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No region needs more help with media than Africa. Most of Africa has fragile democracies, weak institutions, widespread illiteracy, little access to technology, and a health crisis. In order to bolster accountability in African countries, independent, professional journalists are critically needed.
Yet state control of broadcast media is rampant, and there are very few trained independent broadcasters in Africa. There are a number of skilled print journalists, but most populations are unable to access newspapers. Journalists are poor and often don't have the means to carry out their trade. They operate on a shoestring, often with antiquated equipment.
Nevertheless, some Africans can-and do- make money in the media, particularly in radio. (2) And journalism can make an impact on democracy. Ghana and Senegal are success cases, where media really changed the way the countries work, according to Joan Mower, who headed the Freedom Forum's international programs.
The most popular and accessible medium is FM radio; call-in shows are the most typical kind of news/radio program. There is a great need to develop radio news. Where this has been done, such as Burundi, it has been a big success. (3) Yet "this market is ignored by the donor community," said Mower. "No money is being directed toward getting quality newscasts on these private, money-making radio stations" such as Joy FM in Ghana or Radio Phoenix in Zambia.
Most radio in Africa started as AM, government broadcasting, especially in the Francophone countries. In the intellectual environment of the 1970s and 1980s, subnational identities became a strong force. In Zaire and Congo, for example, FM could be used by ethnic, religious groups because it was cheaper, clearer, but with just a short, 13-mile radius. In Nigeria, Muslim fundamentalists set up FM stations. When Congo was breaking up, people were afraid; they turned on the radio but there was no radio voice to speak to the nation as a whole. (4)
The Dutch and Americans have helped strengthen FM capacity, but no plan to network the FM stations has been put into place. A proposal to start a U.S. "Radio Democracy for Africa," like VOA, was approved by the House but not the Senate. It's "back to square one" on that project, said Susan Rice, former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. (5)
Most African nations have a number of competing television stations, which show American fare with some French, British and other programming. The western media viewpoint is now widely available. This has engendered "a natural resentment of the obvious richness" of America, observed Amolo Ng'weno, a creator of Africa Online, a successful Internet service. The feeling is not anti-Western, but rather a sense of the arrogance of the Western politicians. "There's an idea that when you have so much, having a few problems is probably not a bad thing," he said, referring to the African reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. (6)
Internet access and policy are at a critical stage here. "The potential of Internet in Africa is staggering," concluded a recent Carnegie Corporation magazine cover story. Four years ago, only 11 African countries had any Internet access at all. Now all 54 of them have permanent connections and a competitive ISP market is growing across the continent. (7) Africa's information famine can be eased through the "leapfrog" technology of the Internet, the article predicted. African Virtual University (AVU) based in Nairobi, Kenya (http://www.avu.org), has linked students from 24 African universities to classrooms and libraries worldwide. Over 10,000 free email accounts have been opened by AVU but students must pay for the courses.
In Togo, Internet-based telephone services are springing up where no telephones have been before. Craft makers are selling their goods all over the world via PeopleLink (http://www.peoplink.org) and a women's fishing cooperative in West Africa is finding and negotiating prices with overseas buyers via the Internet for its 7,350 members.
"Even in the poorest sections, (Internet) is too cheap to ignore. It is more cost-effective for the poor than the rich," noted Daniel Wagner of www.literacy.org. Literacy and technology are becoming interdependent. The technology must be consumer oriented and context/culture sensitive, he said. Development people need to focus on the bottom quarter of the 'digital divide," because "the upper 3/4 will take care of itself." Yet most information technology developers are looking after not the poor, but the middle class, because that's where they have the biggest chance of commercial success.
Africa has an estimated ratio of one Internet user for every 750 people outside South Africa, which has more; this compares to a world average of about one for every 35 people. (In North America, it's about one in three.) (8)
Obstacles to information in Africa include the absence of a telephone infrastructure, lack of an educated workforce with language and technological skills, and political policy. "African governments are the big barrier to progress in this area as in most areas," said former United Nations aid worker Nancy Hafkin. (9)
Connecting and empowering news organizations to be part of the Internet helps make them a force for change, according to Tim Carrington of the World Bank Institute. In Zambia, for example, people downloaded a banned newspaper and passed it out on the streets. (10) Institut Superieur des Sciences de l'information et de la Communication (ISSIC) in Senegal is one of the institutions teaching journalists computer-assisted reporting and Internet skills.
Most of the media development work in Africa has been done by European organizations and the U.S. government, which has funneled much of its media development aid through the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) organization. From 1985 to 1993, Africa also accounted for about half of ICFJ's work. (11) ICFJ has sent 27 Knight fellows to nine countries in Africa over the past seven years. ICFJ helped reform the technical universities (Technikons) throughout South Africa, developed journalism school curricula in Ethiopia and Botswana, and run anti-corruption training in Nigeria. They have strengthened media centers in Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal and Uganda, and developed community radio throughout South Africa. ICFJ's new McGee Journalism Fellowship in Southern Africa will send a fellow to southern Africa each year.
Connecting journalism and legal groups regionally can help head off repressive new laws in a given country. MISA headquarters in Namibia signaled to Botswana that a repressive media law was about to be passed; the Botswana chapter had missed it. International help is also important. "Without the international spotlight, international pressure, the local policy work is not effective," concluded Ann Hudock of World Learning, a USAID contractor doing international media development. (12)
The African press follows the European tradition, with newspapers that tend to be highly partisan. News about politics dominates most newspapers. Government papers espouse the government line; others reflect the opposition parties. In some countries, such as Angola and Rwanda, there is no notion of reporting both sides of a story.
African journalists generally want more training, ranging from how to use a keyboard to website development. Basic writing skills could be improved, as well as copy-editing, which often is ignored. Investigative reporting is rarely based on multiple sources or crosschecking of information. It tends to be in the form of "leaks" from a politician.
Economic reporting tends to be press-release-based, from either the government or companies, with little analysis. Environmental reporting is almost non-existent, but desperately needed. Dakar, Senegal, for instance, is littered with plastic bags, but stories on this subject rarely surface. (13) Management training in the media business is needed.
Despite a huge increase in AIDS awareness, reporting on health and women's issues is spotty, with few features or in-depth stories about what is really going on in the health world. Papers generally don't have "women's" or "health" sections. Taboos are rampant, particularly about AIDS. One promising area is in U.S. grants for radio projects, which, in the name of teaching Africans "how to be great deejays," encourage programming about HIV/AIDS education.
Capital infusions of printing presses and computers would be very helpful, but the donors need to be accountable and not just dump used presses that will fall apart. Policy efforts and legal help are needed in coordination with existing groups. In Nigeria, for example, there is a very general, weak claim to press freedom under the Constitution, but it doesn't amount to anything in reality. (14)
ENGLISH-SPEAKING WEST AFRICA
English-speaking journalists in West Africa are, for the most part, relatively sophisticated, compared with other countries on the continent. In Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, and Ghana, the first country to attain independence in 1956, the British left a legacy of a vibrant media. Although both countries have experienced many years of dictatorship and repression, the media scene today is quite strong. In contrast, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been devastated by civil wars that have destroyed media. Gambia has a repressive president. There are manpower problems since most good journalists went into safer professions, such as advertising, in the 1980s. Media need to be developed now as a business, but those in charge don't have media management training. Most media carry specific ethnic, religious or political agendas. "They may have some public information functions, but they have other agendas. They are not really media as (independent) media," says Nigerian journalist Dapo Olorunyomi of the Panos Institute.
GHANA:
LIBERIA:
NIGERIA:
Unlike most other countries in West Africa, Nigeria started with a free press in 1859 until 1966 when media were nationalized. Nigeria is one of the richest countries in Africa, with the largest middle class. There are 45 journalism schools, including 18, which award degrees. Even under colonial rule, they had a professional, investigative journalism tradition through 1960, when they won independence. In 1966, a military coup brought very repressive laws, including restrictions on media and information access. After a brief democratic period again in 1976-80, Africa's most virulent military regime took power. The repressive military were educated and sophisticated; they benefited from the oil boom. Now there is a veneer of democracy but ethnicity and religion are strong pulls. The private media sector has not succeeded, despite liberalized laws and new business investments in it. The need here is for management training for media companies, rather than journalism training per se, according to Dapo Olorunyomi of the Panos Institute. said there is a lot of media development money in Nigeria, but not all of it has been well planned. "You need to have a very clear strategy about what you want to do. Not all the organizations have that." (15)
SIERRA LEONE:
FRANCOPHONE AFRICA
MALI:
Panos runs an office in Mali.
NIGER:
SENEGAL:
EAST AFRICA
BURUNDI:
This is a very dangerous place for journalists and trainers. Talking Drums of Search For Common Ground has been very successful under the circumstances.
ETHIOPIA:
Ethiopia is a special case. Journalists desperately need help here. For anything Ethiopian, the expert is Jennifer Parmelee, ex-Washington Post, and ex-AP, Princeton grad who now runs the VOA's Horn of Africa service. jparmele@voa.news.com. She is married to an Ethiopian and was a Knight fellow in Ethiopia. There have been a number of programs, including:
KENYA:
Nairobi is one of the international media developers' favorite venues. Kenya's plethora of media organizations include:
RWANDA:
The US government gave some money post-genocide, but it wasn't much, Mower said. She did training there in 1996, mainly for the English-speaking radio and print people. The University in Butare is trying to get communications going. There is no daily newspaper. (The paper is trucked in from Kampala.) There is a need for printing presses, but not used presses that will fall apart. Rwandan journalists found out only by chance when a new media law was about to be passed in their country. "Ten million people have no daily paper because there's no one who will lend money for a printing press," Mower says.
Internews has done some creative work here. Their documentary of the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal has been shown to audiences throughout Rwanda, including prisoners in jail who allegedly participated in the massacre. "For the African continent, seeing a former minister sitting in a cell, that in itself is sending a very powerful message. It means this is real. Now we are answerable," said Agwu Ukiwe Okali, registrar for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. (16)
TANZANIA:
UGANDA:
The Uganda Journalists Association represents independent journalists and does a good job. Contact: Charles Onyango-Oddo of the Monitor newspaper. In Uganda, most of the good journalists attend Makerere University. There is a vibrant print press but broadcasting needs development. The USG gave about $350,000 for media training in the mid-1990s.
ZAMBIA:
Zambia's newspapers are relatively bad, in Mower's opinion. They are either hostile to the government or pro-government with no semblance of balance.
Mike Daka, the executive director of the Zambia Institute of Mass Communications (Zamcom), is "the strongest person I worked with in Africa," says Mower. "He is smart, organized, honest and incredibly nice." Andy Mosher, deputy foreign editor of The Washington Post, was a Knight Fellow at Zamcom. Zamcom has received money from a number of funders, including the U.S. and Zambian governments. Daka runs a full range of training programs. Zamcom has a beautiful building, with many computers. Daka would like to start an independent radio station in Zambia, which focuses on news.
SOUTHERN AFRICA
Much of the region seemed to go backward in the cause of media freedom during 2001. ICFJ inaugurated a new fellowship, the McGee Journalism Fellowship in Southern Africa, which is based in Botswana and will send a fellow to southern Africa each year.
ANGOLA:
This is a very perilous place for journalists. The government is not open and an ongoing civil war makes it very dangerous. As one of Africa's richest countries (in oil and diamonds), this country needs more coverage from the international community, as well as indigenous journalists.
BOTSWANA:
The government of what had been one of Africa's most respected liberal democracies in 2001 stirred a furore by cracking down on the press. Proposed legislation would allow the government to decide which newspapers can operate and to seize any publications it doesn't like.
Joyce Barrett, Knight fellow helped to create the media studies department at the University of Botswana's Gaborone campus. "Just a few years ago, the Gaborone campus was the largest construction site in the country. It is well regarded in the region and aims to build one of the best journalism departments in Africa," she said.
Lucinda Fleeson recently was the first McGee Journalism Fellow in Southern Africa, a new ICFJ fellowship program based in Botswana.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO:
This is another difficult country for journalists. There is a good group, Journalists in Danger, which keeps up with abuses against journalists.
The U.S. government also has an ongoing Central Lakes media project to try to bring together journalists from diverse areas to communicate with each other.
NAMIBIA
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), headed by Luckson Chipare, is the top monitoring organization in the region. They got $800,000 from the US government. Based in Windhoek, they have chapters in all countries in the region. They have put on conferences, published reports and contributed to various journalists' legal defense funds. It is not clear how much training they have done.
SOUTH AFRICA
ZIMBABWE:
Journalists and democrats are under siege right now. It is probably not the best place for training, although international attention is always helpful. The World Press Freedom Committee went last spring on a trip to Harare with a press freedom group (IPI, WPFC, et.al.) delegation and found that a "Freedom of Information Act" was not that, but rather, a press law to control the news media through licensing of journalists and a two-tier press council system. Violence against journalists was increasing. Government ministers are verbally abusing journalists in public and using criminal defamation laws. They are rushing new broadcasting legislation through Parliament to preclude independent broadcast news stations, in advance of presidential elections in early 2002. Geoff Nyarota, editor of the independent newspaper The Daily News, was charged with criminal defamation for an article he wrote on a U.S.-based lawsuit against President Mugabe. The paper also has been bombed and two foreign correspondents, Joseph Winter and Mercedes Sayagues, had to leave the country.
1. African Eye News Service (AENS) Nelspruit, South Africa eyenews@iafrica.com Contact: Justin Arenstein. In 2000 they received ICFJ's Knight award.
2. The African Women's Media Center (http://www.awmc.com) is the Dakar, Senegal-based women's organization started by the International Women's Media Foundation several years ago. An anonymous donor provided funding for the center; IWMF is trying to raise money for its continued life.
3. AMARC-Africa. Based in South Africa, they've done community radio training around the continent. AMARC is a global membership organization based in Canada.
4. Bridges, Capetown, South Africa. 021-671-4616. This project, started by Prescott Low, former owner of the Quincy Patriot Ledger, helps independent media learn management and business practices. Contact: Jolyon Nuttal, sabridge@web.co.za (27-021-671-4616)
5. Bush Radio, Capetown, South Africa. Contact: Zane Ibrahim, bush@gem.co.za 27-21-448-5450.
6. The Ford Foundation (http://www.fordfoundation.org). A longtime funder of diverse Africa media projects, they've recently moved aggressively into supporting media projects in Nigeria. Joseph Gitari is East Africa director. Together with UNESCO, they gave startup funding for African Public Radio in Burundi, modeled on America's National Public Radio.
7. Foundation Hirondelle, (http://www.hirondelle.org) a Swiss NGO, has done work in some African countries, including Liberia.
8. The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (http://www.fes.co.zw), the German-based foundation, has offices in several countries (Senegal, Botswana, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, among other places.) Although FES is not a media organization, it often runs programs for reporters centering on election coverage. It recently did a program on election reporting prior to Zambia's presidential contest.
9. The Freedom Forum (http://www.freedomforum.org). Their presence in Africa is ending. They funded scattered programs across the continent on an as-needed basis.
10. Institut Superieur des Sciences d l'information at de la Communication (ISSIC), part of the Sud Communications Empire in Senegal, is headed by Babacar Toure and Dr. Abdou Latif Coulibaly. They may charge for courses now. They are also teaching new media courses, including CAR and Internet skills.
11. ICFJ has sent 27 Knight fellows to nine countries in Africa, including three to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to strengthen the local journalists' association and develop curriculum at the country's only journalism school; another project to reform the technical universities (Technikons) throughout South Africa where most future journalists learn their skills; and create the first journalism curriculum at the University of Botswana, which now serves five southern African countries (base for the ongoing McGee Journalism Fellowship in Southern Africa); multiple fellowships to strengthen media centers in Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal and Uganda, and four fellowships to help develop community radio throughout South Africa. (17) They are also active Nigeria, where they are part of a USAID anti-corruption training project.
12. The International Federation of Journalists (http://www.ifj.org), the Brussels-based group of union journalists, runs the Media for Democracy in Africa program. Supported by the European Commission, the group is setting up independent press houses in Gambia, Togo, Tanzania and Burkina Faso. The press houses are supposed to become independent. Training will be conducted there, although little has happened so far, Mower says.
13. International Women's Media Foundation: The group has worked to created women's media associations across Africa. It has done training in health reporting, women's management roles etc.
14. Internews (http://www.internews.org) has organizations in Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania. In Nigeria, their Media Rights Agenda organization supports local independent media and has a lawyer working for open Internet policy. In Rwanda and Tanzania, the focus is on providing news content about the Rwanda war crimes tribunal for African newspapers and international media via Africa News Online.
15. Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). This is the top monitoring organization in Africa. They got $800,000 from the US government. Based in Windhoek, they have chapters in all countries in the region. Contact: Luckson Chipare.
16. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (http://www.ned.org). Congress earmarks these funds for specific initiatives, including grants to some media projects.
17. Network for the Defense of Independent Media in Africa (NDIMA). Founded in 1993, this pan-African human rights organization represents both local and international media groups, fights for freedom of expression, monitors violations, trains journalists and operates the Recasu program for sheltering stateless journalists. Contact: Sam Mbure. Supporters include UNESCO, Ford Foundation, Norwegian Human Rights Fund (NHRF), World Free Press Institute, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and IFEX.
18. Nordic/Southern African Development Community Journalism Center (NSJ) in Maputo, Mozambique offers training in business and economics reporting. The Freedom Forum funded them to hold a course for publishers several years ago in Malawi. Mower "was underwhelmed" by the results.
19. Open Society Institute (http://www.soros.org) OSI's media emphasis in Africa has been on community radio projects, funded by three regional OSI foundations serving 27 countries. (18) Jean Fairbairn (jean@ct.osf.org.za) was the program officer largely responsible for developing community radio in South Africa. Her training on election coverage at the community radio stations paid off: the stations were cited by monitoring groups as having the the best election coverage, Siemering said. OSF-SA (South Africa) spent $668,000 on media. OSF-SA says it is South Africa's single largest donor in community radio, providing grants and operational support and assisting stations in the development of programming and information-sharing networks, which use email and Internet-based technology. The foundation produced a manual for use by radio stations who had never covered elections before, and provided grants to "develop the capacity of radio staff" to cover the local elections. Ongoing support also was given to organizations promoting freedom of expression and access to information.
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) serves Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Its $7 million budget includes media and other initiatives, including funding for communications projects about HIV/AIDS and assistance for rural community radio stations.
Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) covers 18 countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Cameroon and Chad. Its $1.6 million budget includes supporting independent and diverse media and other nonmedia projects. Since most of the population in West Africa has no regular access to print journalism or television, OSIWA works on developing community radio, building on lessons learned from public health information dissemination, truth commission reporting in South Africa, and the tragic example of hate radio in Rwanda. OSIWA experimented with regional and sub regional democracy radio projects in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Nigeria, OSIWA supported a media and diversity conference, including the role the press plays in covering ethnic strife
20. The Panos Institute has a range of media-related programs. With offices in Zambia, South Africa, East Africa and Senegal and elsewhere, the institute has produced a range of publications and promotes better radio, communications and media laws in many countries in Africa. Each office seems to function somewhat autonomously. Despite its good intentions, the offices Joan Mower visited (Lusaka and Dakar) never seem very busy. Contact: The Washington office is headed by the well-respected Nigerian journalist Dapo Olorunyomi. He has done ethnic diversity workshops with Nigerian journalists.
21. Population Reference Bureau (http://www.prb.org) is USAID funded. They're supporting a group of African women journalists to improve health coverage. They've worked in West Africa and in Southern Africa
22. The Reuters Foundation (http://www.foundation.reuters.com) offers a range of programs in writing, broadcasting, reporting for journalists from around the continent. Generally, journalists travel to the London headquarters.
23. Search for Common Ground creates media programming and journalism training around the world to ease conflicts and find common ground. Founded by John Marks, it is co-directed by his wife Susan, who is South African. In 1995 they created Studio Ijambo, using Hutu, Tutsi, Sanwa and Muslim journalists to create 15 hours of programming each week, including a popular soap opera, to bridge ethnic divides. This is a highly regarded organization supported by numerous foundations including Mott, MacArthur, Kellogg, Eurasia, Hewlett, OSI, and Rockefeller.
24. UNESCO (http://www.unesco.org) set up press houses in Rwanda and Burundi. It has funded training programs in those countries and in Angola and other places. Contact: Alonso Azna is communications director for UNESCO East Africa in Nairobi.
25. World Bank Institute (http://www.worldbank.org) WBI has done training programs in Ethiopia and in East Africa, and funded diversity training in Nigeria.
26. World Free Press Institute (WFPI ) has tried to convene locals who have a stake in East Africa journalism training. They got into Africa four years ago when NDIMA saw their website and asked them to do election coverage training. Ford Foundation and Frederich Ebert invested $30,000 and they trained in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
WFPI has raised about $45,000 toward the construction of a $150,000 Media Resource Center for African Journalists in a rural area outside Nairobi. The proposed center would house and enlist as teachers stateless journalists expelled from Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi who are temporarily in Kenya seeking repatriation. UNESCO has supported the Recasu program (Refugee Care and Support), which has served 63 journalists over the past three years.) But they live in dispersed rented rooms, in fear that they will be arrested by Nairobi police demanding bribes. The residential center would be a safe haven and would allow the refugee journalists to stay together and hold training workshops.
To understand why independent professional media are important, just look at the cost of their absence in the Middle East. Most Arab countries have imposed severe government restrictions on media, thwarting the possibility of even-handed, fact-based journalism. The sanctioned coverage has served for decades to divert attention from local accountability, enflaming passions and sharpening biases rather than elucidating facts. America has been a favorite surrogate target. As this report goes to press, people in many Arab countries are taking to the streets in violent protest, claiming America is the primary source of their woes.
At the same time, the international press is being targeted deliberately by the Israeli military and police engaged in the conflict. On April 4, 2002 for example, Israeli soldiers attacked reporters with tear gas and stun grenades as they covered the Israeli assault on Ramallah. (1) With threats rather than weapons, the Palestinian Authority also barred journalists from covering street celebrations after the 9/11 attacks on America. (2)
This has never been a hospitable region for journalists or U.S.-sponsored media training. The U.S. government did some limited media development work in the 1990's, mostly in the narrow area of Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza. (3) A few ngos also contributed. Sadly, their handiwork now is in jeopardy. The Ford Foundation, Internews and Soros' Open Society Institute helped create a television station at Al Quds University in Ramallah. Modeled after American public television, it offered an alternative to the authorized propaganda and game shows typical of the region, with live sessions of the Palestinian Legislative council and a Palestinian-Israeli version of "Sesame Street."One of the station's founders, Daoud Kuttab, endured a week in Palestinian jail for airing a legislative debate on corruption in the Palestinian Authority. But on April 6 he wrote on AMIN.net (Arabic Media Internet Network) that Israeli soldiers had sacked the station. The staff were arrested and held for four hours by the Israeli soldiers. Video archives, equipment and cameras were destroyed. "Five years after launching our first broadcast, our dreams have been shattered," Kuttab said. (4)
During the Israeli attacks in April, 15 television stations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank--encompassing all indigenous television capacity for the Palestinians-were destroyed, according to Whayne Dillehay of ICFJ. Internews and others would like to do a damage assessment of the West Bank media.
A few U.S. reconciliation groups have been at work here for decades, including such creative efforts as the Search for Common Ground's U.S- Iran wrestling tournament. Internews started the AMIN.net website to post Palestinian and other Arab newspaper articles and to monitor journalism attacks, but otherwise by 2002 had largely moved out of the Middle East. AMIN.net has had no funding for the past two years, but it gets 3.9 million hits a month, about half of what Al-Jazeera gets, David Hoffman said in May 2002.
ICFJ trained reporters in war-torn Algeria how to use investigative reporting techniques to cover human rights issues. ICFJ also completed a three-year program on investigative reporting in Lebanon, bringing the best local reporters to the U.S. for internships at U.S. papers.
At press time, some media development work continued in Lebanon, Jordan and Qatar. BBC and the Reuters Foundation had training centers in Lebanon. Knight fellow Joanne Levine was in Amman, Jordan, working with the indigenous Women's Media Centre. The State Department issued a request for proposals for $1 million, 3-month projects on media development in the Middle East, Gulf States, and Central Asia. ICFJ planned to go ahead with a new VOA contract to train Al-Jazeera television journalists.
While the current cycle of violence makes it difficult to conduct effective training here, this may be the right time to rethink how to approach the Middle East's chronic media problems. This mission is both more difficult and more urgent since media have become an important factor in the deteriorating state of U.S.-Arab relations. For example, The New Yorker magazine and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman provided chilling reports after 9/11 about how pervasive and influential the anti-American press are in Egypt. Preposterous conspiracy theories about Jews creating the 9/11 attacks are commonly believed, and editorials by Egypt's leading newspaper editor suggested that the U.S. poisoned relief packages and was guilty of war crimes for dropping food packages in areas that had been land mined. Unfortunately, the Egyptian press are the media opinion leaders of the Middle East. Regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have escaped accountability by encouraging their tightly-controlled media to blame the U.S. for economic, political and other problems, and by punishing the press if they criticize their own governments.
Professional, balanced journalism is not available to most Middle Eastern citizens. "The practice of freedom of speech is still something new in Arab media. Objectivity is a very subjective issue," said Al-Jazeera editor Hafez Al-Mizari. (5) David Hoffman of Internews argued for a comprehensive media development campaign instead of the U.S.'s propaganda approach toward the Middle East. "People who have been propagandized all their lives welcome the alternative of fact-based news," he contended in a recent Foreign Affairs article. While open media don't automatically guarantee moderation, they at least offer "new space for moderate voices that can combat anti-Western propaganda." (6) He noted that the World Bank's World Development Report found that countries with privatized, local independent media had better economies, less corruption, and higher rates of education and health.
Why wasn't more done in quieter years to spread the journalism gospel throughout the Middle East, as Americans did throughout the post-Communist world and elsewhere? One can speculate about a combination of regional factors: long-standing Arab hostility toward America because of its support of Israel; U.S. government disinterest in undermining the authority of autocrats who otherwise are helpful to U.S. oil and security interests; and the lack of local democracy movements necessary to sustain independent media.
Locals have paid a high price for promoting press freedom here. The Jordan Press Association, to which all local and foreign journalists in Jordan must belong in order to work, in 2000 expelled its own secretary-general, Al-Hadath editor Nidal Mansour, for starting a new press freedom organization, the Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ). The JPA complained that Mansour was no longer working full time as a journalist and had accepted foreign funding for CDFJ, which violated JPA's rules. Mansour also lost his job as editor of Al-Hadath. (7)
CASE STUDY: "AL- JAZEERA: THE TINY STATION WITH THE BIG MOUTH"
The most controversial news organization in the Middle East is Al-Jazeera television, which exclusively received and broadcast Osama bin Laden's videotapes after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. When Al-Jazeera was started in 1996 by the foreign ministry in Qatar and some former BBC Arab employees, it looked like progress. One Al-Jazeera editor remembered how favorably CBS's "Sixty Minutes" profiled the new network, calling it "the tiny station with the big mouth." Al-Jazeera soon was ruffling Middle Eastern rulers by courageously showing interviews with Israeli leaders and critical coverage of Arab regimes. (8) ICFJ has a new grant from Voice of America to assess the need for training Al-Jazeera journalists.
By Sept. 11, 2001 Al-Jazeera seemed to have dropped the BBC approach to become aggressively one-sided. Critics nicknamed the station, which is funded with $30 million from the Qatar government, the Bin Laden Broadcasting Corporation. (9) "Day in and day out, Al Jazeera deliberately fans the flames of Muslim outrage," Prof. Fouad Ajami charged in The New York Times magazine, arguing that even when the station interviewed American officials, it was setting them up with biased insinuations. Al-Jazeera provided one of the Arab world's few opportunities to watch President Bush and other U.S. officials tell their side of the story after 9/11. But when Al-Jazeera planned to interview Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 5, 2002, protests from Palestinian officials, nearly 150 Arab journalists, and people gathered outside the network's Arab League summit headquarters prompted them to cancel the interview on "technical" grounds. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rbbo had asked that the network cancel the interview because it wasn't "appropriate that he, a war criminal, be given a chance to appear on an Arab media platform." (10)
Ironically, Al Jazeera has adopted America's media culture while expressing the Arab world's anti-American bias. Even before 9/11, the network was mimicking the worst standards of Western media. "They are sensationalist, the political version of Jerry Springer," said Lebanese newspaperman Hisham Melem.(11) As David Hoffman observed, the majority of people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Iraq are under 25, and they have a love-hate relationship with America. "The same youths who shout 'death to America' go home to read contraband copies of Hollywood magazines." (12)
Satellite television like Al-Jazeera, while prohibitively expensive for most Arab citizens, is one of the least censored media in the Middle East. A half dozen other Arab-owned international satellite channels began broadcasting to the Middle East before Al-Jazeera. The relatively staid Middle Eastern Broadcasting Centre (MBC), for instance, which is owned by a relative of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, has a slightly larger news audience than Al Jazeera and twice as many overall viewers. (13)
Islamic fundamentalists also are taking to the airwaves. Al Manar television in Lebanon and al Mustaqbal in the West Bank town of Hebron are closely tied to Hezbollah and Hamas, Hoffman said. "Because these stations employ higher standards of journalism than local state-run media, they have enjoyed sizeable audiences who come to them for the quality of the news, if not the Islamist messages and propaganda they scatter within." (14)
Joel Campagna's essay in CPJ's 2001 annual survey observed that the Middle East missed out on the post-Cold War trend toward democracy. Media are either controlled outright, with no room for dissent, or undermined by draconian laws, censorship and harassment. The most extreme examples continue to be Iraq and Libya. In Algeria, Jordan and Syria, new press-related criminal laws were enacted in recent years. Most countries banned or confiscated foreign publications if they said anything deemed unfavorable to the current regime. (15) Journalists were attacked, jailed and murdered with impunity across the region during 2001. Campagna noted that journalists in Israel were regularly harassed and injured by Israel Defense and security forces, as well as by some militant Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories.
Despite this bleak landscape, there were pockets of progress. Private publications have sprung up alongside the controlled media in some countries. Courageous journalists continue to struggle against their fetters, including Morocco's Le Journal Hebdomadair and Demain Magazine, and Lebanon's weekly Al Nahar. The Internet, new Europe-based pan-Arab newspapers, and regional satellite channels including Al-Jazeera, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBCI) and the Middle East Broadcasting Centre, which is run out of London, are evidence that governments don't control all the news, CPJ noted. Affluent viewers in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries can bypass the official media via satellite dishes, which carry international as well as regional programming. Opportunities may exist in Syria, Morocco, Kuwait and Lebanon for some media training, under the right circumstances.(16) Bahrain's new emir is pushing political reforms that may improve media freedom.
Print journalism, particularly from Egypt, shapes elite and political opinion in the Arab world. Television is important, but radio is the medium of choice for most Arab citizens, as it is in other undeveloped regions such as Africa and South Asia. The Internet provided a bright spot for Middle Eastern journalists and activists. The estimated 4 million Internet users in the Arab world will double by the end of 2002, CPJ predicted. (17) The greatest concentration of Internet users are in the Gulf States, where Dubai has become a regional hub.
ALGERIA:
ICFJ trained reporters in war-torn Algeria how to use investigative reporting techniques to cover human rights issues. The Information Code of 1990 imposes jail sentences of up to five to ten years for publishing "false or misleading" information that "harms state security." Penal code revisions in 2001 added prison terms and fines for defaming the president. The government has failed to investigate the murders of 58 reporters and editors between 1993 and 1996. It is not surprising that the papers rarely tackle sensitive subjects. Fellow journalists harassed Habib Souaidia, when his book, The Dirty War, exposed Algerian human rights crimes. Foreign journalists also are monitored and restricted.(18)
EGYPT:
Egypt provides some of the most influential-and implausible-journalism in the Middle East. Insult laws were passed in 1995 and immediately 99 journalists were imprisoned. (19) The state owns the broadcast media and shares in the major newspapers, whose editors are appointed by President Hasni Mubarak. Since newspapers are strictly controlled by licensing, few independent papers exist. Criminal laws are applied against journalists who "incite hatred," "harm the national economy," or offend a foreign head of state. Harsher press laws were being drafted at the end of 2001, CPJ reported. (20) The American University in Cairo has some journalism courses.
IRAN:
Like China, there is a continuing power struggle at the top between moderate and hardline forces, allowing liberalization and then cracking down on media and democracy. President Muhammed Khatami's election on a platform of social and political liberalization led in 1997 to the emergence of a new liberal press that began to debate such issues as official corruption. But in 1999, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei started closing down 47 of the new moderate publications. Neshat had criticized the death penalty and published a letter from an opposition leader that questioned Khamanei's authority. Salam had simply published a government document that outlined moves to curb press freedom. Although the banning of Salam sparked the largest student protests since the Islamic revolution, they had no effect on the Khamenei government, which approved a new law curbing press freedom. (21)
A parliamentarian who in 2001 denounced the press crackdown was jailed for libeling the courts, CPJ said. In 2001, investigative reporter Akbar Ganji was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 5 years of internal exile, for attending a 2000 conference in Berlin on the future of the Iranian reform movement. Yet two courageous editors, Mashallah Shamsolvaezin and Latif Safari, were released in 2001 after serving time in jail. Guardian reporter Geneive Abdo and her husband, Reuters bureau chief Jonathan Lyons, had to flee the country in February, 2001 amid harassment following their interviews with the jailed Ganji. (22)
There are about 1,500 Internet cafes in Teheran, of which 450 were shut down for several months in order to protect the state telecommunications monopoly against competition from low-cost Internet phone service, CPJ said. Laws were passed in 2001 requiring Internet ISPs to filter their material and finally, to dismantle their operations and handover their assets to the state. Television and radio remained in the hands of the conservative authorities. Satellite dishes, which bring international programming into Iran, are popular. But authorities confiscated some 1,000 dishes and arrested some owners in 2001. The clampdown was inspired by provocative broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups based in the U.S., CPJ said.
IRAQ:
Journalists who are at all critical of President Sadam Hussein, his family or government officials are executed. Private Internet access is forbidden, as are modems and cell phones. Fax machines can only be used with government permission, CPJ said. (23)
ISRAEL:
The media here have been mostly uncensored and "extremely lively," according to CPJ. But restrictions and hazards have increased along with the escalating violence in 2002. Gunfire from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "was the most dangerous and immediate threat to journalists in Israel," CPJ said. In some cases, soldiers have deliberately targeted journalists. (24)
JORDAN:
Press freedom deteriorated here despite King Abdullah II's promises, when he took the throne three years ago, to liberalize the political and media laws. The 9/11 attack and American war on terrorism provided a pretext to impose general restrictions on free expression, CPJ reported. It is a criminal offense to "insult the dignity of the king" or to "incite" others to do so. Jordanian officials barred Israeli reporters from covering the March 2001 Arab summit in Amman, admitting later that they simply did "not wish to see Israelis."(25) Even though the government in 2000 technically ended its own broadcast monopoly, there are no provisions for establishing private broadcast stations, according to CPJ. In October 2001 the King replaced the Ministry of Information with a new Higher Media Council, but it was not clear whether this would improve press freedom. The Jordan Press Association to which all local and foreign journalists in Jordan must belong in order to practice journalism, in 2000 expelled Nidal Mansour, editor of Al-Hadath and the JPA's secretary-general, for starting a new press freedom organization, the Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists. (CDFJ). (26) The Arab Women Media Center (AWMC), founded in 1999, spronsored a pan-Arab women's media conference in 2001. http://odag.org/awmc/
KUWAIT:
Kuwait is freer than most Middle Eastern countries; no one is officially protected from media criticism except the emir. After watching CNN during the Gulf War, Kuwaitis joined in the regional proliferation of satellite stations. (27)
LEBANON:
The Reuters Foundation was still offering in May, 2002 some journalist training in Beirut. Former Knight fellow Ken Freed said much of the Lebanese press was unrestricted, but self-censorship was rampant. ICFJ ran a three-year program on investigative reporting in Lebanon, bringing the best local reporters to the U.S. for internships at U.S. papers. ICFJ also helped improve the journalism departments at two local universities. At the same time, courageous journalists from Al-Nahar, edited by Elias Khoury, were harassed by the government for criticizing the Lebanese military and talking about human rights, the Syrian presence in Lebanon, and other issues. Lebanese political figures treat the media as their private megaphones. Many own news outlets or pay off journalists. Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, for example, pumped his own election via his own television station, Future TV. The International Women's Media Foundation protested the indictment in 2001 of Raghida Dergham, the senior diplomatic correspondent for Al-Hayat in New York, for a treasonous charge of "dealing with the enemy" because she had done balanced reporting on a United Nations debate over the Lebanese-Israeli border. (28)
MOROCCO:
Hopes for greater political freedom when King Muhammad VI came to power in 1999 have not been realized. CPJ reports that "the independent press continued to push the limits of free expression-and just as quickly found them." (29) The three most lively independent newspapers-Le Journal, Al-Sahiffa and Demain- were closed in 2000 but resumed operating in 2001 under similar new titles, despite harassment from the government. (30)
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY:
U.S. government media development in the Middle East has focused mostly on Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) closed Al Jazeera's Ramallah office for several days because it broadcast an unflattering portrait of Arafat. Because of street demonstrations defending Al-Jazeera, the satellite broadcaster was allowed to reopen. PNA prevented journalists from covering the anti-American street celebrations after the 9/11 attacks. PNA's "heavy handed and arbitrary treatment of journalists has fostered an oppressive climate of self-censorship in the Palestinian press," CPJ concluded.
Internews was active in the 1990s in developing Palestinian broadcasting and Internet journalism, but by 2002 it had largely withdrawn from the area. The Ford Foundation and OSI founded the Al Quds Institute for Modern Media and a television station modeled on America's PBS. The station was destroyed by the Israeli army in the spring of 2002, along with the other 14 indigenous Palestinian television stations. Amin.net puts Palestinian journalism on the Internet.
QATAR:
(See Al-Jazeera case study).ICFJ has a VOA contract to assess the training needs of Qatar Broadcasting Corp. journalists, including Al-Jazeera television journalists. The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamed bin Khalifa al-Thani, resisted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's official requests after 9/11 to rein in Al-Jazeera. The emir invests $30 million a year of state funds in his now world-famous international satellite broadcasting network. The emir abolished the Ministry of Information and ended formal newspaper censorship in the 1990s, but self-censorship is rampant. One newspaper editor was beaten by three relatives of a government minister he had criticized, and the government jailed an American for allegedly defaming the emir on a website when he asked whether the emir's wife or a Qatari professor was the most attractive, CPJ reported. (31)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Recognizing that it couldn't insulate its population from BBC or CNN, the Saudi royal family established its own network, the London-based Middle Eastern Broadcasting Centre. CPJ describes Saudi Arabia as "one of the most closed societies in the world," tolerating no political dissent, particularly from the press. Editors are appointed by the government and writers can be dismissed for any reason. Foreign journalists are restricted as well, and reportedly were barred from interviewing in a region that was home to four of the 9/11 hijackers. Saudis circumvented such restrictions in two ways: by having a banned television satellite dish, or by using an Internet cafes where a resident hacker will, for a fee, take them to banned websites. (32)
SYRIA:
CPJ's Joe Campagna gives mixed reviews to President Bashar Al-Assad's two-year-old regime, saying his initial press liberalization ran into too much resistance from his inner circle's Old Guard. While Syria will allow a few independent media outlets, "the margins of acceptable discourse are strictly limited" under new decrees issued in September, 2001, Campagna wrote. On the plus side, the public's interest in serious journalism has been stirred. Syrian writers write more freely in regional newspapers such as Al-Nahar in Lebanon and Al-Hayat in London, and on Al-Jazeera television. (33) Lauren Ross of Internews had been warned by the U.S. State Department that the Syrians might not even meet with her. But she found in 2001 that they might be open to media assistance. In fact, a Syrian minister complained to her that no one was reading their papers, so they had to do something. One reason the papers were boring was that they were filled only with fawning coverage of the president, Campagna found. Ross believed the opportunity remains, but no plan is in place yet and Internews has little presence now in the Middle East. (34) The Syrian government has the only Internet Service Provider (ISP) and blocks Web sites about Israel, sex, or criticism of Syria's poor human rights record.
TURKEY:
Turkish journalists have a strategic advantage over many of their neighboring colleagues: their country wants to join the European Union. Laws are being revised and jailed journalists are expected to be released, CPJ reported. Two private holding companies own much of the print and broadcast media. The Sabah group lost some of its holdings in 2001 to rival Dogan Medya after its president was jailed for embezzlement and corruption. Turkish journalism still suffers from self-censorship and ideological prejudice, CPJ found. Private radio and television stations, which have been proliferating in recent years, are sometimes censored or closed. There is no Internet law, but an online discussion administrator was held responsible and sentenced to jail when an unknown participant posted a harsh critique of government human rights problems on his website. (35)
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
The Emirates, especially Dubai, have designated themselves as a center for new media. Dubai Media City was launched in 2001 as a regional news hub for international journalists. Internet City puts much of the government online. Even so, the government blocks political and sexual content as it wishes. Print journalism is treated much more harshly, with detention and harassment by authorities if the government is criticized. Self-censorship prevails.36
YEMEN:
CPJ reports that Yemen is known for its lively opposition press, but that journalists who want to criticize the government may be intimidated and jailed. The broadcast media offer one-sided pro-government coverage.
KEY MEDIA DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The American war on terrorism put the media development spotlight on Central Asia in the spring of 2002. Millions in new funding was descending on Afghanistan at press time, despite a lack of infrastructure and security concerns following the kidnapping death of American reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
Before this, most of Asia had gotten relatively little media development assistance from Americans over the years. Throughout the region, what is needed most now is better coordination, including a thorough assessment of what works and what does not. The Central Asian republics remain difficult settings for democracy work of any kind. To the South and East there are pockets of activity: East Timor, Phnom Penh, Bangkok and now Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indonesia may get short shrift because of America's military focus to the West, but it needs and deserves more support for independent media. There are some strong local organizations in the Philippines, Thailand and India, some of which have been helped by the Freedom Forum, OSI, Knight fellows, Internews and others. The Asia Foundation used to be active but has receded. (1)
The collapse of the fledgling MediaWatch project in Singapore illustrates the merit of establishing small grants for struggling indigenous media efforts. Unable to raise enough money to operate, founder Tan Chong Kee threw in the towel after seven months. The organization had hoped to raise media standards and encourage fair reporting after the issuance in 2000 of new newspaper and television licenses in Singapore. The disappointed organizers included ngos, former journalists and intellectuals. (2)
China is of course the world's biggest unclaimed media prize, already partially in the grip of two American companies: AOL Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. How effectively their commercial ventures will inspire a freer, indigenous, high quality media in China remains to be seen. The Internet and China's intense interest in international commerce offer the biggest media development opportunity in generations here. But it is not certain that this opening will continue unchecked. The avatars could be punished, just as the government has vigorously suppressed democracy and religious freedoms ever since the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.
AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: SUDDENLY ON THE MEDIA MAP
As media developers landed in war-torn Afghanistan in the spring of 2002, there was no coordination, no Internet access, poor security, and not even a place for media trainers to stay, according to ICFJ's Whayne Dillehay. USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives issued RFPs for $1 million, three-month media development proposals for Central Asia (as well as the Middle East and Gulf States), and Internews, which got one of those grants, created the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan, giving small grants to start-up media efforts there. Internews sponsored a newspaper covering the Loya Jurga government, and joined the BBC to help establish Radio Kabul's broader reach throughout the country. The BBC has spent an estimated $1 million to give Radio Kabul two fully-equipped radio studios and an FM transmitter, along with training. Now a Merlin satellite system is being set up to rebroadcast news from Radio Kabul via shortwave to the rest of the country. (3)
Also active in Afghanistan are the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Baltic Media Center, funded by the Danish government, AINA, a French group headed by National Geographic photographer Reza (4), and Media Action International, which specializes in reporting on humanitarian crises and assistance.
The gold rush of independent media development was welcomed by critics who predicted that beaming U.S. Radio Free Europe-style broadcasts or public relations propaganda into the region would be counterproductive. Without a strong media development effort, media may become part of the problem again, rather than a source of real information. "Like Bosnia was before it, Afghanistan will probably be carved up into journalistic fiefdoms by local powers with an interest in keeping enmity alive, further fragmenting the country's fragile society," wrote Anthony Borden and Edward Girardet in The New York Times. "So far, international efforts have focused on broadcasting news reported by non-Afghans...these efforts may do some good, but they will also soak up enormous amounts of precious aid...What Afghans need most from their journalists is not explanations from the outside world and its views, but reliable information and honest debate within their own society."
CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA: EMBATTLED MEDIA
Central Asia is known for the "stans," the former Soviet republics that have not really emerged from Communist culture and still are struggling with autocratic leaders who use the media and government for their own ends. Most people don't buy newspapers here. If they do, they are buying mouthpieces for political factions and are not getting factually reliable or comprehensive news. As in other parts of the former U.S.S.R., the independence of TV and print depend heavily on their financial soundness. The best Central Asia TV stations have been shut down by their governments on the pretext of licensing problems. Official censorship, self-censorship and corruption in all aspects of society, including the press corps, are pandemic. Those rare journalists who dare to expose corruption are targeted for serious reprisals, even murder.
The media training here is about survival: it covers advertising revenue, market research, and production of soap operas and game shows, rather than emphasizing journalism or ethics. The media developers are the same organizations that have been involved in the rest of the former Communist bloc: USAID through IREX and Internews, George Soros' OSI, ICFJ, Freedom Forum (until 2002), Committee to Protect Journalists, and other free expression groups. OSI, through its North Caucasus Media and Civil Society Program and other ventures, is active throughout Central and South Asia. Journalists from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan recently formed the Central Asian and Southern Caucuses Freedom of Expression Network. (CASCFEN). The group, based in Baku, Azerbaijan, is headed by Azer H. Hasret, who heads the Azerbaijan press group IPIANC. hasret@azeurotel.com.
A PAKISTAN FIELD REPORT BY INTERNEWS (RECEIVED AT PRESS TIME IN APRIL 2002)
"Events since September 11th have spotlighted Pakistan on the world stage. Prior to the new Western focus on Islamic terrorist groups, Pakistan was moving slowly toward reducing government control of media. Now the West is offering Gen. Musharraf's government strong incentives to cooperate in the fight against terrorism. This has dramatically altered the political landscape of Pakistan, and appears to be accelerating the trend toward media openness. A new broadcast law, passed in January 2002, will enable the first commercial television and radio stations to operate. Non-governmental media associations are forming and are already informally advocating policy changes in large metropolitan cities such as Karachi and Lahore. Major newspapers cite increased freedoms to criticize the government, as well as increased intimidation from the Pakistani Secret Services (ISI). Internet cafes are opening in cities from Peshawar to Balochistan, but major concerns about access to information still exist. The first universities dedicated to IT education and development have opened. Yet officials have recently gone on record stating that broadcast news not approved by the government still will not be tolerated.
"Meanwhile, the first exclusively Internet-based non-government news service opened in July 2001, and has operated with a growing subscriber base throughout the war in Afghanistan. The government recently announced an "E-Government Plan" to try to help use ICTs (information & communication technologies) in the country's development. The UNDP has been active in encouraging connectivity projects. But, as in most other countries, little attention has been paid to Internet policy in general.
"The 'road map' for restoration of democracy in Pakistan is being written and implemented by the ruling military regime in Islamabad. The military government's National Reconstruction Bureau calls this process, enigmatically, "a silent revolution." Pakistan is neither democratic nor open at this time, but the possibilities for media development and the free flow of information are more promising than they have been for a decade. The first legislation allowing for a non-government broadcast media is a tangible illustration of that change. Less tangible are the policy and reformist movements in educational institutions, and the work of NGOs advocating for access to information, journalism curriculum reform, the allowance of non-profit and community-based media, and an independent press council.
"That the Pakistani government is willing to engage these concerns at all, and to allow some change to unfold, proves that a window of opportunity exists to explore, and possibly assist, media development. Any such assistance must focus on freedom of expression, news and information dissemination, and the development of independent electronic media. But the process is long, as Pakistan's transition to democracy may be protracted and difficult. Conditions for journalists in Pakistan today are perilous. The intimidation of non-government media and of independent thinkers who work inside government media institutions continues to be documented by such groups as Article 19 and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The paradoxes and gaps between freedom and repression will continue as Pakistan faces future elections and the possibility of a return to parliamentary democracy." (5)
America's 2001-2 war on terrorism has reached past Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, Georgia and Kazahkstan. Developing civil societies here would bring not just stability but hope, which could ease the anti-American terrorist threat. A particularly important part of this mix is independent, open media, including public access to information. One of the shocking revelations for many Americans after the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center was the extent to which ordinary people from this region and the Middle East have believed wild anti-American propaganda offered without challenge by government-sponsored media and in religious schools. Official censorship is pervasive in both Central and South Asia, and access to information is very low throughout the region. (6) Americans are paying a price now for allowing Central Asia to be so isolated from the rest of the world, including what OSI calls "extraordinary limits on foreign broadcasting."(7) This kind of information void is a fertile ground for rumor and propaganda, and a major reason why media development is both so difficult and so important.
In contrast, democratic India's media marketplace is relatively free and full of tabloid gossip. CPJ recounts, however, various attacks on journalists including those in the Kashmir region. Nepal's once-open media were silenced and other civil liberties were suspended as of Nov. 26, 2001, following the murder of the Royal family.
SOUTHEAST ASIA: BACKSLIDING
In 2000, liberalization of media restrictions in Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia seemed to bode well for developing civil societies there. But civil unrest in Indonesia, combined with a harsh political shift against independent journalism in Thailand, are among the discouraging events of 2001-2002. In Cambodia, the Hun Sen regime is seeking more standing on the world stage, and thus is more receptive to international pressure. Phnom Penh has become a haven for media development organizations, including those working across the border to help embattled media in Burma (Myanmar).
The Philippines have "a tradition of free expression that makes it one of the most open societies in Asia," according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' 2001 report. Reports from the respected Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism helped force President Joseph Estrada from office.
CPJ, the World Press Freedom Committee, OSI, Internews, UNESCO, Freedom Forum (until 2002) and now the World Bank are active in Southeast Asia. OSI probably gives more money to local projects than any other organization. The Scandinavian media development organizations also have been active in the region.
For information on the state of media, training and journalism development throughout Southeast Asia, the most respected resource is Kavi Chongittavorn, a 2001- 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard who edits The Nation English-language magazine in Bangkok. He founded and heads both the Thai Journalists Association and SEAPA, and he also represents IFEX and Transparency International in Bangkok. Now he hopes to start a Southeast Asia regional version of Harvard's Nieman program, to bring journalists to a local university for sabbatical studies. kavi@nationgroup.com.
CHINA'S INTERNET OPENING
China's media scene has liberalized since Tiananmen, but random crackdowns are always a possibility and pro-democracy workers can be punished severely, even executed. Partly because the vital U.S.-China relationship zig-zags on such issues as human rights, religion and free expression, China remains largely untouched by U.S. media assistance. The Wales-based Thomson Foundation has a small program there, but most media ngos have not ventured into this unpredictable, high-stakes environment.
Self-censorship is a key to commercial media success in China. Murdoch's Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, which is backed also by two Chinese investors, offers Taiwanese and Japanese soap operas, a dating game, and other shows that will not challenge Beijing in any serious way. When the Communist leaders complained to Murdoch about BBC reports that were critical of China, Murdoch dropped the BBC from his Phoenix TV network. (8)
So far, the Internet has provided the best opening in generations for independent journalists in China. Despite new rules requiring that all Web sites get their news from state media, the Internet has been treated liberally by officials. The government is looking the other way on stories that don't involve narrowly defined political news, and it does not apply the official 1980s media laws to the Internet. Although commercial Web sites are barred from reporting, that rule has not stopped the online edition of the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official organ, from publishing big stories that are not found in its newspaper. Thus, it was the People's Daily's online edition that first reported the April 2001 collision between U.S. and Chinese military planes over the South China Sea and the U.S. bombing of the Chinese consulate in Belgrade. Other Internet journalists were able to interview families from the Jiangxi school and report that the government was lying when it said students were no longer manufacturing fireworks there. "We plan to adopt policies towards Internet media that are preferential and more lenient than those for traditional media," government official Qian Ziaoqian told Anthony Kuhn of the Los Angeles Times. "It's not possible to apply the past methods of managing traditional media to the Internet." (9) The Internet also helps Chinese learn more about what is happening around their country; hundreds of local newspapers feed Chinese web portals like Sina.com and Sohu.com. (10)
Ensuring an open Internet is one of the most tantalizing targets for commercial as well as ngo media development work here. Will it be regulated as television is, or licensed like a newspaper, or treated simply as a cash cow, like the telephone system? These questions are still up for grabs in the world's most populous country, just as they are virtually everywhere else. AOL Time Warner's successful entry in fall 2001 into the Chinese market seems to bode well for Internet freedom, but it is not yet clear how much self-censorship they, like Murdoch, will impose in exchange for this commercial prize.
CENTRAL ASIA
AFGHANISTAN:
(See narrative, above.) Best-selling author and Wall Street Journal columnist Ahmed Rashid, working with Internews, also has contributed money personally for media assistance in the region. Although Television-Kabul is back on the air, it reaches only five miles outside of Kabul, using old Russian equipment and a "dish made of Coca-Cola cans." There remains a critical gap for local news, he said, as most people listen to the BBC's international broadcasts. Rashid warned Western donors that recovery could be "a messy ordeal, with two steps forward followed by two steps back." He said the U.S. should be actively engaged in the redevelopment and "sit on top" of the countries and agencies involved. (11) Also active in Afghanistan are USAID, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Baltic Media Center, funded by the Danish government, AINA, a French group headed by National Geographic photographer Reza (12), and Media Action International, which specializes in reporting on humanitarian crises and assistance
KAZAKHSTAN:
In spring 2002 as this report went to press, the repressive government was recalling many broadcasting licenses for alleged violations of the language and mass media laws. The best independent daily newspaper in Kazakhstan was closed by the government a few years ago. Internews is active here and has a knowledgeable local director, Oleg Katsiev. oleg@internews.kz
KYRGYZSTAN:
Internews has an active organization here, which provides legal support and training for embattled broadcasters. With a grant from the Eurasia Foundation, Internews provided a fulltime local lawyer to provide on-call legal aid to journalists. American University in Kyrgzstan was started with help from the University of Nebraska, which has since been replaced by Indiana University as the major partner. Soros OSI funds the university's library and computer/technology support. Faculty from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky come for semesters to teach a range of subjects, including media law and ethics. (13)
TAJIKISTAN:
Internews helped bring together Tajikistan's independent media to form the National Association of Independent Mass Media in Tajikistan in 1999. Same media repression profile as the other "stans."
TURKMENISTAN:
Similar to other "stans."
UZBEKISTAN:
The Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan is the nexus of political, economic and ethnic problems in Central Asia. (14) It has long been out of the international spotlight, partly because it resists foreign intervention. The government is draconian in its repression of journalists. They recently detained and released under international pressure Ruslan Sharipov, president of the Union of Independent Journalists of Uzbekistan (UIJU) for writing about human rights violations. Typical is its current harassment of Yevgheniy Dyakonov, founder of the online magazine "Zone." The pressure has included intimidation by the Uzbek special security services, and physical attacks on family members. (15) Government censors work on the third floor of the building on Matbuotchilar St. where most of the Tashkent newspapers are published. The papers are forbidden to show any indication that stories have been altered by the censors. International news sections contain no information about Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, because they have uneasy relations with Uzbekistan. Nothing can be reported about border conditions and conflicts, alcoholism, drug addiction, natural disasters involving human casualties, agricultural problems, disease outbreaks or the discovery of new diseases, or criminal activity or investigations.(16) Internews is active here. So is the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation-Uzbekistan (OSIAF).
SOUTH ASIA
INDIA:
CPJ reports that India's free press is "probably the strongest pillar of its democracy." It is notoriously full of tabloid gossip and rumor. The more serious story of the Kashmir crisis has, however, led to violent and legal attacks against local and foreign journalists. Tax inspectors raided the leading news magazine Outlook after it ran an expose of the prime minister's office. A commission was set up to investigate after a Web publisher, Tehelka.com, caught senior officials on camera taking bribes from journalists posing as arms dealers, but that commission "seemed more interested in investigating the news outlet's questionable reporting methods" than following up on the government's misbehavior, CPJ said in its 2001 country report.
PAKISTAN:
Pakistan, which recently privatized its radio and television, is undergoing a major transition that would benefit greatly from U.S. assistance. Internews has a proposal pending at OSI as this report goes to press (April 2002) to conduct a media assessment in Pakistan. To be sure, Americans working in this region are under intense security threat, as Daniel Pearl's murder has dramatized. Collaboration with other foreign and local groups may help ease the danger while still offering American assistance where it is so urgently needed. Newspapers in Pakistan have long been in a legal state of limbo. The licensing law was revoked years ago, and the only legal power officials have had over the print press is delaying power. "If you don't get a license, you wait four months and it's assumed you have a license," said Owais Aslam Ali, who heads his family's news agency and also the Pakistan Press Foundation. (17) The laws are ok, but the implementation is not good, he said. There are four influential newspaper barons. Most of the press freedom problems here could be solved by more training, he said. In Pakistan and India 90% of the readers are in Urdu, and those newspapers don't carry international news, Ali said. Below the news radar screen entirely are the 65% of the population who don't read or write.
NEPAL:
Before the 2001 royal assassinations and upheaval in Nepal, media were relatively free except when reporting on the Maoist insurgency, in which case they faced government prosecution. The Nepal Press Institute was established in 1984 by media professionals to help expand the country's 100-year-old newspaper industry with training and other services. The popular Gaon Ghar newspaper was created with colorful graphics and large fonts to reach rural villages in 75 Nepali districts. Similar projects have been undertaken in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, according to the World Bank. But the June 1, 2001 assassinations were not credibly explained by the government, which led to a period of wild conspiracy theories. In November most of the country's civil liberties were suspended, and more than 50 journalists were arrested, according to CPJ. The international community failed to help them, and a U.S. official even stated that "we hear from most mainstream journalists in Nepal that they're confident that they and their work will not be affected by the restrictions." This was "met with surprise and frustration" by the country's leading journalists, CPJ said in its 2001 annual report.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
BURMA (MYANMAR):
CPJ's 2001 annual report singles out Burma as one of the worst places to try to practice journalism, a place "where one of the world's most repressive dictatorships does its best to ensure that local newspapers carry anything but news." The Ministry of Information and Culture runs the largest television station, and the military controls the second largest. Even so, OSI and SEAPA are active in supporting the Burmese press. The Burmese Independent News Agency (BINA) covers Burma from Thailand, which is also were most of the media assistance organizations are headquartered. Kavi Chongkittavorn is well versed on media developments here. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi at press time may signal new opportunities for a less repressive regime and more open media.
CAMBODIA:
This is now one of the "trendy capitals" for media development. Knight fellow Ann Olson has moved here from Russia to take over the IJF's Center for Independent Journalism. Even Internews is now looking into starting a program in Indonesia. (18) There is a relatively open, "raw" situation, Kavi Chongkittavorn said, with very little media restraints except defaming the King. In the competition for foreign media aid, a game is played here in which local journalists "attack the King, the newspapers are shut down, and international media organizations come in," he said. At the same time, Cambodia's six competing media advocacy organizations "fight among themselves, so the government has its way." (19) As a result, it is better to partner with the tried-and-true IJF and SEAPA for training, which is needed particularly to promote investigative journalism against corruption.
INDONESIA:
SEAPA has branches in East Timor and Jakarta. Internews has run $17 million in USAID-funded programs here since 1998, supporting the emergence of television stations across Southeast Asia and building the first television schools. It also has created radio programming for over 100 radio stations. In coordination with an Indonesia's women's rights organization, Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan, Internews helped create Indonesia's first women's radio program, which reaches an estimated audience of about 5 million women. (20) That project was funded by USAID and the Royal Dutch Embassy of Indonesia. Internews also played an important role in creating national television and radio in East Timor, together with the United Nations. Another Internews project, "Reporting for Peace," teaches journalists how to cover conflict without inciting more violence. USAID provided presses to a consortium in East Timor. The Indonesian press is not especially ethical, professional or responsible. Many journalists take bribes. Self-censorship is common, particularly when reporting on religious conflict. Yet after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the mainstream Indonesian press reported that Israel, or "the Jews" were responsible, CPJ noted. This led to anti-U.S. demonstrations all across Indonesia, which is the world's largest Muslim country.
MALAYSIA:
The press are strictly controlled here and almost no independent news is allowed. CPJ observes that "the sole bright spot in this bleak landscape is the Internet, which has thus far escaped government control or censorship, largely because Mahathir wishes to attract foreign investment." (21)
PHILIPPINES:
The media are relatively free here. A study of Southeast Asian countries ranked the Philippines highest in making public records available. (22) The Freedom Forum's Internet Library project is ending due to the cutoff of funds. (23) A number of U.S. organizations help media here, in a relatively pro-American environment. The American Enterprise Institute ran a series on access to economic information, working with the local Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. (24)
SINGAPORE: The strict government puts so much heat on media here that MediaWatch, a nonprofit group created in March 2001 to improve professional journalism standards, had to close seven months later. Donors "refused to finance MediaWatch's budget of $122,500 because they considered media watching a political exercise," concluded Lauren Ross of Internews. Even when MediaWatch pledged to focus on a wide spectrum of news, rather than political news, it was still unable to go forward. MediaWatch chairman Tan Chong Kee had hoped to produce an annual report on the media situation in Singapore. Tan concluded that he would discontinue advocacy work.
THAILAND:
Until recently, the Thai press was considered one of the freest and strongest in Southeast Asia. But Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the country's richest man and telecommunications czar, came to power last year and now has reversed hard-won media freedoms established in the country's 1997 reform constitution, according to Kavi Chongkittavorn, founder of the Thai Journalists' Association. Shinawatra has harassed foreign journalists from the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Economist. He bought Thailand's only privately owned independent station, iTV, and used his influence to monopolize the news flow and win the election. Ngos have been more active than the U.S. government in media development here. (25) The Freedom Forum's Internet Library project was cancelled due to the cutbacks. FF had invested $50,000 in establishing a headquarters for the Thai Journalists' Association before canceling all if its foreign programs. Canadian training in television and broadcasting five years ago led to the formation of the Thai Broadcasters' Association. "Thai journalists don't have proper training, and those who have proper training aren't very good," according to Chongkittavorn. His Thai Journalists' Association, the most respected national journalist group in Southeast Asia, tries to address that need by bringing academics and journalists together to create mid-career training courses. One good workshop was "Ask the Right Question."
VIETNAM:
Despite Vietnam's interest in rapprochement with the West, the state owns all the country's nearly 500 media outlets and restricts what journalists can publish. In October 2001 the government even started requiring that all foreign news video being transmitted out of Vietnam be inspected first by the government. (26)
NORTH ASIA
NORTH KOREA:
This is not a fertile area for any Western training. Everything is strictly controlled by the Communist government. The movement of foreign journalists in the country is highly restricted and monitored, and local media weren't even allowed to cover the historic trip by their leader, Kim Jong Il, across China. The People's Republic of Korea restricts access to the Internet under criminal law. Harsh penal codes punish people for listening to foreign broadcasts or possessing dissident publications as crimes against the state, punishable by death, according to CPJ's 2001 survey.
SOUTH KOREA:
In the 1960s the government gave away radio receivers as part of a literacy campaign, which inspired the expansion of community radio. A liberalized newspaper licensing law in 1987 unleashed the press. Now publishers simply have to inform the government that they plan to publish a newspaper. The number of daily newspapers grew from 6 to 17 in Seoul alone, and the papers became more diverse all over the country. (27)
MONGOLIA:
While media are relatively free here, they reflect a lack of professional journalism training or public interest mission. Journalists worry that the growth of a sex-oriented tabloid press will lead to government censorship of all media. The new private radio stations in Ulaanbaatar are primarily all music stations, and none do significant news/information programming, according to OSI. There are remaining opportunities for effective media development. Bill Siemering of OSI and Knight fellow Corey Flintoff of NPR were involved here in a successful rural radio project here to serve the nomadic herders in the countryside. OSI's Mongolian ngo, the Mongolian Foundation for Open Society (MFOS), provided equipment, studio renovations etc. to create five local radio stations responsive to community needs. Two Mongolian trainers spent two years at the University of Missouri; which together with IRE helped develop course materials. Now a local Press Institute offers a nine-month training course and an Internet Center for journalists. MFOS also awards grants to newspapers to improve the editorial quality of their papers. Other partners developing radio here include UNESCO and USAID. Another local partner is the Press Institute of Mongolia.
CHINA:
China will always be in a class by itself. CPJ cautions that China is the "world's leading jailer of journalists." (28) Some media openness is allowed, but the danger is always present. China's keen interest in participating in the Internet and the world economy provides an unprecedented opportunity for media development. The success last fall of AOL Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch in establishing commercial contracts for doing media business in the part of mainland China closest to Hong Kong may provide the foot in the door for other independent media in China. But Murdoch's deal came at a price, which Murdoch didn't seem to mind but which others considered a betrayal of the international media community. Murdoch dropped the BBC from his China network when Chinese officials complained about its news coverage.
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER 6: AFRICA
1 This country report is based largely on an Africa media analysis memo done for this project by Joan Mower of the International Broadcasting Board of Governors, former head of the Freedom Forum's international programs.
2 For example, Joy FM in Accra, Ghana, has a wide audience and is a money-maker. The Daily Nation empire in Kenya, owned partly by the Aga Khan, has long made a profit. Sud Communications in Senegal has a profitable newspaper, radio station, and Internet site, Mower said.
4 Dapo Olorunyomi, who spoke at the World Bank Institute/USAID media policy brainstorming meeting in Washington. in October, 2001.
5 Susan Rice spoke to a meeting of Internews Regional Directors in October, 2001 in Washington, D.C.
6 WB/USAID brainstormer, ibid.
7 Daniel Akst and Mike Jensen, "Africa Goes Online," Carnegie Reporter, Spring 2001.
10 Carrington hosted the WB/USAID brainstormer.
11 Whayne Dillehay, email to author Dec. 19, 2001.
12 WB/USAID brainstormer, ibid.
15 This overview of Nigerian media is based on respected Nigerian journalist Dapo Olorunyomi's presentation to the WBI/USAID meeting, ibid. The Nigeria organizational analysis that follows is from Joan Mower.
16 Okali's quote, which appeared originally in the New York Times, is from the Internews 2000 annual report.
18 This summary of OSI's work in Africa comes from OSI's 2000 annual report.
CHAPTER 7: THE MIDDLE EAST
1 "Israeli Soldiers Force Reporters Out of Ramallah," New York Times, April 6, 2002, p. A10.
2 It is awkward for Americans to complain about this, of course, since their own government has barred reporting of most U.S. military activities in Afghanistan.
3 Whayne Dillehay, interview with the author, Oct. 2001.
4 Daoud Kuttab, "Forced Off the Air in Ramallah," AMIN.net, April 6, 2002.
5 Al-Jazeera editor Hafez Al-Mizari spoke to the Nieman Foundation, Feb. 3, 2002.
6 David Hoffman, "Beyond Public Diplomacy," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2002, Vol. 82 No. 2.
7 Much of this section is based on Joel Campagna, "Overview: The Middle East and North Africa," CPJ, Attacks on the Press, 2001.
9 Peter Johnson, "Al-Jazeera's Stature Is Rising" USA Today, Sept, 2001.
10 Zena Karam, "Arab journalists protest Al-Jazeera interview with Sharon," Associated Press, April 5, 2002.
16 This analysis is based on comments by Hisham Melhem and Internews Middle East director Lauren Ross at the Internews regional directors' meeting, Oct. 2001, in Washington, D.C.
19 World Bank, World Development Report 2002, Ch. 10 (draft)
21 IPI Report, Fourth Quarter 1999.
22 CPJ, Attacks on the Press, 2001.
27 Lauren Ross, Internews regional directors meeting, October 2001.
37 Many of these names came from the website of the Centre for Media Freedom Middle East and North America, London. The site has not been updated since 2000 so some of these people may no longer be at these contacts, particularly since the media crackdowns and new Israeli-Palestinian violence in 2002.
CHAPTER 8: ASIA
1 Whayne Dillehay of ICFJ, interview Oct. 2001.
2 As reported by ChannelNewsAsia.com and Lauren Ross, Internews.
3 David Hoffman phone interview with the author, April 1, 2002.
5 Internews funding proposal to OSI, April 2, 2002.
6 Open Society Institute Central Eurasia Project policy statement: "Why Should Promoting Open Society Be a Part of U.S. Anti-Terrorism Policy in Central Asia?"
8 Anthony Kuhn, "China Phoenix Rises," The International Press Institute's IPI Reporter, Fourth Quarter, 1999.
9 Anthony Kuhn, "China: Internet Boom Changes Face of News," IPI Reporter, Third Quarter, 2001.
11 Ahmed Rashid interview in Internews Report, Spring 2002.
12 Reza goes by only one name.
13 Herbert Terry, visiting professor from Indiana University, at American University of Kyrgyzstan, in email to an Internews colleague, August, 2004.
14 Open Society Institute Central Eurasia Project policy statement: "Why Should Promoting Open Society Be a Part of U.S. Anti-Terrorism Policy in Central Asia?"
15 IFEX action alert, April 2, 2002.
16 Adele Lotus, "The Sound of Silence," CPJ's Dangerous Assignments, Summer 2001. Lotus is a pseudonym used by an Uzbek journalist.
17 Owais Aslam Ali interview with the author, March 8, 2002.
18 Kathleen Reen, Internews regional directors' presentation, October, 2001.
19 Kavi Chongkittavorn interview with the author, November, 2001.
20 Internews Report, Winter 2000-2001.
21 CPJ, Attacks on the Press, 2001 report.
22 World Bank Development Report 2002, Chapter 10: The Media (draft).
25 Kavi Chongkittavorn, "Press Freedom Under Attack," The Asia Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2002.