Cape Town: Reporters should be watchdogs not lapdogs

Several experts sat on the panel to discuss obstacles to press freedom, as well as  initiatives to support press freedom on the continent.

However, there was agreement that free media systems require journalists to fight for the enforcement of press freedom.

Publisher of Le Messager, Cameroonian journalist Pius Njawe, said that press freedom was blocked by media workers who engaged in “fashionable journalism” by becoming “sleazy businessman”.

Executive Director of Punch publications in Nigeria, Azubuike Ishiekwene, said that African media systems were plagued by problems of poorly managed newsrooms, under-trained journalists, weak economies, weak media regulatory environments, sloppy ethics and low levels of transparency.

However, he said that journalists and managers had to find creative solutions, such as sharing resources across newsrooms and using new technology to counter these obstacles.

Formal initiatives such as the African Union’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa and the Global Forum for Media Development could provide support and protection to journalists working in volatile environments. This was according to speakers Edetaen Ojo of the Media Rights Agenda and Jeanette Minnie of  Zambezi Freedom of Expression.

Raymond Louw, editor and publisher of the Southern African Report, said that the adoption of the WAN/WEF Declaration of Table Mountain, which calls for the abolishment of “insult laws” and criminal defamation, will provide further protection to media workers in Africa. Insult laws penalise journalists for perceived insults to the dignity of government officials.

Kwame Karikari, executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, said that journalists should do their jobs with “conviction, purpose and mission.” Those journalists who involved themselves in corrupt relationships often lack these qualities.

Executive editor of The New York Times Bill Keller said that journalists had a “profound, self-imposed responsibility to be fair, skeptical and true” to their watchdog role.

Moderator of the panel, media analyst and columnist Professor Fackson Banda said that the popularity of the Digital Media Round Table stood in contrast to the half-full African media roundtable, pointing to the current priorities of global media owners.

By Jackie Bischof and Oliver Brock, Wits University Journalism