This week, just when The Mail had gone to bed with its Tuesday edition, word from Adom FM came in about the decision of the station to once again, hire the services of Adakabre Frimpong-Manso, former host of Edwa So Nsem to return to the show. Regular host Ekuorba Gyasi had been asked to make way for Adakabre who according to an insider will go live on air, 6:35am, Monday, September 6th.[more]

Since President Paul Kagame recent election victory, the vast majority of Rwandans in and outside the country have been in festive mood. On the night the election results were announced, I was in the Belgian capital, Brussels, a key site of anti-Kagame and anti-RPF activism. I was watching TV Rwanda on the internet and the scenes of jubilation as the thousands of people in and outside Amahoro stadium sang, danced and cheered were truly disarming.[more]

Owners of media houses have been asked to invest more in investigative reporting in order to produce fair and balanced stories. The head of the Makerere University Mass Communication Department, Dr. George Lugalambi, said media houses do not want to risk venturing into investigative journalism because it is expensive.[more]

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]