, in its latest report, has for the second year running ranked Uganda as “partly free,” in media freedom. Media freedom in Uganda is deemed relatively good. Several independent newspapers and radio and TV stations have emerged and compete freely against the state-owned media which had enjoyed virtual monopoly.[more]

As Uganda joins the rest of the world to celebrate World Press Day commemorated to recognise the struggle for press freedom and efforts being made to put pressure on governments that continue to deny citizens their inalienable rights, it’s important to reflect on the relationship between the media and African governments vis avis press freedom.[more]

Nation Media Group on Friday got a reprieve after the highest court in the land temporarily halted a ruling requiring it to pay Sh10 million to a former MP.[more]

“Gbenga Aruleba, AIT, Yusuf Ali, The Nation, Olusola Fabiyi, The Punch, Chuks Okocha, THISDAY. You all have no hiding place. You must be happy now that Prof. Maurice Iwu has been sacked due to your bad stories and reports. We will deal with you soon. Remember Dele Giwa, Bayo Ohu, and Edo Ubagwu? Good luck".[more]

KAGISO Media has applied to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) for an extension of the deadline for aspirant providers of digital TV signal to mobile handsets to apply for a licence.[more]

GOVERNMENT remains committed to ensuring that information is made available to the media who facilitate dialogue between the Government and the public.[more]

Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders has named the leaders of China, Russia and Rwanda as some of the world's worst "predators of freedom".[more]

Luanda – The journalist and university lecturer, Ismael Mateus, today backed the need for unity and organization of journalists to better defend their interests. [more]

INFORMATION and guidance minister Kabakumba Masiko has said recent incidents in the country have demonstrated that the media cannot regulate itself. [more]

The Standard say the long wait for the group’s daily paper, NewsDay may soon be over.[more]

The youth of Korogocho have their own radio station. Since 2006, Koch FM, has been broadcasting in the sprawling slum village, giving a voice to thousands of people. [more]

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) has said that from Tuesday it will be ready to receive journalists’ applications for accreditation and registration from media organizations.[more]

Sudan has recently concluded historic multi-party elections. Dennis Itumbi of journalism.co.za was in the country as the ballot took place and explores how journalists and media houses – for many of whom this was a first - handled the keenly monitored process.[more]

INFORMATION minister Kabakumba Masiko and Justice George Kanyeihamba have disagreed over the proposed amendment to the media laws.[more]

There is something definitely not right the way the media is treating such an important breakthrough as the formation of the East African Common Market.[more]

A top United Nations official has criticised the proposed media Bill, saying it will suppress media freedom.[more]

Monday, 3 May 2010, marks the annual commemoration of World Press Freedom Day - a day when all global citizens should remember, celebrate and protect the crucial role that free media plays within democracy and development.[more]

The battle over the fate of the Central Broadcasting Services has taken a new twist with President Museveni reportedly blaming some of his hardliner ministers for keeping the radio off-air.[more]

A group of CBS radio employees last week met President Museveni at State House Entebbe to beg for the reopening of the station that was closed more than six months ago. Once a proud and powerful media institution, and one that could defeat government programmes like the Land Bill, CBS has been reduced to begging for survival. The dogged defiance seen in the early days of the closure has given away to desperation.[more]

The Media Liaison Committee (MLC) has suspended the launch of the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) from May 3, 2010 to a date to be announced after the World Press Freedom Day commemorations.[more]

Writing crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides,” a monk wrote in the margins of a manuscript he was copying in a medieval monastery. Printing had much more evil potential. It was attacked on aesthetic grounds. Shortly after Gutenberg’s 15th-century invention of movable type, a great copyist, Vaspasiano, said “a gentleman would never foul his library with a roughly inked, manufactured book on coarse rag paper”. More seriously, those who had controlled the flow of information — notably the church — feared losing their hold on people’s minds and beliefs.

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South African pay TV channel DStv has been banned in Kenya’s Mandera Town in North Eastern Province by the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, reports Dennis Itumbi for urnalism.co.za. Also outlawed are video shops, blamed for eroding moral values among the youth and causing poor academic performance.[more]

The Government has implored the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional body to formally table its complaints regarding media law formulation to Government instead of issuing negative statement.[more]

The Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA) has praised the European Union and its member states for "for the first time," coming out strongly to condemn the continued violations of media freedom and freedom of information in Somalia.[more]

Taoufik Ben Brik shared a cell with 20 other prisoners during his jail term[more]

State House has demanded an apology from all radio stations in northern Uganda which hosted the leader of the Uganda People’s Congress, Mr Olara Otunnu, where he allegedly said that President Museveni aided the war in the region.

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MEDIA Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional director Kaitira Kandjii has said the Zambian government's insistence on a statutory media self-regulation mechanism is a strategy to curtail media independence and freedom in Zambia.

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THE Government has implored the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional body to formally table its complaints regarding media law formulation to Government instead of issuing negative statement. [more]

PARTIES to the shaky inclusive government have agreed to reform the loss-making Zimbabwe Broadcast-ing Corporation (ZBC) from being a partisan media contributing to the polarisation of society into a truly public broadcaster to be run by an independent board.[more]

Three Nigerian journalists were killed in two separate incidents over the weekend. Muslim rioters killed two reporters working with a local Christian newspaper on Saturday, according to local journalists and news reports.[more]

Concerns are mounting over the alleged political interference in the management and operations of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). It is suspected that Government has gone to the extent of prescribing the content or what programmes, especially news bulletins, the NBC should cover and offer to the public.[more]

Tamale, April 26, GNA - Professor Kwame Karikari, Executive Director, Media Foundation for West Africa, has appealed to the media to reposition itself and focus on issues of national unity and development.[more]

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) could face legal action if it did not reconsider its decision to give companies just three weeks to apply for the new digital mobile television service license.[more]

A group under the aegis of Gateway Media Front (GMF), has frowned at the alleged death threats on some journalists in Ogun State.[more]

The real reason that people aren't coming to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in their droves can be found in a box, and, yes, it is flat.[more]

Goldenberg architect Kamlesh Pattni has sued Daily Nation for defamation and wants the High Court to permanently bar the paper from publishing stories about him which he considers slanderous.[more]

Zimbabwe's telecommunications battle was normally one for the mobile telecommunications networks, but recently, other players are entering the fray. Technological advances have meant that players can easily provide services that their licenses restrict them from offering, albeit through the “technological backdoor”.[more]

Here is a sample of typical headlines in Rwandan newspapers: “Ruling party leading the country into darkness”; “The five mental illnesses of Kagame”; “Kagame and Hitler are one and the same”; “Army officers ready to slaughter thousands…”[more]

HIGH Court judge Vincent Zehurikize yesterday asked the Government and CBS radio employees to reach an amicable settlement over the closure of the station. The judge criticised the Attorney General for dragging his feet on the matter.

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SOMALIA'S United Nations-funded Transitional Federal Government ordered two radio stations to shut down for obeying a command from militant groups to stop playing music - and only two hours later allowed the stations back on air, writes Dennis itumbi for journalism.co.za.

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Kigali — The Media High Council (MHC), dismisses the unfounded statements from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters without Borders (RSF) relating to the recent suspension of two weekly newspapers, Umuseso and Umuvugizi.[more]

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Tuesday boomeranged a reporter’s question on escalating corruption in the country to the Press Union of Liberia, which received US$100,000 from her last year to build its headquarters, but the project remains at a standstill.[more]

The Media High Council (MHC), yesterday, described as untrue and baseless statements by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters without Borders (RSF), that two weekly newspapers, Umuseso and Umuvugizi, were suspended illegally.[more]

South African editors, various media representatives, crime reporters and senior police managers, including police boss Bheki Cele, met yesterday, Tuesday, 20 April 2010, in Johannesburg to discuss what some analysts have described as ‘police harassment' of journalists and police's ‘unjustified hostility' towards the media.[more]

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government has not carried out critical media reforms as President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party that wields the most power in the coalition continues to thwart the freedoms of expression and the Press, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday.[more]

The Communications Department is sticking to its guns in its quest for an additional one percent in income tax to fund the cash-strapped SABC.[more]

Durban - The SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) has laid a complaint against e.tv for allegedly using video footage captured last year for a story on this year's ongoing municipal strike, the union said on Tuesday.[more]

Last week, the squabble over ownership of Daily Times Nigeria (DTN) PLC, threw up another dimension to the continuing ruin of the one-time flagship of Nigerian media.[more]

As the people of South Africa watch in disbelief, the young firebrand's slash-and-burn tactics are starting to have a real effect on this country's stability and standing in the world. Perhaps now is the time to explain why exposing Malema's obvious wrongdoing had little effect on his personal popularity.[more]

When the two–day media conference held at Pamodzi Hotel ended with the adoption of a Code of Ethics and Constitution, architects of the few months’ process congratulated themselves for a milestone achievement. But the celebrations were misplaced because the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) they had created was toothless, impotent, and could not in any way pass for a media regulator.[more]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses shock and dismay over the Wednesday, April 14, 2010 New Dawn Newspaper front-page story captioned: "Apartheid At Foreign Ministry", in which the paper made several unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations against Foreign Minister Olubanke King-Akerele and the officials of the Ministry. [more]

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir scored overwhelming victories in a sample of results from national elections marred by fraud accusations and boycotts, state media reported on Sunday.[more]

The broadcasting and telecoms regulator is racing against time to issue mobile-TV licences in time for the Soccer World Cup tournament starting on June 11.The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) plans to issue licences for the broadcasting of content via cellphones before June. [more]

First, they came for our babies. Now, they want to adopt African women’s private parts. Yes, a charity based in the United States wants you to “adopt a clitoris”. Clitoraid claims to help victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Burkina Faso by funding a “Pleasure Hospital” in this West African country that will surgically rebuild women’s “organs of pleasure”. [more]

Zanu PF leader Robert Mugabe’s famous Independence speech has been exposed as a media stunt meant to curry favour with the international community while hiding a deep resentment towards white people. 30 years after Independence the great “Swords into ploughshares” speech has become as worthless as the air into which it was spoken. Mugabe was Prime Minister of Zimbabwe then.[more]

Fourteen radio stations in Somalia's capital Mogadishu have switched off the music to comply with an order issued by an extremist Islamic group, writes Dennis itumbi for journalism.co.za. [more]

The youth leader of South Africa's ruling ANC, Julius Malema, will face a disciplinary hearing for bringing the party into disrepute, reports say. The reports in South African media say the charges are believed to include promoting racism and intolerance. [more]

Law firms are expected to battle fiercely to represent the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) after it had a bitter falling out with its solicitors over how to settle a case involving a major media house and hundreds of millions of shillings. Documents filed at the High Court on March 14, 2009 show the city law firm is seeking Sh65 million for their services.[more]

The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) could go longer without a permanent head, after the process of appointing a new Director General (DG) was brought to a halt. Again political interference was cited as the cause of the current setback, which is said to have brought a rift between the NBC board of directors and Information Minister Joel Kaapanda. [more]

A Sunday Nation caption read: “pedestrians walk past a Cantor lorry that fell on a motorbike after it was hit … by a water tanker…” As an information officer, the sub-editor is an embarrassment. Which reader of his esteemed newspaper does not already know what pedestrians do?[more]

The Angolan Head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos, Friday in Luanda approved the Network of Media Archive of Angola (REMA).According to the report of Construction and Organisation programme of Media Archive, the president also has set up an executive commission for its implementation, under the new Constitution.[more]

The Editor of THISDAY newspaper, Mr. Simon Kolawole, has been selected for the 2010 Governance for Development Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.[more]

Julius Malema, the outspoken youth leader of South Africa's ruling ANC, will face a disciplinary hearing for bringing the party into disrepute, two weeks after being rebuked by the president, local media said.[more]

Ignoring ANCYL president Julius Malema won't make him go away, but neither does he deserve the celebrity status the media have bestowed on him, writes Franz Kruger in the Mail & Guardian. Franz Kruger writes in the Mail & Guardian:[more]

As the 2011 elections draw nearer, the Osun State Governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola has charged the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to work out a mechanism that would help to stabilize the nation’s polity. Prince Oyinlola in a release by his Press Secretary, Mr. Kayode Oladeji, while congratulating NUJ on its 55th anniversary, enjoined its leadership to evolve ways of making valuable contributions towards ensuring free and fair polls in the next year’s election. [more]

There is tragedy in the fact some top current and former media professionals have decided not to apply for the post of Director General at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). Government’s interference and the Swapo infighting for positions are directly to blame for the sad scenario that has played itself out at the national broadcaster.[more]

Angola was on Wednesday unanimously elected president of the African Ombudsmen and Mediators Association (AOMA) during the organisation's 3rd Conference in Luanda.[more]

The assault on Somalia's radio stations came from three directions. On April 3, the Islamic armed group Hizbul Islam threatened to shut down FM radio stations in the areas it controls in the country's south. The group accused the stations of playing music it deemed "un-Islamic." [more]

If there is one thing that Zambians usually complain about - yet find it hard to do away with - it is communication.[more]

In very large type, the front page of last week's Mail & Guardian bore the headline, "Idiotocracy", above pictures of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema and AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche.[more]

Harare – Reforms to open up Zimbabwe’s media are likely to take much longer despite a new press body being in place because of administrative problems and reluctance by President Robert Mugabe’s allies to allow private newspapers to publish.[more]

Three Kenyan journalists were beaten up, their equipment destroyed and hospitalized with broken limbs during a daring coverage of a burial involving a stolen body from a city morgue, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

The Swedish government is concerned that the proposed Press and Journalist Amendments Bill will infringe on media freedom in Uganda.[more]

A member of the board of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Dr. John Otu has identified poor remuneration and motivation of journalists as the bane of quality media practice in Nigeria.[more]

An international network has been set up to promote excellence, professionalism and creativity among television and radio content providers. Established in 2009, the non profit body of professional in TV and radio business, International Network for Television and Radio Advancement (INTARA) came with a mission to address the falling standards in radio and TV contents which have over the years been a source of concern to industry stakeholders.[more]

Following epileptic transmission being witnessed in the State owned Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State (BSES), the Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, Hon Taiwo Olatunbosun on led a delegation to the station to see to how the horrible situation could be abated.[more]

Lira/ Kampala: A radio station owned by former state minister for youth Felix Okot Ogong has publicly apologised to President Museveni for hosting UPC president Olara Otunnu, it has emerged.[more]

A MILITIA group in Somali has ordered all radio stations to shut down all Voice of America and British Broadcasting Corporation contracts accusing them of spreading propaganda, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.[more]

Hearing continued Tuesday at an Abuja magistrate court in the case affecting nine suspected journalists. [more]

The British media and the world at large is awash with what analysts have described as the tightest campaign for a generation pitting the current Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown against the Conservative leader David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.[more]

Rwanda has ordered the review of a law that observers had pointed out would affect free speech and civil liberties, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za. President Paul Kagame disclosed that the Cabinet was discussing the contentious law against denying genocide amidst accusations that government is using it to stifle free speech and the opposition. [more]

There is growing consensus that Apple's sleek and elegant iPad represents the future of newspapers, magazines and books. It was clear for some time that the business model of newspapers in particular had to change, as well as the delivery mechanism. But we should have guessed the breakthrough would come not from those locked in the traditional formats and industries. After all, it is not record companies that brought the breakthrough for digital music, nor the old landline phone groups that pioneered new cellphone technologies. They had too many legacy habits and outdated ways of thinking to take these conceptual leaps.[more]

When I worked as a reporter for Foreign Correspondent, I shot some stories in Africa with the ABC's London-based cameraman, a bloke who had spent much of his career working for television news. He was shortish, and squarish, and as solid as the proverbial brick convenience. And he loved nothing better than diving into a media scrum.[more]

Young people, especially media graduates, stand a good chance of benefiting from digital migration because it is driven by content. Making a presentation on Digital Migration at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology on Wednesday, veteran producer and BOCCIM`s representative to the digital migration taskforce, Solomon Monyame, said "there are opportunities for employment, especially for graduates with a broadcasting, film and television background". [more]

Tuesday’s decision by the Media High Council to suspend two Kinyarwanda weekly newspapers should send clear signals that the days of irresponsible journalism are over. Readers, have for the past three consecutive months been subjected to highly sensationalised publications by these media houses, with the intention of creating a state of fear and insecurity among Rwandans.[more]

The impact of the media may be overblown in some instances, but the blunder that should be avoided is to underestimate it. In light of the role the Press has played in Zimbabwe over the last decade, it is critical to realise the various dimensions it has assumed, with some of the effects diverging from its function as the spine of reconstruction in time of crisis to become vehicles that fuel hatred and deceit among the general citizens of the nation.[more]

A few days after issuing a stern warning to residents, especially chiefs and youth groups, to stay out of violent acts, the Northern Regional Minister, Moses Bukari Mabengba, has advised the media to always allow their professional code and ethics to be the determining factor in their reportage. [more]

The sub- regional rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), will Tuesday launch the West Africa Media Development Fund (WAMDEF), aimed at providing “low-interest credits to address the financial challenges of small and medium, private and independent media in West Africa,” PANA reported Monday.[more]

Press freedom is becoming a matter of concern in South Africa ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with various media organisations, including the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), expressing concerns and condemning attacks on press freedom.[more]

A Stellenbosch radio host has taken up the challenge of broadcasting non-stop for four days in a bid to raise money for the poor farming community of Vraeberg.[more]

Ten days after an order to stop playing music and other lyrics was given to radios and TVs in Mogadishu, the media houses have complied. Even the tunes that played at news times are no more. Hizbul Islam, one of the Islamist groups opposing the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, gave the order on April 3, saying the music and other melodic tunes were un-Islamic. [more]

Jethro Goko, the Director of the Associated Newspaper of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of the Daily News, has said they are hopeful that in the next few weeks there won’t be any excuse for not opening up the print media space completely in Zimbabwe. [more]

July 2010 could yet prove a revolutionary month for mobile phone users and their service providers as the industry regulator carries out two major changes. From that month cellphone users will be able to migrate from one network to another with their entire phone number including the code.[more]

The Media High Council (MHC), has handed two Kinyarwanda tabloids; Umuseso and Umuvugizi, a six-month suspension citing violation of the media law and inciting public disorder. [more]

The media will be allowed access to the bail application of the 28-year-old man accused of killing right wing leader Eugene Terre'Blanche, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Wednesday.[more]

KAMPALA, Apr 12, 2010 (IPS) - The proposed media law is a monster, says Dr George Lugalambi, chair of a coalition fighting to preserve press freedom in Uganda. Publishers and journalists would have to apply annually for a licence, which could be revoked at will in the interests of "national security, stability and unity," or if coverage was deemed to be "economic sabotage."?[more]

A recent study on the Ghanaian media's coverage of gender issues has revealed that out of a total 6053 issues in news editorials, only 1.6% (96 editorial frequency) were given to women, compared to issues on children which rated 2% (126 editorial frequency) and the youth 1.9% (115 editorial frequency).[more]

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, admitted this month that his government had jammed Voice of America’s broadcasting in the country’s Amharic language.[more]

The Government has said media practitioners should be cautious when coming up with a self-regulatory body to avoid the weakness that the Media Council of Zambia (MECOZ) faced in the past.[more]

Benue state Commissioner for Information, Dr. (Mrs.) Diana Ochoga, has charged journalists in the state to always criticise the Gabriel Suswam administration constructively.[more]

The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation will on Saturday launch its second television station — Channel 2.[more]

The number of South Africans accessing the internet by means of a variety of digital devices, including cellphones, increased 53% year on year in the last quarter of last year to 7,5-million, a Nielsen Online review of members of the Online Publishers Association (OPA) said.[more]

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will tomorrow, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, launch a fund to provide low-interest credits to address the financial challenges of small and medium private and independent media in West Africa.[more]

ABAKALIKI— A member of the Board of the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, and former Commissioner for Information in Ebonyi State, Dr. John Otu, has identified poor remuneration and motivation of journalists as the bane of quality media practice in Nigeria.[more]

President Jacob Zuma has finally come out cracking the whip on ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, describing his rant against a BBC journalist as ‘regrettable' and ‘unacceptable'. But Malema remains defiant, saying he has done nothing wrong. Zuma, who addressed a media conference on Saturday in Durban, said: “We must accord journalists the freedom to do their work unhindered. Should there be a need to take issue with anything that is being reported, it should be done in a manner that promotes frank and open engagement.[more]

Journalists in Yobe State have been called upon to partner with the government to enhance information dissemination and development in the state.[more]

Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, on Friday commended the Ghana News Agency (GNA) for continuing to set high journalistic standards and urged Management to remain focussed and credible.[more]

The launch of the Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC) has been set for May 3 to coincide with the commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day, the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) has said.[more]

Twitterati out in force as BBC reporter is ejected from ANC youth league meeting and a white supremacist is mourned: I never imagined I would spend my first anniversary as a South African resident watching a fellow British journalist get marching orders from a press conference with the words "bastard" and "bloody agent" ringing in his ears.[more]

Al- Shabaab insurgents in Somalia have banned all BBC broadcasts from the areas they control and confiscated the corporation's FM transmitters and satellite dishes, the New York-based Committee to Protect journalists (CPJ) disclosed in a news release made available to PANA.[more]

The traditional media industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is struggling to cope with digital media and headcount cuts owing to the economic crisis, according to a new survey of senior journalists.[more]

The Gambian government has given reasons why investigation into the murder of journalist Deyda Hydara has not been concluded. According to the Interior Minister, Ousman Sonko, two key witnesses in the case are outside the government jurisdiction and attempts to reach them have been unsuccessful.[more]

Professor Kwame Karikari, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), has called on the media to raise the performance standards among the arms of governance in Ghana to deepen freedom of expression.[more]

Anyone who lives in Britain would have been shocked by the way the murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche -- the white supremacist and racist leader of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) -- was portrayed in that country's media. It was almost unbelievable![more]

Editors Forum (Sanef), in the past few months, issuing one statement after the other condemning attacks on press freedom. [more]

The Pan African Media Conference was a great acknowledgment of the Nation Media Group’s emergence over the last 50 years as a leading media company in Africa. There’s no doubt that Nation has risen to prominence in the region due to its honest reporting in both the politics and economy of Africa. Thus, one must question why, after 50 years of ‘advancing’ in the media sector, the press is invited to cover an event at an entrance cost of $150.00 dollars and not for free? Historically, media houses have been against charging the press to cover events. This is like charging the choir members for showing up to perform at their concert. Oh the irony![more]

Yet another journalist has been arrested, this time in Beitbridge, as the ongoing clampdown of the media continues.Mashundu Netsianda, a Beitbridge correspondent for The Chronicle newspaper, was arrested on Thursday in the southern border town, over a story titled “Cops flee police station as injiva opens fire”. [more]

In the 80s one Nigerian newspaper sold 500,0000 copies on a daily basis. Today, these figures, in a general sense, have fallen considerably. Our reporter investigates what went wrong.[more]

African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema said on Thursday night that he was not "remorseful" over chasing BBC journalist, Jonah Fisher, from a media briefing."We are not remorseful on our stance (sic) and will never be remorseful about disrespectful journalists; particularly (those) from countries whose media always undermine the credibility and integrity of African leaders," Malema said in a statement.[more]

The MDC-T will this weekend release a statement detailing the issues covered in the final report of the recent Global Political Agreement talks between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations.

The report was handed over to the South African facilitation team on Wednesday, although the three party principals Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara received their copies last week Friday.Nelson Chamisa, the MDC national spokesman, told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that issues covered in the report will be made public over the coming weekend.[more]

If you look closely, you will notice a pair of eyes and a nose peeking over the wall at the South African market. It belongs to Facebook, which recently signed with Habari Media to represent it locally. Trevor Johnson, head of strategy & planning, Facebook EMEA, say this is in line with the group's strategy for emerging markets, whereby it signs with knowledgeable local partners rather than investing directly into a country.[more]

Nixon Todd, a reporter of privately-owned "Love FM" radio station, has claimed arrest and detention "on the orders" of Mary Broh, the May or of Monrovia, over an alleged disrespect, PANA reported Thursday.[more]

Yusupha Cham, a Gambian journalist resident in United Kingdom, is living in fear, having repeatedly received death threats throughe-mail messages allegedly sent by persons suspected to be agents of Gambia's feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA), PANA reported Friday.[more]

Journalists seldom engage in self criticism through mass communication channels preferring, like other self respecting professionals, to do so in the privacy of their associations and other professional fora, but some times it is unavoidable when issues are of public interest.[more]

France Telecom may invest as much as €7bn in deals focused on Africa and the Middle East in the next five years, CEO Stephane Richard said.[more]

As of 6 April, 9800 km of the East African Submarine Cable System (known as EASSy) have been deployed to nine countries along the East African coast, offering more advanced internet and better connectivity to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.[more]

The minister for Information of the Transitional Federal Government, Dahir Mohamud Ghelle, stated that the media in Somalia is going through its most difficult period. Speaking at press conference in Mogadishu on Wednesday, Mr Ghelle said some groups in the country are bent on suppressing freedom of expression. [more]

Furious youth leader ejects reporter from Johannesburg press conference calling him a 'bloody agent' with 'that white tendency': A firebrand South African youth leader today threw a BBC journalist out of a press conference, accusing him of "white tendency" and calling him a "bastard", "bloody agent" and "small boy".[more]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has asked the government to withdraw the proposed amendment to the 1995 Ugandan Press and Journalist Act, saying it will undermine the country’s achievements as a free and open society.