Botswana’s media is in crisis
/ 29 January 2020

Botswana’s media is in crisis

COMMENT We live in a divided political environment and amid radical economic disparities. But there is one thing on which virtually everyone in Botswana agrees: most of the news and information we are fed is biased.  There are constant complaints about bias, from readers and politicians alike. These complaints are not groundless. As director of […]

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/ 10 February 2008

ANC media tribunal under scrutiny

The print media was, as usual, overreacting to the African National Congress’s (ANC) intentions to investigate the establishment of a media tribunal in South Africa, ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said on Sunday. Motlanthe was speaking at the South African National Editors’ Forum question-and-answer session in Cape Town.

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/ 6 February 2008

Zuma and the press: Soft or hard?

Newspapers are beginning to deal with whether Jacob Zuma and his backers will be magnanimous in his victory … or vengeful towards them. Last week, the new ANC president pruned his legal actions against the press. He can now afford to do so politically, and many of the cases were probably unlikely to succeed anyway.

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/ 7 November 2007

Fifth estate, not the state

Self-regulation for newspapers ratcheted up a gear last week with the inaugural meeting of the Press Council in Johannesburg. But the African National Congress (ANC) is also notching up its own pressure on the press. Comprising a panel of citizens and journalists, the Press Council was launched earlier this year to beef up the existing ombudsman in handling complaints about coverage. The system is a kind of fifth estate to check on the fourth.