Rwanda genocide criminal pleads not guilty

One of the men involved in the Rwandan genocide was recently captured and is being tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha. Idelphonse Nizeyimana pleaded not guilty to the charges laid against him.

There are many reports on his capture and subsequent trial. The Al-Jazeera news site explains his trial in much detail, and gives background information about the genocide. It gives extra information that other sites do not give. It tells the reader about the $5 million bounty for his capture, and how he has been on the run for 15 years. This is important because it shows that the genocide criminals are being brought to justice. Although the process of bringing them before the courts has been slow, it encourages the victims to know that justice is being achieved for them. Al-Jazeera, however, reports that the tribunal can only hear appeals until 2010. This is puts it under pressure to search for the remaining criminals, so that they can be arraigned before the courts.

Other websites report the basics of the story, and add little or no background information like the BBC and Reuters. The most nonchalant of the reports I read was on Bloomberg. It was a very short report on the trial, which does not say a lot about Nizeyimana and about the genocide. It is as if they don’t care about the genocide and that criminals are still being brought to book about it.

Holding out for a Hero: Gladiator of the hard news world

A thought on the movie “State of play”

As awkward as this may sound, one can’t help but faintly hearing Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding out for a hero” playing in the back of one’s mind after watching State of play.

In short, without giving the story away, daily paper investigative reporter Cal McAfferty (Russell Crow) starts working on a story that has much more to it than the surface reveals. It becomes even more intriguing when there are personal interests at stake and decisions become vital in his search for truth, and all of this comes at a cost. (Good cast, includes Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams)

Like most Hollywood movies it has its fair share of unrealistic elements, one being a cop selling info in return for a cup of coffee early on in the story. But despite its flaws I like it for the important journalistic values it displays: One of the main issues I came to think about after watching it was the question of how I would act if my story contains a personal relationship, one I had not really though of before. It also highlights the very important idea of the search for truth, an element I personally believe to be at the very heart of journalism – independent of what type of journalism you are doing…be it features, science, politics... Also important is that it showed that journalist can have an opinion and still act “objectively” by bringing froth the truth.

State of Play is slightly idealistic at heart (a little like myself I guess) but is a movie I would recommend for any aspiring journalist. Some might perhaps critique it as a very stereotypical and perhaps even mainstream view on journalists and journalism, but this didn’t really bother me in the movie.

If nothing else the movie captures what I always admired in a journalist, and would aspire to be myself: were journalists are seen as truth seekers and watchdogs for the public; people who seek the truth in the interest of their readers. Rather this than the over saturated world of reproducing news without any depth, and with too much focus on sensation as to sell news.

To conclude I leave you with a quote from the movie that I really liked…one that seems to leave a little light at the end of the tunnel for those who sometimes feel overwhelmed with spicy tabloid and sensational rubbish:

"You know, in the middle of all this gossip and speculation that permeates people's lives I still think they [readers] know the difference between real news and bullshit and they are glad when someone cares enough to get things on the record and print the truth." - Cal McAfferty, State of Play

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ME87tEX9Qw

*AllStars*

Apocalyptic predictions of the melting Arctic ice cap

The melting Arctic ice cap recently made headlines with the release of the extensive Catlin Arctic Survey and WWF (World Wildlife Fund) data ahead of the UN’s climate summit, finding that the ice is too thin to survive next summer’s melt season.

Image: Arctic ice photograph by Paul Nicklen

This news was reported differently from one publication to the next, ranging from “Arctic Largely Ice Free in Summer Within Ten Years” to “Arctic ice will be completely gone in 20 years” and several other reports with more vague headlines like “Arctic to be 'ice-free in summer'”

All the stories’ (I looked at) reliability lies in that authoritative (mainly on grounds of their histories) publications like BBC, AFP, National Georgrapic etc reported first hand on them, except for The Tech Herald. Most publications wrote informing pieces explaining the study and its findings in understandable terms to the average reader, while science publications went into greater scientific depth. The Tech Herald reported disappointingly little on the topic. In my opinion National Geographic was by far the best middle way read between a deeply scientific and a general explanation.

A flaw seems to occur with reference to “Wadhams said the results agreed… Recent changes in wind patterns in the Arctic have also contributed...,” as a reader would reason that “wind” itself is influenced by global warming – a possible reporter misunderstanding?

From all the reports it remains clear: Global warming is here and we urgently need solutions!

Reference:

The Guardian

CS Monitor

AFP

National Geographic

The Tech Herald

BBC

Telegraph.co.uk

How advertising saved a newspaper

TBWA’s advertising Campaign to save The Zimbabwean

"We don't believe that information is a luxury, which is why we believe so
strongly in this campaign." - Damon Stapleton, executive creative director of TBWA

I recently found this article that includes a video about how South African Advertising company TBWA came up with a concept to help raise awareness for its neighbour country’s news paper, “The Zimbabwean”. This is after the Zimbabwean has been heavily taxed as one of Mugabe’s last methods to try and make it unattainable for the general Zimbabwean public – as we all know, Mugabe fears nothing more than a newspaper and freedom of speech! Not only does TWBA succeed in their goal to subsides the paper, they also won several awards for this campaign. Very creative and definitely worth a look!!



*AllStars*

Laws of relativity in the Newsroom

Objectivity & quality – the age old debate

Words like “objective” and “good journalism” are very relative terms and have no clear cut definitions. These two words are also the topics of age old debates in the newsrooms, amongst journalists, and among their readers as for that matter. As “Everything in life is relative”, for my future posts unless otherwise stated, I’ll go on the ‘objectivity definition’ given by Gill Rennie, saying “One can still have an opinion, and be fair, and show both sides of an argument at the same time.” As for good journalism: I like to think it is critically, well though through writing. Writing that does not only inform, but also analyses and discusses and, if nothing else, influences the way the reader perceives the world and make decisions.

I do not hold a high regard for tabloid papers, but sadly they seem to sell better than the rest; growing in size while major papers close their doors. Like some journalists, I value ‘good’ content and don’t like dumbed down articles: even though a newspaper in my believe should inform the general public, it might as well be a bit educational while at it.

I also see journalism as comprising of two elements: investigation and reporting. And I would even go so far as to say that this applies to about any style of journalism, whether it is a profile piece of other feature or a hard news story. Each of these two subdivisions has a role to play, although I tend favour investigation slightly over reporting. This is because investigation to me is a search of truth – although this is not a label I will put on all investigative work. It seems like the emphasise in the ‘new media’ news world becomes one of mere reporting, telling the public what is happening through live twitter feeds rather than analysing and investigating deeper motives - a part of a journalist’s service to our readers.

*AllStars*

Cry the beloved Bondesia

Before I even say anything else may I just mention that I am totally and utterly in love with the man who inspired the topic for this blog! That is quite a mouthful for one sentence.

But seriously, I am in love with him, in the figurative sense of course. Let me be a little bit more specific. I love how he writes. When I first read a novel by him, I was blown away. Don’t worry; it was really windy that day. It was love at first read. He was writing about a man I used to admire: Robert Mugabe. The book Our Votes Our Guns was a quite accurate account of the rule of Robert Mugabe.

Anyway back to the real issue. Martin Meredith. Ever heard of him? He is a journalist, who has travelled across Africa extensively. He kinda knows what he is talking about. Anyway, I read one of his books: The Fate of Africa. It has a lot of stories about African dictators who destroyed their countries and looted national coffers for their own benefit. My attention was drawn to Jean- Bèdel Bokassa, an African dictator in the 1970’s. Bokassa was one of those looneys, who thought that having a monarchy( with him as supreme king of course) in the French- colonised Central African Republic would establish it as a “cool” African country. The French had kinda developed the country, but he ran down the Central African Republic into the core of the earth. This got me thinking about Africans and their non-golden touch.

What would happen if the whole of France relocated to Bondesia (the fitting equivalent name for any African country), and the whole of the Bondesia moved to France? I hate to say this. All my African brothers forgive me, but the French would probably develop Bondesia into a First World country. And the Bondesians…

They would run down France so bad that Belgium, Switzerland and Germany would hurry to impose sanctions on them for violating the beauty of France. Even poor Napoleon would turn in his grave. The street light poles would be torn down and used to build chicken pens. Laundry would be hung on telephone wires. The vineyards would all be uprooted and replaced with cassava fields. There would be a civil war over who could control the Eiffel Tower. All the beautiful, cultured chateau gardens would be turned into grazing land, and donkeys would become the mode of transport in Marseille. Soon, all the Bondesians who want to live the good life would leave France and migrate to Bondesia in search of greener pastures. Worse, the French franc would fall 1 000 000 % in the first three-quarters. Nah…that’s an exaggeration, but it would lose value in some way. All the roads would be decorated with boreholes of potholes. Life would be most definitely nasty and brutish, but not short.

Thank goodness Bondesia is only a figment of my imagination, otherwise I would have been sued for every worthless Zim dollar I possess. But the attitude I have shown above is a typical stereotypical view of Africans: everything we touch seems to turn to mould; we will never develop; we are uneducated, primitive and don’t know what is going on. Well, we are not that bad. Although we have a tendency to mismanage affairs, we are the ones who give boring capitalist life a tint of humour. So, all of the Africa haters out there need to relax. My beautiful Africa is on the road to discovery and recovery.