The Committee to Protect Journalists website features an interesting audio slideshow about the lack of press freedom in Zimbabwe.
Anyone with knowledge of the country won’t be surprised by the feature, but that’s not the point. This is a much more powerful form of advocacy, of getting the message out there than a press release or print article.
Its hard to appreciate just how difficult and dangerous it can be for indigenous Africans to pursue journalism in Africa.¬† It’s a sad truth but few can make a living through it without the occasional brown paper envelope being passed their way.
It’s easy for me to sit in a five bedroom house in England and make judgments but I can tell you if I was struggling to put food on the family table I’d be the first to go out looking for¬† a brown paper envelope, or two, or three. And if I was worried about waking up tommorow I’d think twice about exposing corruption and wrong doing. That’s why CPJ is so important, because they passionately support journalists braver than I’ll ever be, who put their neck on the line and sometimes, when the wind blows the wrong way, end up in prison. Sometimes, as a friend in Ethiopia once so chillingly told me, they’re the lucky ones.
Its true, as far as some Governments are concerned, the best type of investigative journalist is a dead one.
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