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MISA releases annual 'state of media freedom and freedom of expression' report
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
April 27, 2006

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) will again this year be releasing its annual publication, "So This Is Democracy?: State of media freedom in Southern Africa" in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2006. This is the twelfth consecutive year in which MISA has issued this publication which records incidents of media freedom violations monitored by MISA in the previous year. The current edition therefore details media freedom violations in 2005.

MISA issued 155 alerts in 2005 about media freedom and freedom of expression violations in 11 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. This is a decrease of 8,3 percent over the 169 alerts recorded the previous year in 2004, and a 57% increase over the 84 alerts issued in 1994, when MISA first began monitoring media freedom and freedom violations in the sub-continent.

The countries monitored include Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Since the turn of the century Zimbabwe has topped the list as the most repressive country in the SADC region in terms of media freedom violations. MISA has recorded 453 alerts in Zimbabwe in the six-year period from 2000 to 2005.

At its peak in 2002 Zimbabwe accounted for 120 (58%) of the 208 alerts recorded in that year. Although Zimbabwe continues to lead in terms of the number of individual violations recorded, MISA documented a 62% decrease in the number of violations (from 120 in 2002, to 46 in 2005) in Zimbabwe.

MISA’s Regional Director, Mr Kaitira Kandjii, attributes this vast difference to the fact that the independent media in Zimbabwe has been effectively silenced with the vigorous application of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). And again in 2005, the government further reinforced its anti-media and free expression arsenal with the signing into law of the Criminal (Codification and Reform) Bill on June 2, 2005 which makes it increasingly difficult for the few remaining journalists who survived the implementation of AIPPA and POSA to perform their newsgathering tasks without fear or favour. Similarly, the General Laws Amendment Bill seeks to tighten POSA by increasing the penalties against journalists convicted for publishing statements that insult or undermine the authority of the President.

However, another nail in the coffin came with the unveiling of the government’s more subtle strategy of oppression. State organs are infiltrating the media in an attempt to control it from within as in the case of the much publicised "Mediagate" in Zimbabwe.

Breakdown of the 2005 alerts

A breakdown of the 155 alerts issued in 2005 reveals among others, that 16 journalists were attacked, 14 detained, 36 censored whilst 9 victories – either through the adoption of positive legislation or where charges were dropped against a journalist – were recorded. No journalists were killed as a result of their work in 2005.

Breakdown of the 2005 alerts

Following is a breakdown of the 155 alerts issued in 2005:

Trends detected during 2005
MISA is of the opinion that whilst in the past SADC governments were the major violators of media freedoms, more recently our courts have become the leading oppressors of media freedoms and free expression rights.

The year 2005 witnessed a marked increase in the number of incidents where the media was censored, either through gagging orders or granting of exorbitant damages in civil or criminal defamation suits. This development holds dire consequences for media freedom, diversity and pluralism.

Most glaringly in South Africa, the Johannesburg High Court’s banning of an article in the Mail & Guardian newspaper’s coverage of the ‘Oilgate’ scandal presented the genuine fear that the judgement may open the way for others seeking to prevent newspapers from publishing articles about their questionable or irregular conduct by enabling them to obtain legal censorship of the media through the courts.

A gender perspective
The 2005 publication again features a regional ‘gender and media’ overview of the SADC region. Research conducted shows that as far as gender is concerned, the media in southern Africa needs to work harder to fulfil its function as an educational tool.

The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) has since 1995 systematically monitored the representation of women and men in the news at five-year intervals. Closer to home, the Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS), undertaken in 2003 by MISA and Genderlinks provides greater insight on gender and the media in Southern Africa.

In 1995 when the GMMP was first introduced as a tool to monitor gender representation, only 17 per cent of women in the world were represented in the news. In 2005 it was 21 per cent, a small figure but significant in that there was a rise at all. The overall goal of the GMMP is to change the ingrained patterns of gender representation we see in the news.

In the world reflected by news stories around the globe, women remain largely invisible. On a global scale, the GMMP 2005 survey found that women make the news, not as figures of authority, but as celebrities (42 per cent), royalty (33 per cent) or as ordinary people. Female newsmakers outnumber males only as homemakers and students.

According to the 2005 GMMP Survey Analysis Report: "Although women have made great strides in the media over the last couple of decades, in many countries they still face an uphill struggle to achieve equal status with men. General stereotypes that men are rational and women are emotional, that for men a career is paramount, while for women a career is secondary to family life, also influence the directions into which male and female professionals are channelled within media organisations, and the kinds of stories they cover."

Similarly, the GMBS found that ‘equality of opportunity’ was still far from being translated into ‘equality of outcomes’ between men and women in the SADC region. This is more so in the newsrooms. After a period of two years, the 2005 GMMP has given similar results. The confirmation that there has been only a slight change needs to be noted. Markedly, this change seems to be in the increased number of female reporters rather than female editors who are more empowered to influence the news.

Global Media Monitoring Project, 2005

A new feature – The African Media Barometer
A new feature of the publication is the inclusion of six country reports (Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia) where MISA and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) have to date implemented the African Media Barometer (AMB).

The AMB is the first in-depth and comprehensive description and measurement system for national media environments on the African continent and is motivated, among others, by MISA and FES’s belief that the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) presents a serious defect in that it omits a key requirement for good governance: the fostering of free and independent news media." Furthermore, the Review Mechanism was developed and is carried out by government agencies with no or not sufficient involvement of civil society organisations and those who are affected by government policies. The African Media Barometer is meant to overcome these defects in regard to the media.

The AMB is a self assessment exercise done by concerned and informed citizens in each particular country according to a number of general, home-grown criteria. The benchmarks used have to a large extent been lifted from the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) "Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa", adopted in 2002. The ACHPR is the authoritative organ of the African Union mandated to interpret the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which is binding for all member states.

Both MISA and FES view the AMB as a valuable lobbying instrument to promote debate on political and social reforms.

How to obtain a copy
Hard copies of the publication may be ordered from MISA’s Regional Secretariat. Contact Eric Libongani at resource@misa.org or libongani@misa.org for details. The publication may also be downloaded from MISA’s website at http://www.misa.org/sothisisdemocracy.html

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