Last night’s discussion at POLIS of the Guardian’s ‘It starts with a village project…’ in the Ugandan village of Katine raised plenty of questions about development journalism and the media’s accountability, and whether media organisations can work in the long term with NGOs and charities.

[See Journalism.co.uk's Tweeted coverage of the event]

By far the most interesting remarks were made by Richard Kavuma, a Ugandan journalist working for the Guardian on the project for two weeks every month.

Kavuma, who was named CNN Multichoice African journalist of the year in 2007, is caught in the middle between AMREF, the Guardian’s partner in the project, and the paper – a tension he has learnt to live with and not let impact upon what he sees as his purpose as a journalist:

“My own understanding of the media from the elementary classroom is that we are supposed to be the voice of the people. Especially those who do not have the voice to be heard. I saw it [Katine] as an extension of what I was meant to be doing as the media.

“This project is bringing the voice of Katine to a wider interational audience – what they perceive as their problems and how they think the project is helping or not helping them.”

“There have been challenges at the centre of some fairly salient tensions: I’m not trying to become a PR officer, I’m a journalist.

“Traditionally the media is supposed to be a watchdog, we scrutinize things. But the NGOs get money from donors and they’d like to prepare good reports on how much the money has done.”

The Guardian and AMREF have been trying to recruit more local journalists to write for the project, but to little avail, as journalists in the country’s capital are already overworked, Guardian writer Madeleine Bunting added.

As a result Kavuma says his reporting has become something of a novelty and has attracted a great deal of interest. Part of this, which he is too modest to mention, comes from more focus on people-led reporting – a journalistic style not widely used by the Ugandan media:

“The tone is changing and becoming more people-centred [in the Ugandan media]. For example, it’s not reporting about mortality, but writing about a woman who is losing her life for becoming pregnant.

“I can’t claim the credit, but I am part of a new movement, which is putting people at the centre of development reporting.

“In Uganda high politics is seen as selling papers. The issue for the media is to try and spot the high politics in the development issues and writing stories as an issue of not numbers but of people.”

The content site for the project had its highest level of traffic last month with 46,000 uniques, Bunting told the gathering. But, as contributor and Guardian environment editor John Vidal pointed out, it’s not about traffic, the project ‘had to be done’.

Despite its flaws – huge costs, some conflict with partner organisations, slow recruitment of Ugandan contributors – those involved insisted there were invaluable lessons to be learnt from the scheme, which is just a third of the way through.

Kavuma agreed: there are lessons about a journalist’s role and writing as a development journalist; but more importantly there’s an opportunity to educate the public about the development process – how hard/easy it is and the ongoing progress.

A move away from, as Madeleine Bunting said, the traditional reportage of development:

“[S]weep in, show the extent of suffering and say that your cheque will put it all right and actually not got back to check.”

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Foreign journalists working in Zimbabwe will have to pay $4,000 (USD) a year under new licensing rules announced by the country’s government.

Foreign media groups must pay around $32,000 for application, accreditation and administration as part of the new regulations.

The fees don’t apply to journalists working for Zimbabwean organisations. Full story…

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New control measures to guide live coverage of the house proposed by the Kenyan parliament have come in for immediate criticism from the Journalists Association of Kenya (JAK).

Legislators are proposing specific rules through a revised set of standing orders (rules that govern procedures of the Kenyan parliament) which include guidance on camera angles and a singular controlled signal from a proposed Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit (PBU).

Martin Gitau, the secretary general of the JAK, described the move as ‘yet another control measure by parliament’.

“It is okay to guide the media on how to effectively cover parliament but to require that all media rely on a singular signal from a parliamentary body and that specific camera shots be used when televising or filming is parliamentary dictatorship,” he said.

Gitau further described the move as ‘an assault on the freedom of the press’: “We are not in the public relations business, we will not cover parliament as if it is a favour. We must be allowed to focus our camera where there is a tilt. We cannot be guided on how to cover parliament.”

The bill proposes that ‘group shots and cut-aways may be taken for purposes of showing reaction to issues on the floor but not to embarrass individual members of parliament’. The media has previously shown MPs sleeping on the floor of the house, causing a public uproar.

To enforce the new rules parliament proposes the formation of a House Broadcasting Committee that will hand out penalties for breaching the guidelines.

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Kenyan vice president Kalonzo Musyoka has urged local journalists to set up a professional body, to manage training and advance the practice of reporting in the country.

Speaking at at an evening cocktail party hosted by journalists in the capital Nairobi last week, Musyoka argued that formalizing the existing Journalist Association of Kenya (JAK) would be a great step towards opening up opportunities for journalists.

The vice president said such an association could be handed powers to develop a modern code of conduct for journalists and provide mentors for new journalists.

Musyoka suggested that a formalised JAK could also run a database of freelance and international correspondents working in the country. Unless changes are made, he added, Kenya’s fast-growing public relations industry will overshadow the journalism sector.

“Many journalists just get into the media and do not know their way. We need a professional association that can identify people and guide them along. A professional body will help journalists in Kenya get international exchanges, scholarships and open up the profession to better standards,” argued Musyoka.

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A report from Africa’s Independent Review Commission (IREC), which was set up to investigate last year’s disputed presidential elections in Kenya, has cleared the country’s media of professional malpractice in its coverage of the election results, and blamed the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) and politicians of delaying results at grassroots level.

The commission, which has trashed claims of rigging and alteration of presidential results at the National Tally Centre – the main complaint of the opposition, also dismissed concerns over the media’s role in the post-election violence raised by international observers, including the European Union, as overly reliant on hearsay.

IREC – headed by retired South African Judge Johann Kriegler – recommended that the media should be fed results electronically to increase speed and that a secure line of transmitting results from village polling stations to the headquarters be developed with an access password for all media houses.

“The media was under pressure to relay results, politicians and the electoral commission of Kenya delayed the numbers, the media had no choice but to report what they had, you cannot blame the beast if you have not fed it,” reads the report.

However, the report did find fault with vernacular media stations for fuelling tension after the announcement of the election results and called for a review of employment policies in media houses. “Only professionals should be employed,” it said.

“How can you blame the media when politicians forced their way into the press centre and took over the role of the ECK at a time when there was[sic] information gaps?” asked the 117-page report.

Within the next 15 days another report on the media’s handling of the elections is expected to be presented to President Mwai Kibaki and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was chief mediator in the post-election crisis.

The report is expected to name, shame and recommend crucial steps that politicians, the media and the ECK should take to avoid a repeat of such violence in future.

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Computer Aid International has launched an aggressive strategy aimed at phasing out notebooks for newsgathering in Kenya by launching an initiative that will see journalists in the region equipped with state of the art laptops and desktop computers.

In partnership with Computers for Schools Kenya (CFSK) and the Journalist Association of Kenya (JAK), the organization has set up an awards scheme for reporters, cartoonists, photographers, bloggers, editors and freelance contributors, who can win computers, internet connections, mobile phones and even digital cameras.

Entries to the awards will be open for the next three months and the winners announced in November.

The organization is also offering free computer training for journalists at their premises.

Tom Musili, CEO of the organization, told a press conference in Nairobi that information and communications technology (ICT) was the best option for development, and asked journalists to submit development-related stories to compete for the prizes.

“We will reward everyone who writes about ICT and development be it in sports, features, news, politics or cartoons,” said Musili.

Backing the scheme, JAK said it would stick to its mandate to ensure professionalism in the media through sourcing for scholarships and awards.

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Dennis Itumbi reports from Kenya for Journalism.co.uk on developments in the country’s media:

Three independent Kenyan radio stations have been named and shamed for fueling the post-election violence in the country last year in a human rights report.

The preliminary report ‘A Human Rights Account of Kenya’s Post-2007 Election Violence’, compiled by the government-funded but independent Kenya National Human Rights Commission, claims individual journalists and the radio stations incited and urged listeners to arm themselves and attack members of rival communities.

KASS FM, which broadcasts in the Kalenjin area, was accused by the report of ‘being highly biased and using inflammatory language in its broadcasts and programming.’

The report quotes one of its top journalists telling his audience in Swahili (a widely spoken dialect in East Africa)’ tokeni vita imetokea’, which loosely translates to ‘leave your houses, war has begun’. According to further notes in the report, the journalist went on to urge youths to ‘arm themselves’.

A preacher at the station – identified only as Rev Kosgey – is also named in the report for organizing a meeting to evict members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe from the Rift Valley region long before the elections.

Other stations mentioned include Inooro, owned by Royal Media Services – a high-flying independent media company, which owns the bulk of vernacular stations in the country, and religious broadcaster Radio Injili, based in Eldoret. Inooro was particularly blamed for organising revenge attacks in Kenya’s central province.

The report argued that the ‘media failed in the announcement of results, since they aired reports without a background context and historical voting patterns’.

The report comes at a time when the Kenyan media is sharply in focus over its role in the 2007 elections.

The pressure is so high that a commission has been set up to investigate the media’s coverage of the disputed presidential election results.

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Dennis Itumbi reports for Journalism.co.uk from Nairobi on the media scene in Kenya:

The Kenyan government is urging the local press to develop a set of standardised rules for using anonymous sources.

Government spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua told a weekly press briefing that the state was concerned about ‘a new pattern of untrue stories that are on the increase and which solely depend on anonymous sources’.

Journalists at the televised briefing put the spokesman on the spot over the government’s reluctance to pass a proposed Freedom of Information bill and replace the current Official Secrets Act – a retrogressive set of laws that criminalise access and publication of basic information by branding all government documents confidential.

“You cannot accuse the media of being lazy and irresponsible, while they labour to get information that is hidden under the excuse of the Official Secrets Act. Kindly update us on how far the Freedom of Information bill has gone, given that it has been pending in parliament for the last nine years,” one journalist said.

“We agree that the time has come to free information, but the fact that we have not brought in the new law is no excuse to use sources who have little description or authenticity. We must stop that pattern for the sake of truth,” answered Mutua.

Last year Kenyan journalists took to the streets with their mouths gagged to protest against new laws by the government that would have seen the media forced to disclose their sources.

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Dennis Itumbi reports for Journalism.co.uk from Nairobi:

New media laws are threatening confrontation between Kenyan journalists and the government’s self-appointed media regulator, the Media Council.

Under the laws, which were passed despite protests by Kenyan journalists late last year, journalists in the country have to register for accreditation with the Media council.

Journalists must pay a compulsory sum of 2,000 Kenyan Shillings (£15.87) to register, regardless of whether they have registered in the past.

Those who fail to pay face imprisonment.

Foreign journalists are required to pay 10,000 Kenyan Shillings (£79.48) per month, while those working for less than three months will pay 5,000 Kenyan Shillings (£39.73) per month.

A letter from Kenya’s Media Council sent to all media owners said journalists would have to seek accreditation on an annual basis – a move seen as retrogressive by media groups.

Owners are also challenging the legislation, as it states that media houses must pay 20,000 Kenyan Shillings (£158.73) every month to fund ’self-regulation’.

“[Y]ou have two months to comply or face the risk of deregistration,” it reads.

Eric Orina, secretary general of the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), warned the move by the government would not be taken lightly. The organization would mobilize journalists to the streets to force the withdrawal of the fees demanded, he said.

“Self-regulation is the spirit of the laws and while we support accreditation of journalists we cannot allow the government through the Media Council to decide who practices journalism and who does not,” explained Orina, whose sentiments were echoed by Martin Gitau, chair of the Journalist Association of Kenya.

The Media Council has said it is merely implementing the existing Media Act 2007 and should not be blamed.

“We are a product of negotiation between the media and the government and since we have a legal mandate we have to implement it,” Wachira Waruru, chairman of the Media Council, maintained.

Elias Mbau, the journalist who helped organise demonstrations over another controversial clause in the act that would force journalists to disclose their sources, warned that the move to charge fees on a yearly basis would not be easily accepted.

“Nurses, engineers and lawyers are accepted into practice once; why should we renew accreditation as if it is membership to a club or a professional body?” said Mbau.

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