Prof Banda urges media to develop principles of development journalism
Written by Kabanda Chulu
Thursday, April 09, 2009 8:54:23 PM
OPEN Society Initiative in Southern Africa (OSISA) programme manager Deprose Muchena has challenged journalists to create debate and demand for policy change to shift away from the fundamentals of the IMF and the World Bank.
And Rhodes University Media Studies and Journalism Professor Fackson Banda has urged media institutions in Southern Africa to embrace principles of development journalism in order to bridge the gap between official sources of news and ordinary people.
During a sub-regional media workshop themed “Reporting Economic Partnership Agreements: prospects, promises, pitfalls” in Johannesburg, South Africa on Tuesday, Muchena said the global economic crisis had exposed the inertia and laziness of African leaders.
He accused African leaders of being agents of imperialism by not expressing their voices over the world economic crisis.
“When the issues started, they told us that we are insulated and we will not be affected and but now we are affected and they just met in November 2008 and formed a committee to carry out some findings but up to now this committee has presented their findings and yet people are suffering, actually this is not strange because Africa is used to deal with consequences all the time and these leaders are busy defending capitalism and its misguided tenets,” said Muchena.
“But since the African leadershipsà voice is missing, we challenge the media to create debate and demand for policy change to move away from the Washington Consensus because its institutions like the IMF and World Bank have no solutions to our problems, in fact the global crisis is a result of their ‘economic prescriptions’ which they impose on others.”
And Prof Banda said embracing development journalism would ensure the empowerment of all voices in society through participatory dialogue.
“It is difficult to move away from the usual ‘official sources’ of news but it is possible to embrace development journalism and bridge the gap so that the voices of ordinary people can be heard as well,” said Prof Banda.
The media workshop was organised by the Economic Justice Network (EJN) of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCCISA) and drew journalists from across Southern Africa and civil society organisations involved in trade activism and development matters.
Mr K,
ReplyDelete"(OSISA) programme manager Deprose Muchena has challenged journalists to create debate..."
Most people's frustration with Zambian journalists in general is the word-for-word reporting which is devoid of deep analysis or opinion on any given issue. This applies across the board, from government controlled media across to private ones, more so the govt media though.
I do understand there is a prevailing culture of intimidation, (Radio Icengolo's Father Bwalya being a strong case in point), however it's not just political stories that suffer from lack of analysis.