N°50 - 28/11/01

African Media The Press and Democracy Network's Press Campaign The Press and Democracy Network, moderated by Reporteurs sans frontières (RSF), will de-vote its next press campaign to the anniversary of the death of the Burkina Faso editor, N. Zongo. The campaign will be launched on 13 December and will be illustrated by the cartoons drawn for the occasion by five African satirical cartoonists. Contact: realipresse@rsf.org; www.rsf.org/realip

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N°49 - 14/10/01

African Media Events to Celebrate the Union nationale des journalistes de Côte d'Ivoire's 10th Anniversary UNJCI will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a series of events from 26 November to 5 De-cember. They will start with the inauguration of the press centre and continue with a round table on the topic of "what kind of Côte d'Ivoire press for the 2nd Republic?" and a public con-ference on "Press and Democracy in Africa". The press centre is currently being refurbished with the support of the Côte d'Ivoire govern-ment and will be partially equipped thanks to contributions from the F. Ebert Foundation and French overseas aid. Contact: unjci10@aviso.ci Towards the Creation of a Federation of African Press Centres Meeting in Ouagadougou from 6 to 9 November, the press centres from several African coun-tries (Burundi, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Togo) and represen-tatives from countries that have plans to create such structures (Benin and Guinea Bissau) declared themselves in favour of creating a federating structure that gives them more weight on the African scene and creates a formal framework for their exchanges, and that also allows them to be solid partners for donors. A working group was established to prepare the founding texts that will be proposed 6 months from now at a founding general assembly planned to be held in Bamako. This meeting in Ouagadougou was supported by the Agence de la francophonie, in partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the French Community of Belgium.

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N°48 - 31/10/01

African Media The Deontology Observatory in Senegal Has Premises The Conseil pour le respect de l'éthique et de la déontologie (CRED, council for the respect of ethics and deontology) has received premises from the Senegalese government and will soon be able to move in. In addition, CRED has organised-with SYNPICS and the American Cultural Center-a se-ries seminars on ethics and deontology and on the consequences of the recent suppression of the Ministry of Communication in Senegal. Diary The 18th North-South Media Festival The 18th North-South Media Festival will be held in Geneva from 5 to 12 April 2002. This year's themes will be "Sports and Development" and "The Media: the Religious Factor and International Current Events". The latter theme lies within the framework of a symposium at the Institut universitaire d'études du développement [university institute for development studies]. Contact: nordsud@vtx.ch

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N°47 - 17/10/01

Diary 2nd African Economics Editors Conference in South Africa The Conference will be held in Johannesburg from 4 to 8 November. It will be attended by economics editors from 30 African countries. The purpose of this meeting is to improve economics and business reporting in African newspapers. The conference is supported by the World Bank Institute and the Freedom Forum. The participants are members of African Economics Editors' Network, created in 1999. The Network has published an economics journalism handbook and set up a Web site: http://journ.ru.ac.za/economics/aej Contact: Nixon Kariithi, Pearson Chair of Economics Journalism at Rhodes University, n.kariithi@ru.ac.za p.cairns@ru.ac.za

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N°46 - 26/09/01

African Media RAP 21 The African Press Network for the 21st Century, an African digital network, initiated by the Central African Union of Private Press Publishers (UEPAC), is coordinated from Paris by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). The network brings together more than 200 members, publishers and journalists. Its principal activity is the diffusion of a e-newsletter made up in part of the information sent by its members. The e-newsletter also focuses on training offers. RAP 21 currently operates on WAN funding. Its ambition is, with the help of a second coordinator based in Africa, to provide technical, managerial, marketing strategy, and even advertising advice. Contact: rap21@wan.asso.fr The 17th North-South Media Festival in Geneva Awards This year, the Press and Democracy Award was attributed to the Burkina Faso daily, L'Indépendant, created by N. Zongo. This award, in the amount of €2,728 ($2,517), is offered by La Tribune de Genève. A special award was attributed to the Kinshasa newspaper Le Phare. The Prix Suisse Radios du Sud was awarded to a programme on life in African prisoners produced by the Ouahigouya radio station "La Voix du paysan" in Burkina Faso. This award in the amount of €2,728 ($2,517) is offered by Swiss Radio International SRI and the Swiss National Commission for UNESCO.

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N°45 - 05/09/01

Diary The Third Festival of African Radio, "Waves of Freedom", in Bamako from 8 to 10 November "Waves of Freedom", a biennial festival, is organised by the Panos Institute West Africa, the government of Mali, and the Malian Union of Independent Radio and Television Broadcasters (URTEL). Partners such as CIERRO, AMARC, the Confédération nationale des radios libres [national confederation of free radio stations] (CNRL) of France, Radio Nederland, RFI, Worldspace, and USAID provide sponsorship. The goals of the festival are to facilitate better understanding between public and private broadcasters on the regional scale and experience exchanges, and to encourage production exchanges and creation. The theme of this festival will be "Radio and Decentralisation", which includes sub-themes such as: radio and local institution/management of democracy; radio and local management of power; decentralisation and the risk of ethnocentrism; and radio and the transfer of skills. A programme exchange is organised around the festival's theme. Finally, a radio contest will attribute four prizes. Contact: panos@malinet.ml and bdp.panos@malinet.ml Sithengi 2001 The Sithengi film and television market in Cape Town will be held from 12 to 15 November. A new chief executive officer has been named, Mike Auret. The new strategy defined by the Board of Directors for the next three years will be presented to the participants. It is notably a matter of the creation of a festival, World Cinema Screenings, planned for 2002, which aims to attract more international professionals to South Africa. Contact: md@sithengi.co.za

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N°44 - 08/08/01

African Media A Press Centre in Côte-d'Ivoire On 3 May, the government handed over the keys to a villa destined to become the Côte-d'Ivoire press centre to the Union Nationale des Journalistes de Côte-d'Ivoire (UNJCI) [Côte-d'Ivoire National Journalists' Union]. 1,500 sq. metres in size, the press centre will house UNJCI, OLPED and the professional associations and unions. Its ambition is to be a meeting place and provide a framework for mobilisation; it will offer a permanent secretariat to the associations it houses. It will also serve as a resource centre thanks to subscriptions, a documentary fund, a subscription to a foreign news agency and a satellite dish. The equipping of a conference room, reception hall, 5 offices, a meeting and reading room, and an apartment for visiting foreign journalists (two bedrooms and an office) is planned. The goal is to inaugurate the press centre in November for UNJCI's ten-year anniversary. The F. Ebert Foundation is financing the acquisition of some of the future press centre's equipment in the amount of 10 million CFA francs. However, funds must rapidly be found for the necessary renovations, estimated at € 53,357 (USD 46,852). Sierra Leone Media Rebuilding Project The project, implemented by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, has set up a newspaper printing operation. A newspaper in-house development programme that includes editorial, advertising, circulation and management skills training is now starting. The programme has been supported by UNESCO's Programme for Free Expression, Democracy and Peace and by CIDA's Peacebuilding Unit which lies within the framework of Canada's recent commitment to making a financial contribution to the creation of a Sierra Leone Special Court. Contact: Nick Fillmore, fillmore@ifex.org Diary The 6th African CreaTV Workshop from 17 to 21 September 2001 in Libreville (Gabon) The 6th CreaTV Workshop, a programme for creative television, is being organised by UNESCO in partnership with INPUT (International Public Television). This workshop is an annual meeting for 900 professionals-television producers, filmmakers and broadcasters. CreaTV allows between 30 and 60 television directors and producers to present their audio-visual productions and exchange their experiences through discussions following the screenings that in part serve as "self-training". These meetings' other goals include strengthening access to international distribution channels and provide seed funding for some selected production proposals. Contact: Rosa Gonzalez: r.gonzalez@unesco.org The International Freedom of Expression Exchange's 2002 Annual Conference After this year's conference in Bangkok, the next annual IFEX Annual Conference will be held in Accra (Ghana) and hosted by WAJA. The conference will last for nearly a week and most of IFEX's 55 member organisations are expected to attend, as well as roughly fifteen African NGOs and representatives of donor agencies that support media development and freedom of expression. Contact: Nick Fillmore, fillmore@ifex.org Publications:New Documents In the framework of the monitoring of media coverage of the presidential elections in Benin last March, the Observatoire de la déontologie et de l'éthique dans les médias [media deontology and ethics observatory] (ODEM) published a report at the end of June on local press coverage (in newspapers, and radio and television stations) of the elections. 15 dailies, 4 periodicals, 7 radio stations and two television channels were monitored. The report details each breach of ethics based on the articles of the deontology code. The launch of the publication was extended in Porto Novo by two days of exchanges with the NGOs involved in the electoral process and representatives of political parties. From 8 to 11 August, local radio stations from the interior of the country, often on the periphery of the observatory's activities, are invited to Parakou to discuss with ODEM the issues of deontology and corruption in the press.

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N°43 - 13/06/01

African Media First International Forum on Nigerian Video and Film This forum, held in Lagos from 31 May to 2 June, was organised by the Independent Television Producers Association of Nigeria (ITPAN), the French cultural centre of Lagos, and the French Embassy. The goal of this forum was to allow African and French professionals to discover Nigerian productions and allow the 400 Nigerian professionals present to forge contacts in order to diversify their access to production and distribution circuits. Specialised Nigerian producers, directors, actors, distributors and journalists were able to meet twenty or so professionals from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and France, including representatives of Canal France International, ARTE France, FEMIS (the National Film School of France), and the directors of the Amiens Film Festival ("Cinema of ACP Countries") and the Angers Film Festival ("African Cinema"). Panels addressed the following themes: the legal environment for audiovisual production, dubbing, training, special effects, the documentary genre, relationships between channels and producers, international co-production possibilities, budgets, production aid, cultural diversity and film distribution in Africa, writing and storyboards. This meeting led to the birth of a few projects: dubbing Ghanaian and Nigerian films in French, the participation of the European Union and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in funding Nigerian feature films, the establishment of training with FEMIS in Nigerian and Ghanaian film schools, and a distribution agreement between a Zimbabwean director and distributor (Media for Development) and a Nigerian counterpart (Mainframe Productions). WAJA Strengthens Its Alert Capability At the WAJA meeting on 29 and 30 March, 2001 in Bamako, press centres called on WAJA to be able to act more quickly in cases of violation of press freedom. In order to do so, WAJA has asked its members as well as press centres and observatories to send it systematically information on: the facts about the violations in question, the provisions of the press laws, the action requested or expected, the addresses (fax, telephone, e-mail) of the authorities in question, and the opinion or position of the sender of such information. General Secretariat in Dakar: synpicsujao@sentoo.sn; Regional Office in Accra: waja@africaonline.com.gh Diary The Fourth Zanzibar Film Festival will be held from 29 June to 14 July. The Festival of the Dhow Countries-the lands that border the Indian Ocean-will present feature films, cartoons, documentaries (including three on a journalist from Sierra Leone), short films distributed by M-Net, and seven short films in the category "Scenarios from the Sahel". Contact: press@zirr.or.tz or http://www.ziff.or.tz Publications:New Documents The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has just published the study by Tatiana Repkova entitled New Times: Making a Professional Newspaper in a New Democracy. The content of this study focuses on how to establish, manage and run a newspaper in societies that are making the transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes. Destined for both publishers and journalists, this study provides an introduction to the role of journalism; develops how to elaborate a strategic plan for press companies, how to define editorial content, management issues (structural organisation, organising work, and human resources); and presents the means of communication. The study also provides, in the annexes, a list of summaries describing the different jobs that exist in a newspaper. For the time being, only an English version has been published but a French language version is planned as soon as the means are available. Copies of the study can be ordered for €35 each by Internet at: http://www.wan-press.org/forms/bookstore.html

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