David Shapshak
Press freedom in Africa, where it has traditionally been squashed by the myriad of dictatorships on the continent, has been infinitively enhanced by the growth of the Internet and the resultant access to, and dissemination of, information it brings.
While print media may be banned or suppressed for publishing dissenting views about a particular government, the same information posted on a World Wide Web page is accessible from anywhere and can bypass any country’s internal censorship.
Many African newspapers are either owned by their respective states or bow to pressure from their governments to maintain their publishing status, practising a form of self-censorship.
Africa, and African journalists, have had to struggle with being at the back end of globalisation. Almost continuous political turmoil, civil war, poverty, and outdated and rundown infrastructure, have ravaged the continent and destroyed what little telecommunications there are.
“The isolation,” says Janet Carr, a computer-aided journalism lecturer at Rhodes University’s journalism and media studies department, “makes it hard for journalists to report easily and therefore accurately, exacerbated by the fact that a radio, never mind a television or computer, is a scarce commodity in many parts of the continent.”
Africa, she says, became the target of quick fix journalism.
“Stories break when wars break, and anything less than gross atrocities or violations of human rights don’t warrant a mention in global news.
“Journalism about the continent is mostly event driven, not issue driven; mostly reactive, hardly ever pro-active. The reasons for this are complex, but without doubt, the continent’s lack of links with the rest of the world has done a lot to perpetuate, if not create, this situation.”
But she says, the emergence of computer-aided journalism and the Internet – a ready, everyday resource for most Western journalists – has been able to turn this around.
Irwin Manoim – who pioneered press freedom as one of the founding co-editors of The Weekly Mail and then in May 1994 set up the continent’s first electronic newspaper, the electronic Mail & Guardian (eM&G) – says the Internet has an increasingly positive effect on press freedom in Africa.
“The Internet has done a substantial amount to provide information media for Africa. In some ways it’s its most spectacular success.”
The best example of this is Misanet, a basic e-mail communications system set up by the Media Institute for Southern Africa (Misa), a sub-Saharan press freedom watchdog, in the early 1990s.
Misanet allowed journalists on the continent to communicate with each other and disseminate independent, non-governmental reports about events in individual countries. Its setting up involved sending South African computer whiz Mike Jensen around Africa with a backpack of modems and “wiring up” journalists in African countries.
Says Manoim: “Misanet is now more successful than ever. Back then we were fighting the same devil [apartheid] but had no technology to exchange information. Now we have it, and the Internet.”
Internet journalism came of age this year when Internet gossip reporter Matt Drudge broke the story of United States President Bill Clinton’s alleged dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Drudge displayed one of the Internet’s most useful features by continuing to stay ahead of all other print media, especially television, long the home of breaking news, with further developments to the story.
Another advantageous Internet feature is the ability to publish huge amounts of information. While newspapers may be restricted to a 1E000-word article, online publications can publish much more, as well as provide “links” to related articles.
The most graphic example of this was the suppression last May of a report into atrocities committed by Zimbabwean troops in Matabeleland in the early 1980s.
The report, drawn up by Zimbabwe’s Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, had to be approved by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe before it could be printed in newspapers, effectively suppressing it.
But, says Manoim, the eM&G posted the entire report on its website and Zimbabweans printed it and handed it out on the streets of Harare, disseminating the information.
Similarly, says Odd Stevenson – South African bureau chief photographer for Agence France Presse, who has covered wars in Rwanda, Somalia, and Ethiopia – the Internet makes it possible for more than one image to be posted on the Internet, and is immediately available anywhere in the world.
The Internet has also given a voice to dissidents in African countries, such as Nigeria and Libya. “This is an example of a grass-roots movement finding an international voice they never had before through the Internet,” says Manoim.
And the Internet has produced online contact services for exiles, such as Malinet and Leonet in Mali and Sierra Leone respectively.
The prevalence of Internet and satellite technology in Africa has also made it easier for foreign journalists covering stories.
The Guardian’s Africa correspondent, Chris McGreal, while covering wars in central Africa last year, kept the world informed of developments by filing with a laptop and satellite phone.
Another Guardian correspondent, Alex Duvall Smith, says the Internet is the only way a foreign journalist can quickly find out about the different sides of a story or conflict.
Now through the Internet, says Carr, a journalist in the poorest African township or the remotest rural area can – with a modem, a laptop and telephone facilities – have the same access to information and resources as a journalist anywhere else in more developed parts of the world.
“So this emergence is showing itself to have the potential to serve Africa in a healthy two-way process: information is easily accessed, and at the same time can be easily disseminated,” Carr adds.
The Internet equals the publishing playing fields in the way no other medium ever has. African newspapers that have been banned or harassed by their respective governments can still disseminate their paper electronically.
“For African journalists using online publishing, these publications can be seen by anyone anywhere in the world with access to the Internet, which can thus bring the world to our doorstep, so to speak,” says Carr.
“This raises a rural journalist working on a small community newspaper to the same lofty levels of his or her Western counterparts in New York, London or Stockholm.”
ENDS