media landscape guide about Somalia - Internews

Newspapers have stopped publishing in most of Somalia, but a dozen smallcirculationtitles are still printed in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliand.Some, such as Haatuf, Jamhuuriya and Geeska Afrika are daily.Others publish two or three times per week or even weekly.All the Somaliland papers normally ell less than 1,000 copies per issue.Most of them are published in Somali, but a couple of the larger papers haveweekly sister publications in English and Arabic.Rigorous control of the media by Al Shabaab has stopped most newspapersfrom printing in South Central Somalia.As recently as 2009, there were up to 25 newspapers circulating inMogadishu and other parts of Southern Somalia.But by late 2011, only one daily newspaper was being published regularly inthe capitalThis lone survivor, Xog Ogaal managed to keep going despite a mortarexplosion damaging its premises in March 2011.Low literacy rates, widespread poverty and the disruption of transportation byconflict have always restricted newspaper readership to the educated andrelatively affluent elite in Somalia’s main citiesIndividual newspapers often represent the interests of a particular clan orother group.Their owners sometimes blackmail politicians and businessmen bythreatening to print negative stories about them unless substantial sums ofmoney are paid.Leading newspapers63