GOVERNMENTS in sub-Saharan Africa are the most intolerant to the practice of journalism; they have twenty five journalists in detention, a majority of them without any charges, according to a new report.
Eritrea tops the African list of shame, for holding 19 of them and declining to give any updates on their conditions or location of detention, the annual journalist Census by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reveals.
Eritrea holds this dubious distinction since 2001when the authorities abruptly closed the private press by arresting at least ten editors without charge or trial. The Eritrean government has refused to confirm if the detainees are still alive, says the CPJ report.
Ethiopia, Gambia and Cameroon are the other African countries mentioned in the list of intolerance to freedom of expression by journalists.
Online and print journalists topped the list of 136 reporters globally, indicating a fresh danger to freelance journalists who do not have the protection offered by large media houses.
On December 1, a total of 25 journalists were imprisoned in Sub-Saharan Africa for their journalism, and nearly 90 percent of these journalists were detained without charges in secret detention facilities.
Interestingly even the United States has joined the list, despite having the fourth Amendment lauded globally by journalism scholars as a shield to the practice of journalism.
China continued to be the worlds worst jailer of journalists, a dishonor it has held for 11 consecutive years, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma round out the top five jailers from among the 26 nations that imprison journalists, the Census notes.
But it is the fresh trend to target new media journalists that will have media scholars in the continent devising fresh approaches to the profession.
The days when journalists went off on dangerous assignments knowing they had the full institutional weight of their media organizations behind them are receding into history, said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.
Today, journalists on the front lines are increasingly working independently. The rise of online journalism has opened the door to a new generation of reporters, but it also means they are vulnerable.
Internet and print journalists make up the bulk of the census. Radio journalists compose the next largest professional category, accounting for 7 percent of cases. Television journalists and documentary filmmakers each account for 3 percent.
Worldwide, a total of 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists were behind bars, an increase of 11 from the 2008 tally. The survey also found that freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed across the globe.
There has been a deliberate and significant increase on new media journalism across the continent over the last two years.
The fact that online journalism is not controlled by advertisement revenue but a passion to expose the truth far beyond what the mainstream can do could be a major factor affecting the security of freelance journalists in the region, Jacque Ooko, the President of the Journalist Association of Kenya (JAK) said when contacted to comment on the report.
-writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za
Thursday, December 10, 2009
New Zim paper to debut online before print
Newspaper proprietor Trevor Ncube will launch his new Zimbabwean daily newspaper, NewsDay, on the Web six months before the print edition hits the streets.
Ncube, who is deputy chairman of Mail & Guardian publisher M&G Media, explains that this is because the Zimbabwean government has still not issued the licence NewsDay requires before the printing presses can begin rolling.
“We are going to launch NewsDay.co.zw, probably in the next week or so,” Ncube says. “We will use social media like Twitter to help publicise the website.”
The site will be hosted in Zimbabwe — news websites are not subjected to the same draconian licensing rules as newspapers.
Ncube has been waiting nearly a year for a licence to print NewsDay. But he remains optimistic that the political situation in Zimbabwe is slowly returning to normal and that a deal being brokered by SA president Jacob Zuma between Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change will result in the lifting of restrictions on the country’s media.
“It’s central to the deal,” Ncube says.
“We think the current negotiations, facilitated by president Zuma’s emissaries, look promising and that a deal between the protagonists might be clinched, if not before the end of this year, then certainly by early next year.”
Ncube hopes the print version of NewsDay will hit the streets by June 2010 at the latest. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral
Ncube, who is deputy chairman of Mail & Guardian publisher M&G Media, explains that this is because the Zimbabwean government has still not issued the licence NewsDay requires before the printing presses can begin rolling.
“We are going to launch NewsDay.co.zw, probably in the next week or so,” Ncube says. “We will use social media like Twitter to help publicise the website.”
The site will be hosted in Zimbabwe — news websites are not subjected to the same draconian licensing rules as newspapers.
Ncube has been waiting nearly a year for a licence to print NewsDay. But he remains optimistic that the political situation in Zimbabwe is slowly returning to normal and that a deal being brokered by SA president Jacob Zuma between Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change will result in the lifting of restrictions on the country’s media.
“It’s central to the deal,” Ncube says.
“We think the current negotiations, facilitated by president Zuma’s emissaries, look promising and that a deal between the protagonists might be clinched, if not before the end of this year, then certainly by early next year.”
Ncube hopes the print version of NewsDay will hit the streets by June 2010 at the latest. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)