The Press of Africa: Persecution and Perseverance PDF
Preview The Press of Africa: Persecution and Perseverance
THE PRESS OF AFRICA By the same authar The Press in Africa African Assignment The African N ewsroom THE PRESS OF AFRICA Persecu tion and Perseverance FRANK BARTON © Frank Barton 1979 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1979 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo Typeset in Great Britain by Santype Ltd British Library Cataloguing in PublicatioD Data Barton, Frank The press of Africa I. Press-Africa I. Tide 079'·6 PN5450 ISBN 978-1-349-04077-3 ISBN 978-1-349-04075-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04075-9 This book is sold subjeet to the standard conditions qf the Net Book Agreement To AJrica's smallest tribe, its newspapermen An endangered species Contents Preface: The Paradox of the Press in Africa IX THE EXPANDING CONTINENT WITH THE I SHRINKING PRESS 2 WEST AFRICA: A BLACK PRESS FOR BLACK MEN 13 3 THE COMING OF THE EUROPEANS 31 4 THE GOING OF THE EUROPEANS 43 5 FRENCH-SPEAKING AFRICA: A DIFFERENT SHADE OF WHITE 59 6 EAST AFRICA 71 Kenya: A White Press for White Men 71 Uganda: The Killing of the Press and the Pressmen 96 Tanzania: The Cyclone in a Sari 1°9 7 CENTRAL AFRICA 125 Zambia: The President's Men 125 Malawi: The President's Press 153 vii Vln The Press oJ Africa 8 PORTUGUESE AFRICA: FROM FASCISM TO MARXISM 169 9 THE WHITE SOUTH 185 Sou th Africa: The Press and Apartheid 185 Rhodesia: The Press and the Rebels 2 18 10 SWAZILAND: THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL 244 UNCONQUERED AFRICA I I 25° Liberia: Tammany Hall in the Tropics 25° Ethiopia: The Mixture as Before 256 12 MANY VOICES, MANY PLANS 263 13 FREEDOM-AND AFTER 274 Bibliography 288 Index 291 Preface: The Paradox of the Press in Africa As political freedom came to the Continent, so did press freedom disappear. This is the paradox of the press of Africa: nobody should have been surprised at this, much less dismayed. Nothing that has happened or is happening to the press in Africa has not occurred in many countries which today claim some sort of press freedom. Despite the persecution, frustration and political control to which the press of virtually every state in Africa is subject it is still less corrupt than the press of Britain, the United States, France and most other Western countries in the early days of their newspapers. The conventional view-that is the White view-of the press in Africa, like so many other White views of the non-White world, is that all is pretty weil lost. The decay started, so the consensus goes, when the Union Jack, the Tricolour, the Belgian and even the Portuguese ßags were run down for the last time. Nothing changes. The same sort of views were expressed by Rome when their legions withdrew from ancient Britain and Western Europe. And, judged by the standards of the latter-day colonialists, many of those fears were realised. The prophets of doom abou t the press of Africa could yet be right. It is much too early to be sure, and the greatest fallacy about Africa, perpetrated by Africans themselves quite as much as by White Westerners or Yellow Easterners, is that Africa is one great homogeneous whole, almost one country with one pattern and one inevitable destiny. ix x The Press rif AJrica Africa is nothing of the sort. It is some fifty different countries, with perhaps a thousand different languages. And even if you hive off great sections to make cases-as I have dangerously done in this book-there are so many differences within those sections that any generalisations are fraught with danger. Africa, the great Continent for the trigger-happy hunters of yore, is now an even bigger hunting-ground for a breed of mankind which is arguably doing infinitely more harm than merely decimating wild life-the researchers coming up with definitive answers. Nigeria is as different from, say, Tanzania, as Germany is from Spain. Botswana has fewer links with Ghana than the Finns have with the Italians. Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda has about as much in common with U ganda's Idi Amin as Jimmy Carter has with Rumania's Nicolae Ceausescu-Iess. And so it is with the press of Africa. Only the hand of officialdom which controls it-sometimes mail-fisted, sometimes velvet clad-is the common denominator. There has not been a book from Britain about the press in Africa for ten years. There have been only two in that time from the Uni ted States. They are both sound, thorough studies, full of facts and figures. But in Africa the facts are always less than what has happened. I have tried to capture something of the fed of things. Although I became a research fellow at the School of African Studies at Sussex University in order to write this book, it is in no sense an academic work. It is a book about newspaper men in Africa. For if geography is about maps, his tory is about chaps, and ultimately this book is the story of the Black and White newspapermen who were or still are there-and some who hope to return some day. Any book about contemporary Africa is out of date before it gets through the printer. This one will be no exception. And yet this may be an appropriate time to set down something of what has happened and what is happening to the press in Africa. Though the pattern is likely to change and change again as the old leaders die off and the young captains and majors eagerly wrest power from the corpulent generals, a generation of in dependence in many states, and at least a decade for the newest, has set the Continent on a path which is clearer to assess than ever before. It is a good time, or as good a time as there is ever Ukely to be, to take stock and make arecord.
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