English PDF - East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders ...

Conference Report: Resources and Proceedings 29Currently in the Sudan, there are too few training courses for journalists. This has increased thenumber of quack practitioners who are masquerading as journalists who do not know that injournalism one must ensure that justice is seen by reporting objectively and not being biasedregardless of the story. Some of these journalists do not know the code of ethics. Anyone that canwrite and speak over the radio is called a journalist. Subjectivity comes in, whatever one thinks isright is right; people’s opinions rather than facts matter and fill airwaves and newspapers.Journalists from South Sudan formed the Association of Media Development in Southern Sudan(AMDISS), also referred to as South Sudanese Journalist Association, bringing them togetherunder one umbrella with its headquarters in Juba. However, there is a major rift between the olderjournalists and the new generation. In July 2006, a group of journalists sat down and proposed tostart another association which has not yet been given a name.The number of radio stations is increasing. Compared to one radio station (Radio Juba) before,today Juba has five stations, i.e. Capital FM, Liberty FM, Miraya FM (owned by the UN), RadioJuba and BBC. In the same way, there are three newspapers, i.e. Southern Eye, Juba Post andSudan Mirror.Compared to other countries, Southern Sudanese media is not yet sensational. Most articles in thenewspapers and on radio programmes contain mainly hard news items.As regards fulfilling Article 19 of The Declaration of Human Rights, with the discussion above,to a greater extent freedom of speech and expression is a myth rather than a reality becausepeople are not allowed to voice their opinions like the article stipulates. However, given theincreased number of radio stations, newspapers and magazines in South Sudan, one could say thatArticle 19 is being honored to some extent.TanzaniaChristopher Kidanka (Information Officer, Legal andHuman Rights Centre)Tanzanian journalism has come a long way. What we have today is aresult of a long history. Once there was no modern media through whichto pass information on to a larger community. There was only thetraditional media which were contextually relevant and effective at thetime. Then came the missionaries with their modern and relativelysophisticated infrastructure to facilitate their modern and ‘important’mission; preaching the Gospel. The missionaries therefore establishednews sheets that met their communication needs.© EHAHRDPAccording to records, the first news sheet called Msimulizi (story-teller)was established in Zanzibar Island in 1888. Habari za Mwezi (Monthly News) followed in 1894.The main objective of these news sheets was to publicize the missionaries as well as the colonialGovernment’s ‘good’ work. Since the missionaries had paved the way for colonial establishment,their media could not have played the watchdog role as Nkwabi Ng’wanakilala puts it in hisbook, Mass Communication and Development of Socialism in Tanzania.The news sheets were adequately funded and were sold at 5 to 10 cents. (Today a newspaper inTanzania costs between 150/- shillings and 400/- shillings. One shilling equals 100 cents).