Friday, October 30, 2009

The biased reporting from Africa by the West

The last day of the training has just begun, and until the morning tea break, the class is working on some a bit more challenging research assignments to produce short feature stories on a range of topics given. Let’s see the final results later today.

New postings have been made again. I really recommend the summary from yesterday by Getrude John, St. Augustine University. She also writes about the research assignment topics the participants are now working on and the challenges given in order to find the essential information and to also avoid plagiarism.

Another wonderful commentary is the one by Mathias Byabato, Channel Ten correspondent in Bukoba. Mathias is criticizing the biased reporting of Africa by Western news media, and he also provides good links to prove his argument.

Several participants have mentioned the discussions we had about IPS News, the international news agency with a grassroots approach and always employing local correspondents. A new IPS bureau is to be opened in Dar es Salaam soon for reporting background features from the region, in both Kiswahili and English. This might of course also provide job opportunities to the Lake Zone journalists present, some of which are freelancers. For the debate on IPS, see the postings by Deus Bugaywa, Noel Joram and Albert Tibaijuka.

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