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THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Journalists discuss Economic and Rural Development Reporting
Strategies on Community Radios in
Mozambique defined in Workshop
Media Pluralism Landscape study progress
Three new courses on our training plan for
the rest of 1999
 THE RIGHT
TO CHOOSE
Election fever is over Mozambique. While national and local
meetings are being held bringing planners and politicians in direct
contact with the voters, the role of the media cannot be overlooked.
“The public’s right to be
informed on all matters of public interest is a fundamental right,
the exercise of which ensures that all citizens are able to
participate in the political life of their country…” Frances
de Souza (Article XIX) and Ursula Owen (Index on Censorship) Intro.
While
the above statement cannot be contested when wishing for a
democratic development, it poses a great challenge to Mozambique,
where the training level of journalists for historic reasons
generally is very low. Also the question of sending reporters
outside the home office, often poses economic and logistic
challenges hard to meet…
A first cycle of training courses carried out by the Media
Development Project on ‘Democracy, Governance and Human Rights’
introduced no less than 50 of the country’s journalists in the
basics of election coverage in Beira September ‘98; Pemba February
‘99; Inhambane April ‘99).
To follow up this introduction the Maputo based wing of SARDC
(Southern African Research and Documentation Centre) has with
assistance from the Media Development Project raised funds
for a project to strengthen the election coverage capacity of the
media in Mozambique. This project is about to take off planning 5
discussion fora for training and sharing, a number of national
travel grants as well as a number of travel grants to cover
elections in neighboring countries.
In the first round of multi-party elections in Mozambique in 1994,
the world was watching in anxiety. Article XIX monitors closely
followed the programming of Radio Mozambique – the government
broadcaster in transition towards a more public radio format – and
reported a very positive attitude towards improving programming in
terms of imparcial and balanced programming. The challenge will be
to continue this in 1999.
Journalists
discuss Economic and Rural Development Reporting
Sixteen journalists from the Provinces of Sofala,
Manica and Tete discussed “Economic, Financial and Rural
Development Report” in a training course held in Chimoio in May.
The course focused on subjects like : rural
community leadership structures; the wome’s ke y role in the rural
economy; land conflicts; development and environment.
The third course on this subject is sheduled for July in Nampula,
for journalists from the Northern Provinces of Nampula, Zambezia, Cabo Delagado and Niassa.
Strategies
on Community Radios in Mozambique defined in Workshop
“Strategies on the establishment of Community
Radios in Mozambique” is the title of the document coming out of a
three-day workshop held in Maputo in May. Crucial Community Radio
issues discussed were effective.
Community involvement in the programmes production, organization and
sustainability.
Preparations for the establishment of a legal framework for
community radios in Mozambique will be followed up by a group
facilitated by UNESCO.
With participation from the Open Society Initiatives for Southern
Africa, the Nordic-SADC Journalism Centre, Austrian North-South
Institute and Radio Encontro, the workshop was Jointly organised by
the Institute of Social Communication (ICS), THE UNESCO Media
Project, and funder: UNFPA.
Media
Pluralism Landscape study progress
A major media pluralism landscape study is well
under way. The final report, due early July, will analyse the more
than 100 media –initiatives in the whole country interviewed with
respect to human resources, technical equipment, as well as access
to media by the population.
The External Project’s
Department of Nordic SADC Journalism Centre heads the team of 15
researchers for the UNESCO Media Project
Three
new courses on our training plan for the rest of 1999
The Media Project is opening a package of new two-week courses from
June –still developed and carried out in close collaboration with
the Nordic SADC Journalism Centre:
“Starting a Newspaper” aims at providing editorial as
well as financial managers from budding newspapers or newsletters
basic managerial tools to ensure sustainability of their
initiatives.
Media
Development Project
c/o UNESCO, P.O.Box 1397 Maputo, Mozambique
Tel. +
258.1. 498752/ 490840 Fax +258.1.498717
E-mail: unesco@mediamoz.com
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