12 January 2004
‘Travel 240 Kilometres to pick up your e-mail’
It was a rather poor chosen moment for this meeting. Last December’s AMARC conference coincided with the international Geneva conference on the ‘digital divide’, WSIS. In any case, the meeting at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University resembled an informal party of a few interested organisations rather than the Community Radio Festival promised by the conference title, which the organizers had hoped would have drawn a much broader audience from the whole of Africa.
12 January 2004
JED – One of the DRC’s Most Valuable Assets
Journalist in Danger (Journaliste en Danger, JED) is a leading defender of media freedom in the DRC, and one of the most effective free expression groups in all of Africa. Despite its poor press freedom record of the past few years, the DRC government has been responsive to lobbying generated by JED. Today, the nature of media freedom violations has changed drastically, with few journalists imprisoned for their work.
12 January 2004
A chorus of voices is saying: Let go
In Dutch museums are stately paintings of the Boards of Directors of orphanages and other charitable activities of 17th century Holland. These were donors of that era. Their portraits leave no room for doubt about their high social status, their moral earnestness, and especially their supreme self-assurance: for they controlled the money.
12 January 2004
Walking up and down the World Summit on the Information Society
It was a global marketplace in the Palexpo, especially in Hall 4, ICT for development, where South Africa had created a great safari environment, with Radio Lora streaming from a cabin. But even in Hall 1, with the media centre and government and company stalls, there was a quite exotic feel to everything.
12 January 2004
The 25% factor
I heard a saying in a futuristic movie recently about a democracy that had declined into a tyranny. The saying went something like this: during a tyranny 25% of the people you know will become informers against you, 25% will remain silent about the abuses they witness, and 25% will be indeterminate – doing anything they have to in order to survive. The remaining 25% will save you.
12 January 2004
"Poverty is public enemy number one"
"If one of these little houses catches alight, it’s often the end of an entire quarter," said Sam Moodley, a first-year student, during a tour of the townships of Cape Town. In the slums of Khayelitsha ‘hokkies’ made of corrugated iron alternate with brick houses. From the minivan six future journalists saw everyday life in the townships unfolding before their eyes.
12 January 2004
Zapiro: Heavy Load
12 January 2004
