18/02/2014

Centrafrique : Le dernier rapport du P.A.M. de l'ONU sur l'insécurité alimentaire


République de Centre Afrique - Violences, déplacements et insécurité alimentaire, Decembre 2013




• On estime à environ 30 % la population en insécurité alimentaire modérée ou sévère, soit approximativement 1.1 million de personnes (hors Bangui) et à 0 % la population en insécurité alimentaire légère.Parmi les ménages enquêtés, aucun n’est classé en sécurité alimentaire et ne parvient à assurer une consommation minimale sans recours à des stratégies d’adaptation ou à allouer une partie importante des dépenses à l’alimentation. Les ménages en insécurité alimentaire sévère et modérée les plus nombreux se trouvent dans l’Ouham (présence du plus grand nombre de déplacés), l’Ouham-Pendé, l’Ouaka, la Nana-Manbéré et l’Ombella M’Poko.
• Approximativement 50 % des personnes déplacées enquêtées sont en insécurité alimentaire modérée ou sévère. C’est également le groupe de personnes qui connaît le plus fort taux d’insécurité alimentaire sévère avec 15 % de ménages.
• Les ménages en insécurité alimentaire ont un faible accès à la terre ou/et ne pratiquent pas ou peu l’élevage. Ils dépendent du marché pour leur accès à la nourriture et dépensent une part importante de leur budget à cet effet. Quasiment tous les ménages appliquent des stratégies de survie de stress ou de crise. Près de 30 % d’entre eux ont recours à des stratégies de survie de crise ou d’urgence, telles que la vente de leurs actifs productifs, stratégies dommageables et quelquefois irréversibles lorsqu’il s’agit de se défaire des terres.

Related links


London' NUJ protests against journalists' Egypt detention


Join the demo calling for jailed journalists in Egypt to be freed

Journalists are under threat in Egypt, six have been killed and many more injured covering events on the streets of Cairo and the rest of the country. Others, including Peter Greste, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed of Al-Jazeera, have been thrown into prison.

The NUJ demonstration at 11.30-13.30 on Wednesday 19 February at the Egyptian embassy, 26 South Street London W1K 1DW (off Park Lane, nearest tubes Hyde Park Corner or Green Park) will deliver a letter to the authorities. Speakers include Michelle Stanistreet and Jeremy Corbyn MP.

--

L'ACTUALITE AFRICAINE DE CE LUNDI :



Bienvenus dans cette édition d'AFRIQUE SOIR.

A la une de l'actualité africaine de ce lundi 17 février :

** En CIV, le fils de l'ancien président Michel Gbagbo a finalement été libéré dans l'après-midi, après avoir été arrêté vendredi ; Nous retrouverons notre correspondant à Abidjan dès le début de ce journal.

 ** La présidente de transition centrafricaine Catherine Samba Panza, s'est envolée pour Ndjamena où elle est attendue par le président tchadien Idriss Déby. Ce matin, elle avait reçu la visite de parlementaires français à Bangui.

** Nous entendrons également le reportage de nos correspondants à Bouar dans le nord du pays partis à la rencontre des déplacés musulmans logés à la mosquée en attendant de quitter le pays.

--

En Côte d'Ivoire : Michel Gbagbo, le fils de l'ancien président Laurent Gbagbo a été libéré en fin d'après-midi.

Il avait été arrêté à l'aéroport d'Abidjan vendredi soir, alors qu'il cherchait à se rendre en France, selon son avocat Me Rodrigue Dadjé.
 
Michel Gbagbo, devait s'y pour comparaître devant la justice française. 

--

La Présidente de la transition centrafricaine Catherine Samba Panza s'est envolée cet après-midi pour Ndjamena, la capitale tchadienne, où elle doit rencontrer le Président Idriss Déby, au cours d'une visite de travail de 24 heures.

Un voyage qui intervient après la première sortie à l'étranger de la Présidente de transition, il y a dix jours à Brazzaville, pour rencontrer un autre partenaire incontournable des autorités de transition, Denis Sassou Nguesso.

--

La présidente de transition centrafricaine Catherine Samba Panza a exprimé la demande que l'intervention militaire française dans son pays soit prolongée jusqu'aux élections prévues en février 2015,
c'est ce qu'ont annoncé adns l'après-midi les parlementaires français à la presse à Bangui.

--

Une demande formulée à l'occasion de la visite d'une délégation de neuf députés français à Bangui ce lundi...

ils se sont entretenus avec les responsables de l'opération militaire française Sangaris et les autorités de transition centrafricaines.
Et ont été reçus ce matin par la présidente Catherine Samba Panza et les principales autorités centrafricaines.

L'Assemblée nationale française doit se prononcer par un vote le 25 février sur la prolongation au-delà de début avril de l'opération Sangaris déclenchée le 5 décembre dernier.

Le groupe de parlementaires était conduit par la député socialiste Elisabeth Guigou, la présidente de la Commission des Affaires étrangères de l'Assemblée nationale française.
Pour elle,
il faut que très rapidement policiers et gendarmes centrafricains soient déployés dans les rues de Bangui.

--

Elisabeth Guigou, la présidente de la Commission des Affaires étrangères de l'Assemblée nationale française, était interrogé par Boniface Vignon.

Et pendant ce temps, de nombreux civils centrafricains continuent de fuir, essentiellement des musulmans qui veulent quitter le pays.

Ils partent d'un peu partout.
Nos envoyés spéciaux sont allés à leur rencontre dans la ville de Bouar, au nord du pays, où environ 6000 musulmans ont trouvé refuge depuis un mois dans la mosquée centrale de la ville et dans l'école Haussa attenante.

Ces musulmans ont fuit comme beaucoup les violences perpétrées par les miliciens "anti-balakas", des représailles contre les musulmans déclenchées par le départ des Selekas, le 20 janvier dernier.

A présent ces déplacés attendent leur tour pour partir, notamment au Cameroun voisin.

--

Au Burundi, la crise entre le pouvoir et l'UPRONA semble encore loin d'être résolue.
Le gouvernement a lancé aujourd'hui une mise en garde au principal parti tutsi, qui vient de passer dans l'opposition...

Ce repositionnement fait suite à cette crise ouverte avec le président Pierre Nkurunziza.

Le POUVOIR appelle l'UPRONA,  à éviter toute tentative de déstabilisation.

Le ministre de l'Intérieur, Edouard Nduwi-mana, a appelé au calme, alors que beaucoup ne cachent pas leur inquiétude suite à cette crise.

--

Et on termine ce journal en Afrique du Sud, où un groupe de mineurs est toujours coincé dans la mine illégale de l’est de Johannesburg.

Les mineurs s'y sont retrouvés enfermés après la chute d'un bloc de pierre.
Depuis hier, les services de secours interviennent pour les dégager.
24 mineurs ont pu sortir ce lundi, les autres craignent d'être accusés de travail illégal dans cette mine abandonnée, interdite...

Mais les autorités ne sont sûres du nombre exact de mineurs se trouvant toujours au fond.

--


FIN

17/02/2014

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in Central African Republic this Tuesday


EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR VALERIE AMOS TO VISIT CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC



WHO:       Emergency Relief Coordinator and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos
 
WHAT:     Mission to the Central African Republic 

WHEN:     18-20 February 2014 

WHERE:   Bangui and field visits 


The Emergency Relief Coordinator and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, is scheduled to visit the Central African Republic from 18 to 20 February. ERC Amos will be accompanied by the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Dr. Michel Sidibe, the African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs, Dr. Aicha L. Abdullahi, and Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Department of Safety and Security, Ms. Mbaranga Gasarabwe.
 

The Central African Republic remains in the midst of a full-blown humanitarian crisis with more than 700,000 people displaced across the country, including over 288,000 in the capital Bangui alone, and 86,000 refugees in neighbouring countries. Some 2.6 million people need immediate humanitarian assistance, while reports of terrible atrocities and attacks against civilians and aid workers continue. 


Ms. Amos wants to take stock of the grave humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic, which has been deteriorating since early December, and to understand the challenges faced by humanitarian partners. Her programme is expected to include field visits and meetings with senior Government officials, UN representatives, international NGOs, donors, religious leaders and affected communities.
 

On 20 February, Ms. Amos is scheduled to hold a press conference in Bangui at the conclusion of her mission.    
 


16/02/2014

John Stanmeyer wins 2014 World Press Photo awards with an image of African migrants near Djibouti



Photo from Djibouti wins World 

Press Photo award



Winning photo in the 2014 World Press Photo awardsThe photo won first prize in the prestigious World Press Photo awards, which have been running since 1955.

US photojournalist John Stanmeyer has won first prize in the 2014 World Press Photo awards
for his image of African migrants near Djibouti city.
The moonlit image shows men trying to get a phone signal from nearby Somalia.
Panel member Jillian Edelstein said the photo raised issues of technology, globalisation, migration,
poverty, desperation, alienation and humanity.
The prestigious awards, selected by an expert panel, have been running since 1955.
Stanmeyer shot the winning image while on assignment for the US-based National Geographic
magazine, and said that it was an honour to win the prize.


"It connects to all of us," he told the AFP news agency.
"It's just people trying to call loved ones. It could be you, it could be me, it could be any one of us."
Another panel member, Susan Linfield, said: "So many pictures of migrants show them as bedraggled
and pathetic... but this photo is not so much romantic, as dignified."
Almost one hundred thousand pictures were submitted for the competition.
Stanmeyer is a founding member of the VII photo agency.
He has been the recipient of several other honours including the Magazine Photographer of the Year
and Picture of the Year awards, as well as the 2008 National Magazine Award for Photojournalism.
-- 
Source: BBC news 

15/02/2014

RCA / Cameroun : sécuriser la frontière


La MISCA réitère son engagement à continuer à sécuriser les convois humanitaires et autres sur le corridor reliant la RCA à la frontière avec le Cameroun 


Bangui, le 15 février 2014: La Mission internationale de soutien à la Centrafrique sous conduite africaine (MISCA) réaffirme encore une fois que la partie centrafricaine du corridor qui relie la République centrafricaine (RCA) au port de Douala, au Cameroun, est totalement sécurisée. Elle souligne que cette voie peut être empruntée par les différentes agences humanitaires apportant une assistance aux populations affectées par la crise que connaît la RCA, ainsi que par les opérateurs commerciaux et autres.
Depuis le 18 janvier 2014, la MISCA a mis en place un dispositif pour escorter les véhicules qui utilisent cette voie, et ce suivant les modalités suivantes: les lundi, mercredi et vendredi, de la localité de Beloko, à la frontière avec le Cameroun, à Bangui; et les mardi, jeudi et samedi, de Bangui à la frontière camerounaise, pour raccompagner les véhicules ayant déchargé leurs cargaisons. Avec l'accord des autorités camerounaises, que la MISCA voudrait remercier très sincèrement pour leur soutien et coopération, des éléments de la Mission se déploient dans la localité de Garoua Boulaï, dernière étape avant de franchir la frontière avec la RCA, pour y regrouper les véhicules à escorter et rassurer ceux des chauffeurs qui, sur la foi des informations très parcellaires à leur disposition, évaluent mal la situation sur le corridor.

À ce jour, la MISCA a escorté, le long de cette voie, quatre convois comprenant un total de quatre-cents seize (416) camions, dont quatre-vingt-dix (90) appartenant au Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) et quarante (40) transportant des matériels pour l’opération française Sangaris, sans que la moindre difficulté n'ait été rencontrée. D’autres camions arrivés récemment à la frontière entre le Cameroun et la RCA seront escortés par une unité de la MISCA, le 17 février 2014.

Ayant appris, par voie de presse, que le PAM a lancé, depuis le 12 février 2014, un pont aérien pour acheminer des vivres aux populations touchées par la crise en RCA au motif que la voie routière serait par trop aléatoire, la MISCA voudrait assurer les agences humanitaires que la composante militaire de la Mission est disposée à escorter et à protéger tous les convois humanitaires vers la RCA, ainsi qu'elle l'a déjà fait à la grande satisfaction des différents acteurs concernés. La MISCA est désireuse d'aider les agences humanitaires à éviter, autant que faire se peut, le recours à des ponts aériens coûteux à un moment où les ressources limitées disponibles devraient être utilisées aussi judicieusement que possible pour alléger les souffrances des populations centrafricaines éprouvées par la crise. À cet égard, la MISCA note avec une profonde préoccupation qu'en dépit de tous les efforts déployés, le financement effectif de l'action humanitaire reste encore très largement en deçà des besoins. Aussi, la Mission, tout en saluant l'appui généreux fourni par plusieurs partenaires internationaux, en appelle à une solidarité internationale beaucoup plus agissante à l'endroit du peuple centrafricain, à travers le décaissement rapide des fonds promis et la mobilisation de nouvelles ressources.

La MISCA saisit cette occasion pour renouveler sa profonde appréciation du travail remarquable qu'accomplissent le PAM et d'autres agences humanitaires dans des conditions particulièrement difficiles. Elle loue le dévouement de leurs personnels et leur engagement au service des populations civiles centrafricaines.

En portant une attention particulière à la sécurisation du corridor qui relie la RCA à la frontière avec le Cameroun, conformément au mandat donné par le Conseil de paix et de sécurité (CPS) de l'Union africaine (UA) et le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies dans sa résolution 2127(2013) et à son concept d'opération, la MISCA vise, outre la facilitation de l'acheminement de l'assistance humanitaire en RCA, la réalisation d’un autre objectif tout aussi essentiel pour la stabilisation de la RCA et son relèvement économique: garantir la fluidité des échanges commerciaux, ainsi que la maîtrise par l'État centrafricain de ses sources de revenu pour lui permettre de financer les activités liées à l'exercice de ses fonctions régaliennes. À ce sujet, la MISCA a initié des consultations avec le Gouvernement centrafricain pour étudier la possibilité du paiement, à Douala même, dans le cadre d'un guichet unique, des droits de douane et taxes connexes à acquitter sur les marchandises et autres biens destinés à la RCA. La mise en œuvre effective de cette mesure renforcera aussi la transparence dans la gestion des revenus de l'État. Il convient de rappeler que les ex-Seleka et autres éléments armés avaient érigé de nombreux barrages sur la partie centrafricaine du corridor, prélevant, en toute illégalité, des taxes sur les usagers et commettant toutes sortes d'exactions contre les civils empruntant cette voie vitale pour l'économie de la RCA.

La MISCA souligne qu'une réponse humanitaire plus vigoureuse et un soutien socio-économique adéquat et diligent, notamment à travers la mise à disposition des ressources requises pour le paiement des arriérés de salaire dus aux personnels de la fonction publique et des pensions des retraités, contribueront grandement à la consolidation des avancées enregistrées par la MISCA et l'opération française Sangaris dans la stabilisation de la situation sécuritaire et, partant, à l'aboutissement du processus de transition en cours.

- See more at: http://www.peaceau.org/fr/article/la-misca-reitere-son-engagement-a-continuer-a-securiser-les-convois-humanitaires-et-autres-sur-le-corridor-reliant-la-rac-a-la-frontiere-avec-le-cameroun#sthash.QvRG0qMm.FLcZZXD5.dpuf

Amitiés (Mayrig, Henri Verneuil)



"Il faut toujours offrir les livres sans raisons, comme un prolongement d'amitié"...

Mayrig, Henri Verneuil 








CPJ's report on press freedom's deterioration in Africa

Twitter Send to a Friend Facebook Attacks on the Press

Africa

(Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)
(Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)
 
 
Country reports in this chapter were written and researched by CPJ Program Coordinator Sue Valentine, CPJ Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita, CPJ's Nairobi-based consultant Tom Rhodes, and CPJ's West Africa consultant Peter Nkanga.
 
 
country page »

Burundi

5 Years in jail
country page »

Ethiopia

70 News and opinion websites blocked

country page »

Guinea

51 Anti-press attacks
country page »

Gambia

144 Hours of detention
country page »

Nigeria

11th Impunity Index ranking

country page »

Somalia

2nd Impunity ranking
country page »

Swaziland

2 Broadcasting bills passed
country page »

Tanzania

22 Threats and attacks

country page »

Uganda

7 Days police ignored court order
country page »

Zambia

7 Cases against the press

CPJ on advertising and press freedom in East Africa


Advertising and Censorship
In East Africa's Press

By Tom Rhodes

Many newspapers in East Africa are thriving--some fat with ads, enjoying solid circulation and little competition--but there is broad concern that all that advertising is also promoting self-censorship and corrupting news coverage.
Kenyans read election coverage in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, the capital, on March 9, 2013. One reason that advertising revenue trumps circulation for East Africa's newspapers is that readers often share papers to save money. (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)
Kenyans read election coverage in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, the capital, on March 9, 2013. One reason that advertising revenue trumps circulation for East Africa's newspapers is that readers often share papers to save money. (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)
While newspapers elsewhere in the world shrivel, thanks to shrinking ad revenue and online competition, they are still dominant in much of East Africa, where a growing middle class and prohibitively expensive online browsing have allowed the printed word to survive and even thrive.
A prominent example of this success is the Nation Media Group, the largest independent media house in East and Central Africa and publisher of Kenya's principal daily newspaper, the Daily Nation. The group increased its revenue by nearly 50 percent in five years to 12.347 billion Kenyan shillings (US$142.5 million) in 2012.

Newspapers account for the bulk of that revenue. Paralleling that trajectory, the advertising market in Kenya rose nearly fivefold in the past five years, while there were smaller gains in Uganda and Tanzania, according to Joe Otim, media research and monitoring director at Ipsos research company.
"In East Africa, the advertiser is king," said veteran Kenyan journalist John Gatchie, who works as a media consultant in the region.

Because they represent the greatest source of revenue, advertisers--especially governments and government-owned enterprises--wield huge influence, which often allows them to quietly control what is published and what is not, according to journalists and media analysts. Advertisers offer lucrative ads to sweeten any coverage or threaten to stop ads if a paper writes critically about them.

This type of back-door soft censorship, generally invisible to the public, is not a problem unique to East Africa. In West Africa, state-owned newspapers lead in most markets except Nigeria, since they receive the lion's share of government advertisement revenue, said Sulemana Braimah, deputy director of the press freedom group Media Foundation for West Africa. In southern Africa, advertisements are sometimes used by politicians to discourage critical coverage, said Raymond Louw, former editor and publisher and veteran media freedom campaigner in South Africa. And the issue surfaces in other regions of the world, perhaps most dramatically in Turkey in 2013 during the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. Media owners there, beholden to the government, suppressed coverage of the demonstrations by their own reporters, some of whom they subsequently fired at the government's behest.

Such practices are also notable in Latin America, where government advertising has been widely used for decades as a cudgel to punish media critics or as a reward to bolster supporters. In a survey of 1,000 Argentine journalists in 2011, for example, dependence on government advertising was ranked the third most serious challenge facing the Argentine media after low salaries and lack of professionalism. Polling results showed that 58 percent of the subjects thought journalism in the country was "conditioned" and 72 percent said they thought the business departments at their outlets had influence in the newsroom.

In East Africa, advertisers are a mixed blessing, said Deodatus Balile, managing editor of the Tanzanian private weekly Jamhuri. "Advertisers are the biggest financial supporters of the press and yet they are also the biggest suppressors of freedom of the press," he said.

One novel news suppression technique adopted in Tanzania is a blanket advertising strategy that involves placing full-page ads that leave no room for anything else on the front and back pages, according to John Mireny, publications and research manager of the Media Council of Tanzania, an independent regulator. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party ("Party of the Revolution") did just that with all of Tanzania's newspapers in 2010, stifling coverage of the opposition party's inaugural campaign rally, Mireny said.

In Tanzania, ad revenue covers about 85 percent of a newspaper's running costs, according to Balile, which provides little margin for aggressive reporting that might alienate clients. Despite a relatively high literacy rate, circulation levels are low, in part because readers in Tanzania share newspapers to save money.

Newspapers in impoverished South Sudan, a country that gained independence in 2011 after decades of civil war, are struggling. "The market is narrow and distribution is poor," said Badru Mulumba, editor of the New Times. "With such poor sales, any advertiser is viewed with respect and welcomed with roses."

In 2012, the press in Uganda was awash with stories alleging graft in the prime minister's office involving misappropriated donor funds. "As editors we insisted on covering the story despite some objections," said Barbara Among, foreign editor of Uganda's leading independent Daily Monitor.
But the office of the prime minister, which oversees five ministries, also happens to be one of the biggest advertisers in Uganda. After the government placed numerous ads in the press, fewer graft stories were published, local journalists said. "Now with the prime minister's office's big budget, there is less reporting on the scandal," said Don Wanyama, the Daily Monitor's managing editor. "The press could have done a lot more in terms of digging up the rot in that office, but fears of lost ad revenue silenced everyone."

Influencing the press using the financial clout of ad placements is not only a government affair. In September, an electric company with indirect links to the government in Tanzania informed the private daily Raia Mwema (Good Citizen) that a cell-phone company had been illegally connected to its power lines and owed billions of Tanzanian shillings.

"Imagine, only one newspaper published the story but kept it very vague without saying the name of the cell-phone company," Mbaraka Islam, the newspaper's news director, said.

"Very few can write about cell-phone companies such as Vodacom, Airtel, Tigo--they have financial muscle," Balile said. "If you write negatively about them, they go straight to the courts, acquire a court injunction, and deny the public access to information."

"We have even gotten to the point where editors write what I call 'advertorials' to appease companies--false editorials that invariably praise their corporate advertisers," Balile said.
There is similar editorial pressure from corporate advertisers in Uganda. "They seek more editorial visibility than government advertisers," said Robert Kabushenga, the chief executive officer of Uganda's leading state daily, New Vision. "Occasionally they demand spiking negative stories or suspend advertising to 'punish' for adverse publicity. The threat is that we are dependent on their money in an increasingly tight market."

Certain companies, banks, and cell phone companies, for example, have become difficult for the Kenyan press to cover because of the revenue they provide, said Charles Onyango-Obbo, executive editor at the Nation Media Group. In July, Equity Bank's cash machines stopped working for several days but only online news publications and social media covered the story, according to local journalists. "I think the bank was effective in limiting bad publicity. They post a lot of ads and its boss is known to many media CEOs. They play golf together," Daily Nation reporter Aggrey Mutambo said.

Sometimes the news is also tainted because of desired support from non-governmental organizations and the United Nations. This is especially noticeable in South Sudan, which relies heavily on the U.N. and NGOs in its rebuilding process. "It has been my experience that managing editors who have attained adverts from U.N agencies and NGOs often assign reporters to positively cover their activities," South Sudanese freelance journalist Joseph Edward said. This appears to have less to do with outside organizations urging coverage of their activities, and more to do with providing positive coverage in hopes of financial support through advertisements and grants, Edward said.

Self-censorship also arises when politicians and businessmen own or invest in media outlets, an issue that especially troubles the Kenyan and South Sudanese press.

Generally praised by the media community for his editorial hands-off approach to the press, the princely rich Aga Khan, spiritual head of the 15-million-strong Ismaili community, owns 47 percent of the shares in the Nation Media Group. Three journalists at the Daily Nation, requesting anonymity to protect their jobs, say that, as a result, his investments in tourism and finance are almost never criticized in the East African press. This appears to be more a reflection of staff loyalty than any direct pressure, but is self-censorship nevertheless.

Meanwhile, Daniel Arap Moi, Kenya's former president, is believed to own the majority of shares in the Standard Media Group, according to a January report by the media development organization Internews and news reports. Moi's protégé, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's recently elected president, owns the Mediamax Company that prints The People newspaper, along with K24 television and Kameme FM, the same report said.

"If you follow the Standard Media Group, you will not see negative coverage of former President Moi. If you follow Mediamax, the same applies to the current leadership," said George Nyabuga, a journalism lecturer at the University of Nairobi. Standard Media Group chief editor John Bundotich and Mediamax head of news Anderson Waweru both denied this assertion.

According to an independent study conducted by South Sudanese journalist Godfrey Victor Bulla, eight of 11 newspapers in circulation in South Sudan are either directly or indirectly government-owned.

Commercial pressures on reporters and editors are not confined to the recruiting and retention of advertisers. As in many Western newsrooms, there is an increasing focus on cost-cutting and profits--even ad spending is on the rise in places such as Kenya. According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper advertising revenue fell 6 percent in 2012 in the United States and is expected to decline further as newspapers increasingly rely on revenue from circulation. Not so in Kenya. In the first quarter of 2012, 18 billion Kenyan shillings (roughly US$212 million) was spent on advertising, according to the research company Ipsos Synovate, while 12 billion Kenyan shillings (roughly US$141 million) was spent in the same period in 2011.

In a presentation at a media forum in Naivasha, Kenya, in October 2013, Harun Mwangi, chief executive of the statutory regulator Media Council of Kenya, said newsrooms are increasingly focused on making money rather than reporting news. This is largely because most media owners are also big business players, Mwangi said: "They only focus on issues of public concern in the media as long as it bears profits."

In order to cut costs, investigative journalism has been curtailed and replaced by public relations exercises, with "news" fed to reporters, Mwangi said. Increasingly, media companies are encouraging their staff to attain degrees in business rather than journalism, he added, based on his experience working with Kenyan editors and journalists at the council.

Similar pressures on news managers occur in Uganda, with editors assigned commercial targets, according to the Daily Monitor's Wanyama. On his personal blog, Wanyama wrote that editors are now expected to reach sales targets and initiate "money-making" projects, adding, "So, beyond being bogged down with the pressure of delivering good stories, editors must think about special projects that will yield extra revenue for the paper." In an interview with CPJ, he provided an example: "An editorial initiative such as a feature on health, for instance, will be cut for something that brings in money, so we are forced to cover areas where there is money even if there is not much public interest [in the topic]."

The tussle between moneymaking and news making has always been there, Uganda's Among said, but the tension is growing. "I fear we are abandoning our core business, the editorial business, and focusing on the profit margins. It's affecting the quality of journalism," she said.

While corporate influence in the newsroom is clearly a global phenomenon, editors and media analysts believe the problem is especially acute in East Africa. According to Mireny, of Tanzania's Media Council, in strong and mature market economies, where literacy rates are high, advertisers have less of a stranglehold over a newspaper's independence. In emerging economies, such as those in East Africa, with limited competition and often low literacy and circulation rates, editors are more vulnerable to outside pressures.

Small publishers in small economies are the most vulnerable. "Why this is particularly hard in Uganda," said James Tumusiime, the managing editor of the independent weekly Observer, "is because the economy is small, so advertisers are only a handful and you don't want to lose the major ones. It is even harder for smaller newspapers, because while some companies find they cannot do without the biggest daily, the can easily withdraw advertising from smaller ones."

Newspapers can never be fully independent in Rwanda, said Christopher Kayumba, a lecturer and media expert at the National University of Rwanda, because the newspapers rely on just a handful of advertisers, the government being one of the most influential.

Who are these advertisers in East Africa who hold such editorial influence over the press?
Across the region, the government still wields the most influence, despite increasing numbers of private companies buying ad space. Even then, Kenyan companies that advertise heavily are often financially linked to the government, said media consultant Gatchie.

The Kenyan government is the largest shareholder, for instance, at Kenya Commercial Bank, and the Kenyan subsidiaries of Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank. It is also one of the largest shareholders of Safaricom, the country's leading telecommunications company.

Then there is direct advertising by the government. According to the chairman of the Kenyan Commission for Administrative Justice, Otiende Amollo, the government spent roughly 26 million Kenyan Shillings (US$297,500) in just two weeks on congratulatory messages in newspapers to politicians in presidential and legislative elections held in March 2013.

In Rwanda, approximately 85 to 90 percent of advertisements come from the public sector, says Robert Mugabe, editor of the online news site Great Lakes Voice. "If you need to attract adverts, it's simple. Don't annoy government," he said.

Government money constitutes roughly 60 percent of the advertising revenue of newspapers in Tanzania, Balile said. This crucial revenue is often provided to publications that support the government, Mireny said, disadvantaging independent publications.

The survival instincts of the dominant political elite in East Africa, where opposition parties maintain marginal influence, ensure government advertisers apply pressure on the press. In Kenya, as elsewhere, the ruling party maintains near monopolistic control over ads in the media, said William Oloo Janak, chairman of the Kenya Correspondent's Association.

Government advertising is so pervasive that some publications are launched purely to milk the flow of money. While Tanzania has roughly 16 active dailies, Balile said, there are 767 registered newspapers. "During local government elections, 450 publications suddenly appear on the newsstands. During a presidential election, you'll see all 767 papers vying for state adverts," he said.
Similarly, in Kenya, temporary and wholly government-supported publications have a short lifespan but make a lot of money while being printed, said Daily Nation online editor Charles Omondi in Nairobi. Under the authoritarian leadership of Moi, he said, all state advertising was channelled through the Moi government's daily mouthpiece, the Kenya Times, and state officials were expected to purchase a copy. But "with Moi out of power, Kenya Times became 'Kenya Sometimes,' with irregular printing, before folding," he said.

Some East African governments often point to large numbers of publications as evidence that the media in their countries are free. In a public address in January 2013, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete boasted that the country had registered 763 newspapers and publications, the largest number in Africa, according to news reports. But a plethora of newspapers does not equal press freedom, especially when the majority function as a government mouthpiece.

When the majority of media houses agreed to blanket advertising from the ruling party in Tanzania during the 2010 general elections, the Swahili daily, Mwananchi, or Citizen, did not, said Mireny, of Tanzania's Media Council. "The post-election sales proved that audiences are not fools," he said. "Time and again, papers that failed the impartiality test during campaigns and thereafter have seen their sales drifting downwards." Pro-government papers such as Uhuru and Habari Leo, for example, only manage to survive through government advertising and never through sales, Raia Mwema News Director Islam said.

The former highly critical weekly, MwanaHalisi, was starved of government ad revenue due to its critical stance, Managing Editor Saed Kubenea said. But the paper's brave and unique voice attracted a large readership, its circulation at one point reaching 100,000, the highest in Tanzania, local journalists said. It may well be the sole example in the region of a newspaper's survival due largely to its circulation. "I think we were one of the few in East Africa who managed to thrive through sales alone," Kubenea said. Its critical success irked the government so much that the newspaper was accused of sedition and banned indefinitely in July 2012.

Eventually, online news outlets and social media may provide an alternative to newspapers. In Kenya, in particular, the popularity of social media as an outlet for breaking and critical news was evident during the September 2013 terrorist siege of Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

"Recent events in Kenya have me increasingly believe that online platforms as leveraged by ordinary citizens are growing more critical of state affairs than the mainstream press," said Nanjira Sambuli, a mathematician and new media strategist.

Still, Internet growth is slow and it is not clear how online news outlets will earn revenue. The International Telecommunications Union indicates that Internet usage in East Africa--with the exception of South Sudan, for which statistics are not yet available--increased in total by 10 percent over the past five years.

Newspapers, then, will continue to dominate the region for some time. The hope lies in media owners across East Africa accepting that the longevity of their newspapers does not depend as much on profits from advertising as it does on professional editorial policies that will secure the loyalty of readers.

Tom Rhodes is CPJ's East Africa representative, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of South Sudan's first independent newspaper.

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CPJ's Annual Report: Attacks on the Press



The Committee to Protect Journalists releases its annual report: Attacks on the Press 2013 - a compendium of data and analysis of press freedom conditions across the globe for 2013.



GENERAL PRESS RELEASE


Attacks on the Press: Surveillance poses global challenge for free flow of news

CPJ's annual assessment of press freedom worldwide

 
New York, February 12, 2014-Digital surveillance, the unchecked murder of journalists, and indirect commercial and political pressures on the media are three of the primary threats to press freedom highlighted in the Committee to Protect Journalists annual assessment, Attacks on the Press, released today.

"The primary battlegrounds for press freedom used to be contained within the borders of authoritarian states. While those battles continue, new technologies have made it possible to realize the right to freedom of expression regardless of frontiers," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "Attacks on the Press describes the threats and explores strategies to safeguard the free flow information."

Three pieces in this year's Attacks, including a foreword to the print edition by Jacob Weisberg, analyze the damaging effects to press freedom caused by the U.S. mass surveillance programs. Governments' capacity to store transactional data and the content of communications undermines journalists' ability to protect sources. The scope of the NSA's digital spying raises doubts about the U.S. commitment to freedom of expression and strengthens the hand of China and other restrictive nations in their calls for more government control over the Internet.

A separate essay in Attacks argues that the international community should put press freedom at the heart of a new anti-poverty strategy as the 2015 target nears for the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Meanwhile, if transparency in the financial sector is not improved, more global financial crises can be expected.

Attacks also explores how the inability to solve journalist murders feeds an atmosphere of intimidation, compounded by the targeted killings of witnesses in many cases.

Along with the print edition of Attacks on the Press, CPJ published online a snapshot of conditions and data in close to 60 countries. Syria remained the most deadly place for journalists on the job in 2013, while Iraq and Egypt each saw a spike in fatal violence. In total 70 journalists lost their lives. For the second consecutive year, Turkey was the world's leading jailer of journalists, followed closely by Iran and China.

Attacks on the Press was first published in 1986. The 2014 edition features analyses by CPJ and global experts on: Beijing's influence on the Hong Kong and Taiwanese press; Syrian journalists' striving to report, despite the dangers; the insistence on "positive news" in sub-Saharan Africa; finding the courage to cover sexual violence; Nelson Mandela's legacy; and much more. CPJ's Risk List highlights the 10 places where press freedom deteriorated the most in 2013.

Attacks also includes the late CPJ Mexico correspondent Mike O'Connor's last piece for CPJ, "Gunmen Rule Neza and the Press on Outskirts of Mexico City." O'Connor died suddenly in late December.

The print edition with foreword by Weisberg, chairman of the Slate Group and member of CPJ's board of directors, is published by Bloomberg Press, an imprint of Wiley, and is available for purchase.

CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.
Note to editors:
Attacks on the Press is available online in English and with regional sections in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. For social media CPJ suggests using the hashtag #AttacksOnPress.


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In regards to sub-Saharan Africa and the East African region in particular, please see the following links:

Africa - Statistics on 12 countries with poor press freedom records:
www.cpj.org/2014/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2013-africa.php
Pressure on Journalists Rises Along With Africa's Prospects, By Mohamed Keita
www.cpj.org/2014/02/attacks-on-the-press-africa-rising.php
--The debate over reporting positive news vs. press freedom

Mandela's Legacy of Media Freedom Stands Its Ground, By Sue Valentine
www.cpj.org/2014/02/attacks-on-the-press-south-africa.php
--The challenges of upholding a vibrant, critical press in South Africa

Advertising and Censorship In East Africa's Press, By Tom Rhodes
www.cpj.org/2014/02/attacks-on-the-press-advertising.php
How advertisers control the narrative in East Africa's press