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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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