Zambia’s growing community media sector, which boasts 60 radio stations and 6 print entities, is regarded as an important tool for community and grassroots development. These media outlets are responsive to their audiences and have established themselves as frontline sources of information and platforms of communication for the communities in their coverage areas.
However, community media journalists are increasingly subject to incidents of intimidation and harassment and there have also been arrests and domestic censorship of some online newspapers. Most of these journalists...
Regions: Africa
One of the major resolutions of Zimbabwe’s 2012 Media Stakeholders Conference was the need for the media to play a central role in promoting awareness about, and responses to, climate change. A lack of journalists trained to understand climate and environmental issues has resulted in minimal reporting on climate change and a lack of sufficient information to promote public efforts of mitigation and adaptation.
This project will address the need to educate Zimbabwean journalists on climate change by training a group to report on weather, agro-economics and tourism news as well...
Following the May 2013 meeting in Rabat, which was co-hosted by the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle du Maroc (HACA) and UNESCO, where it was agreed that Orbicom and UNESCO should pilot a Global Initiative for Excellence in Journalism Education, Orbicom now seeks UNESCO’s financial support to include a strong contingent of African journalism educators in its forthcoming meeting in Turkey to be co-hosted by the Department of Journalism of the University of Istanbul. Given the Global Initiative’s emphasis on North-South and South-South collegial ‘shared excellence’ in...
The Ethiopian media is a very recent phenomenon, mainly consisting of state-controlled radio and television. Addis Ababa City Administration Community Media (FM 96.3) is one of the few community radio stations in the country. It serves 1.5 million people across a 105 km radius, providing 18 hours of daily transmission in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. However, its journalists lack professional skills.
The proposed project aims to address this gap by training volunteer journalists, reporters, editors and technicians at FM 96.3 to be able to produce high quality...
Fesmedia Africa's 2010 media barometer reveals that the journalism training at the University of Antananarivo does not include refresher programmes even though graduating students experience difficulties due to pedagogical shortcomings and gaps in the content of the initial training programmes. Furthermore, among the media professionals, the vast majority (more than 700) are trained on the job. One consequence of this is the plethora of articles based on sensationalism and a dull report of facts. This project aims to strengthen the capacity of a national pool of instructors from 6 public...
There is a severe lack of information in the Rwandan media concerning the environment and the effects of climate change on agricultural production. Community radios have the potential to play a decisive role in filling this gap but lack the technical capacity to do so. If this skills shortage were addressed, educational radio programmes on the environment and climate change could reach more than 4,000,000 people from 15 radio stations, including rural communities, decision-makers and local leaders, enabling them to fully participate in environmental protection and take appropriate measures...
Although the media in Rwanda is developing fast, professional standards and product quality are not. Journalists lack the training required to carry out investigative journalism and instead focus on topics such as entertainment, sports and event reporting. A 2013 report by the Media High Council of Rwanda (MHC) highlighted journalists' overreliance on the voices of leaders (49%) to the detriment of other citizens (10%), in particular the police (6%) and other anti-corruption/crime bodies (3%). As such, one of the report's recommendations is for media practitioners to be trained in...
Le rapport sur l’évaluation du développement des médias au Gabon récemment présenté au public par l’UNESCO à l’occasion de la journée mondiale de la liberté de la presse (3 mai 2012), présente avec suffisance la situation des médias au Gabon avec les avancés et les insuffisances. Il ressort que sur le plan réglementaire, le Gabon dispose des instruments et institutions dont respectivement la mise en oeuvre et le fonctionnement effectifs auraient pu contribuer à garantir la liberté d’expression, le droit des médias, la protection des journalistes et bien plus. Malheureusement, les...
Depuis les élections de 2010, les relations entre la presse privée et le pouvoir se sont détériorées. Les responsables de l’Union Burundaise des Journalistes (UBJ) et les journalistes des principales radios indépendantes font régulièrement objet de menaces. Ils sont régulièrement intimidés, bastonnés, convoqués intempestivement devant les tribunaux, principalement aux tribunaux de grande instance de Bujumbura, de Ngozi et Bubanza pour la simple raison d’avoir dénoncé certains abus des pouvoirs publics ou d’avoir donné la parole à un opposant. Des pratiques qui rappellent la période du...
Malgré des élections en janvier 2011 reconnues par la communauté internationale comme transparente et démocratique, la RCA affiche aujourd’hui le visage d’un pays politiquement instable, économiquement faible et dans lequel le niveau d’insécurité dans l’arrière-pays reste une source de préoccupations. C’est dans cette ambiance de pauvreté et de misère accrue ainsi que d’insécurité qu’évolue la presse centrafricaine.
La RCA n’abritant jusqu’en 2009 aucune structure de formation initiale pour les professionnels des médias, ces derniers ont donc appris leur travail « sur le tas », ce...
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