Who will control Zimbabwe’s media?
The Listening Post looks at the impact of the power-sharing deal on those reporting it.
On The Listening Post this week; the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe and what that means for the media there. Plus, the untold story of Myanmar’s Karen.
This week in the News Divide: It has been almost a year since Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, suffered a politically crippling defeat in general elections.
The man who defeated him then – Morgan Tsvangirai – is now the country’s prime minister and sharing power with Mugabe.
But who will preside over the news media? Mugabe has had the Zimbabwean media under his control for decades and has routinely locked out the international media.
With rifts already appearing between Mugabe and Tsvangirai – straining the so-called ‘unity’ government, where does that leave the people reporting on the struggle for power in Harare?
In part two The Listening Post’s Simon Ostrovsky heads up river in Myanmar to get the story on the Karen people and the media campaign designed to get their story on the global news agenda.
Over the past 18 months, we have been looking at Myanmar. First there were the mass protests in 2007, then Cyclone Nargis last year. In both cases we had a correspondent there as Myanmar’s military regime tried to prevent the media from freely reporting on those events.
However, there is another story in Myanmar going largely untold. It is about ethnic tension and the plight of the Karen people. Millions of Karen, many of whom live in refugee camps, have been pushing for independence for 60 years now. They feel forgotten by the world’s media which is more interested in Myanmar’s political story.
In this week’s Newsbytes: The journalistic blacklist in China; the Indian editor and publisher arrested and charged with hurting Islamic sentiments in a newspaper article; Muzzamil Hassan, the founder of Bridges TV, is charged with beheading his wife; a new channel is launched in Saudi Arabia which aims to highlight the issues faced by the poorer citizens of the Arab world and Anthony Suau’s photo of a sheriff moving through a repossessed home in Ohio wins this year’s World Press Photo award.
Finally, our internet video of the week has been raising a few eyebrows on the net with over two million hits. Two overly expressive kids and a funky techno track have given the confectionary company what most advertisers can only dream of: a viral video phenomenon.
This episode of The Listening Post aired from Friday, February 20, 2009.