IT’S ABOUT COURAGE
Media freedom is a bulwark of democracy — a vital institution to protect against the abuse of power. But journalists are under attack in many ways, from bullying to intimidation to jail to assassinations
asically, he was saying I’m a whore and a foreign agent.” This is how Michela Wrong, author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad, described the response by a Rwandan government spokesperson to allegations in her book.
Wrong was speaking at the 17th African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC), traditionally held every year at Wits University.
Our local women journalists will be very, very familiar with this crude line of attack by politicians seeking to deflect criticism arising from investigative journalism.
To pick just one of many examples, who can forget those crass, manipulated pictures of top investigative journalist Ferial Haffajee in crude poses — a pushback to her exposure of state capture and corruption.
Wrong’s book is about the rule of Paul Kagame in Rwanda, and how Western governments seem to be giving him a pass for all sorts of human rights abuses and totalitarian actions.
One of these abuses is an apparent Rwandan assassination programme to kill high-profile critics, an example of which is said to include the 2013 murder of Patrick Karegeya, a former Rwandan intelligence chief. He was found strangled in a room in the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton, after years of evading assassination attempts. Watching Wrong talk, I was struck by how much of this year’s AIJC programme is about journalism and security, and about the tactics used by governments to crush press freedom.
Last week, in a welcome highlighting of how important investigative journalism is, simply put, to the wellbeing of the world, the Nobel peace prize went to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov.
Ressa is the co-founder of Philippines news site Rappler, and Muratov is editor and co-founder of Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Both have been persecuted by their governments for their work exposing corruption.
The Norwegian Nobel committee said the two are “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions. Free, independent and fact-based journalism
“BWhat it means: It’s not all cloak and dagger work. Reporters who stand up to blustering politicians and evasive CEOs are playing a vital role
serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda.”
The two journalists, and their colleagues, have paid — and continue to pay — a heavy price for their commitment to their craft, and the democratic freedoms for which they fight.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and his government have been hounding Ressa and her colleagues. She and a Rappler writer have both been convicted of libel, and could face six years in prison.
There’s a lot more to that story of the attempts to stifle press freedom, as there is to the situation of Muratov. Suffice to note that he dedicated his prize to Novaya Gazeta reporters who had been killed because of their work.
Before I expand on this train of thought, it’s worth describing the AIJC in more detail. Dedicated to all things investigative journalism, the conference is traditionally staged in
Joburg. This year the organising committee, headed by local journalism’s Grand Master Anton Harber, decided to host the conference simultaneously in five cities across the continent. As well as Joburg, physical conferences are being held in Abuja, Addis Ababa, Dakar and Nairobi. (And in the spirit of disclosure, the organisation for which I work, Code for Africa, hosted the events in Dakar and Nairobi.)
Perusing the programme, it’s marked how many panels are concerned with security for journalists, and how this is, unsurprisingly perhaps, a concern shared across all five cities.
In Dakar, there’s the launch of a handbook titled Self-defence Strategies for Journalists Facing Online Harassment. In Addis, a panel on “How to be safe in the field while investigating” provided hands-on advice on how to prepare well and ensure your safety when being on assignment in the field in Ethiopia.
When the Nairobi leg hosted John-Allan Namu, editor of top Kenyan investigative publication Africa Uncensored, to talk about what the Pandora Papers revealed about the Kenyatta ruling family, we couldn’t have him do an inperson presentation because of what I’ll euphemistically refer to as “security concerns”.
Abuja hosted a session on digital security, looking at how journalists can evade surveillance in the wake of the growing use of spyware. In another session in Joburg, while speaking about her experience doing a story on the Pandora Papers, Carte Blanche journalist Latashia Naidoo revealed that her hardware had been compromised on the weekend. The (perhaps coincidental) timing of that is chilling, and is a reminder of how real this kind of clandestine surveillance is.
In Nairobi, a discussion on government-driven mis/disinformation in Africa pointed towards how the state’s propaganda machinery can drive this sort of surveillance, as well as attacks on media. And sometimes the need to protect themselves could cause journalists to tread an uneasy ethical line. In Joburg, a panel on undercover journalism asked when it’s appropriate to use deception, and spoke about the risks — and the precautions — journalists should take. And a handbook was launched about the rising surveillance of journalists and how to handle it.
All these examples speak to the worrying escalation, in various forms, of attacks on journalism. But they also speak to how effective investigative journalism can be, and how big a threat it can pose to corrupt governments, criminals and other bad actors. It also made me realise how proud we should be of the work that African journalists do, despite the often dangerous terrain in which they operate.
Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda
Norwegian Nobel committee
But it’s not always about the big story, and the kind of danger that comes with its own ominous soundtrack. In a sense, investigative journalism is just the extreme manifestation of a larger fabric of journalism that is woven into the essence of democracies and civil rights.
When I saw footage of Newzroom Afrika reporter Ziyanda Ngcobo refusing to be intimidated by blustering DA leader John Steenhuisen, while questioning him about the DA’s stupid “We Call You Suckers” poster campaign, I realised that there’s a strong link between that sort of reporting and the darker reaches of investigative journalism. Without the groundwork laid by all reporters, the revelations would risk landing on fallow ground.
As the courageous Ressa told the BBC, when commenting on the outcome of her trial: “Rappler and I were not the only ones on trial. I think what you’re seeing is death by a thousand cuts — not just of press freedom but of democracy.”
We’re experiencing that here at the moment, from the demented actions of the captured media and their decuplets-against-democracy stories, to the peevish sniping of DA federal council chair Helen Zille and her merry band of “12 toxic incel hermits online”, as an exasperated target described them, to the very real physical threats posed to journalists reporting from the field.
The AIJC’s annual Carlos Cardoso memorial lecture, held in honour of the Mozambican journalist who was assassinated while investigating corruption in 2000, this year focuses on Eritrea, a country that has one of the highest levels of jailed journalists.
I know SA is a long way from that, but change can come at a frightening pace — as some of our friends on the continent can attest.
As annoying as it is to read a column that ends on a call to action, here it is: don’t let our politicians succeed in their attempts to divide us from the media that nurtures us.
They’re playing with our future, for shortterm gains.