Building capacity to report the Information Society

More than a dozen African journalists, drawn from
about six countries within the West African sub-region, have completed a four-day media training
programme with the theme ‘Reporting the Information
Society.’ The event held at the Ghana Press
International Centre, Accra.

The programme was put together by four organisations.
They are the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN), .Org, Afilias and the
International Institute of ICT Journalism (Pen Plus
Bytes).

Parts of the objectives include getting journalists
informed on key issues within the ICT sector and
equipping them with the skill to ‘knowledgeably and
accurately’ report the emerging information society.

In a continent where ICT infrastructures are gradually
becoming part of the landscape and tools such as
mobile phones have recorded rapid uptakes, there has
been little exposure of journalists to basic trainings
in reporting these trends.

As a result, most reports on ICT from the continent
only reflect a shallow understanding of the real
issues. Roland Stanbridge, director, Global
Journalism Strebro University, Sweden, a resource
speaker at the Accra forum, blames financial
inadequacy of media organisations on the continent and
traditional editorial bias for politically inclined
stories for the problem.

“It is a general problem everywhere. Political stories
are top stories,” says Stanbridge.

Editors of news dailies or magazines have a strong
tradition of looking at issues only from a political
perspective. For news items to be considered hot, they
must reflect the statements of political leaders while
those of ordinary citizens are regarded as not weighty
enough to sell a news product.

Besides, most media organisations are too poor to
offset the bill for regular media trainings necessary
to keep journalists informed on developments with
global significance, says Stanbridge, who had about
three years ago teamed up with other people in Rhodes
University, South Africa, to form Highway Africa.

Highway Africa is an initiative geared at bringing
together journalists from different parts of the
continent to share knowledge and sharpen their skills
at reporting their beats.

Finance and attitude, says Steven Lang, executive
producer (New Media) South Africa Broadcast
Corporation, have effectively reduced the potentials
of African journalists to report the new ICT
phenomenon. Lang is also the editor-in-chief of
Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) formed less than two
years ago to provide a practical training platform for
the new breed of ICT journalists.

Specifically, these factors have made it nearly
impossible for journalists to accurately report the
emerging information society, say Lang and Stanbridge.
“I have found this workshop most enriching. I have
come to realise that there is still so much to learn”
says Theodore Kouadio, IT Reporter with Abidjan based
government owned news daily Fraternite Matin. “These
challenges have always been there. It is good that
organisations like these are taking it upon themselves
to address them,” says John Awe of the Nigerian
Tribune.


Reporting ICT requires learning a new spectrum of
lexis and the Accra workshop provided a good platform
for resource speakers from the sponsoring
organisations to offer fresh insights into ICT
dictions.


Four officials of ICANN: Theresa Swinehart, general
manager, Global Partnership,
Anne-Rachel Inne, policy analyst, Kieran Baker,
general manager, Communications & Public Participation
and Mohammed Diop, a board director, took participants
on a tour of terms and issues within ICANN, Internet
governance and the information society. They had been
helped a day earlier by Desiree Zeljka Miloshevic,
advisor, International Affairs and Policy Development,
Affilias by her ‘Review of Internet Governance.’ [More
reports on paper presentations coming later ….]


From Sunday Folayan, managing director of Skannet, A
Nigerian ISP, was the interesting paper on ‘Africa and
the issue of access’ eliciting response from
participants on more familiar issues as bandwidth
pricing, SAT-3 cable waste, and VoIP [IT Edge print
edition coming out soon with insightful reports on
VoIP and SAT-3 sub marine cable; online report on
Folayan’s presentation this week….]
 

 More…..

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