WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2011-05-07 Time: 18:00:01 Posted By: News Poster
By Catherine Sasman
THE media should critically interrogate their reporting style to determine if they add value to African development, said the Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Stanley Simataa.
Addressing media practitioners from across the African continent commemorating 20 years since the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration which advocates for an independent press free from government, political and economic control, Simataa said the continent’s media should infuse African perspectives when reporting on events.
“African media should find a niche in the international arena and free themselves from being fed with negative or biased news by foreign media houses,” Simataa said.
The Unesco representative in Namibia, Professor Alaphia Wright, said despite the benefits derived from the use of new media tools such as the Internet and social networks, there remain “undeniable barriers” imposed by states, including cyber surveillance, digital harassment and censorship on the Internet.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 102 journalists were killed in Africa between October 1992 and September 2010. The highest casualties came from war-torn countries.
“The impunity that often follows such murders suggests a disturbing lack of official concern for the protection of journalists and outright contempt for the vital role they play,” said Wright, adding that more ‘online reporters’ were jailed than those working in traditional media during 2008.
He said, while press freedom is under attack worldwide, there is still hope, urging all governments to join forces with the United Nations to guarantee and promote freedom of the press.
Wright nonetheless commended Namibia for its “enviable” press freedom record.
The country was ranked first on the African continent for its press freedom last year. Since 2005, Namibia was ranked in the 25th position on the World Press Freedom Index of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the highest in the African continent and ahead of South Africa and the United States which ranked 31st and 44th respectively. Namibia was again ranked 25th in the world by RSF.
Deputy Minister Simataa ascribed this positive ranking to the fact that no journalist has been arrested or killed in the line of duty, and no media house has been closed.
But head of Journalism and Media Studies Department at the University of Rhodes, South Africa, Professor Guy Berger, said despite extensive rise of commercially and to some extent community owned media, the environment for journalists have taken a turn for the worse since 2000.
Berger said progress at a pan-African contextual level has improved slightly, but has a long way to go.
The African Union (AU), he added, does not have an instrument to enforce standards for free speech and media freedom.
But the Windhoek Declaration, he went on, did have a positive spinoff in the form of the AU’s Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression, which is not a binding document.
Berger said the African Peer Review Mechanism has similarly ignored the condition of press freedom as a measure of good governance.
The African Court of Justice has not yet heard a case dealing with media issues, because of the way it limits those who may bring cases before it, added Berger.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 6 May 2011
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201105070103.html?viewall=1