A leading media expert in Africa has said that there is lack of professionalism in the media in Africa although the continent has some good journalism institutions and best journalists on the continent.
African Media Initiative Executive Director Professor Amahdou Mahtar Ba says media ethics were critical in the media profession but was lacking in Africa.
Prof Ba said African governments wanted the media to report the state’s view while the media was also trying to state its own views to the exclusion of the people’s views.
He disclosed that that was why the African Media initiative was set up to focus on newsroom management and address issues of ethics in a holistic manner.
Prof Ba was said this yesterday during a luncheon hosted for the delegates to the African Regional Conference on Access to Information at the La Palm Beach Hotel in Accra.
And speaking earlier, Executive Director of the Media Foundation In West Africa Kwame Karikari said there was no political will in Africa to pass legislation for the access to Information laws.[quote]
Prof Karikari said African governments were invariably not being proactive in passing access to information laws except when the World Bank blew the whistle.
He said this attitude would reflect on the poor implementation of the laws even if they were passed.
When challenged by Zambian Information minister Lt Gen Ronie Shikapwasha about the unethical conduct of the media during the genocide in Rwanda and the post election violence in Kenya , Prof Karikari blamed the media in Rwanda and Kenya for failing to hold their nations together.
He said what happened in Rwanda, Kenya, Nazi Germany and Serbia exposed the worst levels of recklessness which the media could reach when there was no genuine media pluralism.
He said the Kenyan situation was saved from degeneration into genocide because there were other media outlets reporting the other side of the story.
Prof karikari said when there was no genuine media pluralism, the state monopolizes information by blacking out alternative media sources and turns the remaining media into tools of propaganda.
He, however,expressed satisfaction that following the liberalization of the media on the entire African continent, no one media house could monopolize the access to information and its dissemination as the case was in the post election wave of violence that swept over Kenya.
The African Regional Conference on Access to Information which was sponsored by the Jimmy Carter Center For Democracy Program winds up business today after signing the ACCRA Declaration on the Right of Access to Information which should persuade African governments to accelerate the pace of legislation for Freedom of Information laws in their respective countries .
Zambia has been represented by Information and Broadcasting Services minister who is also Chief Government Spokesperson Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha among other members of civil society and the media.
ZANIS
Leave Africa alone..!…What about FOX news and rupert murdoch and his empire ?…This issue of ethics in the media is not so straight forward , Mr Professor..!…..:d
Mataba seems to be not only ignorant, but he is very ignorant. If Mataba is a journalism professor, he probably has never practised. He must just zip his trap and chew donor money like all charlatans.
That is the problem with our media. African Media Initiative Executive Director Professor Amahdou Mahtar Ba. He is no Professor, as far as I know. I know the man.