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KHARTOUM (SUDANOW)- What is it all about?

Rare indeed, if not historic, are the moments when you meet, in one place, with 500 of the finest assortments of vibrant African journalists, curious and eager to find solution for challenges facing their continent.
From the 30th to the 31st of August over 500 journalists, from across Africa and in the Diaspora-nurtured and groomed by 50 lecturers and moderators, met inside the campus of the Rhodes University, School of Journalism and Media Studies.
The venue was the ever hospitable Grahamstown city, one hour drive from Port Elizabeth on the eastern coast of South Africa. The journalists came to discuss relations between media and the urban area, under the broad theme of: Journalism and the City.
It was all within the Highway-Africa. The Highway Africa Conference is hosted by Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies in partnership with the Department of Communications (South Africa), Corporate South Africa, development agencies and media associations. The event was sponsored by Corporate that include, among others, MTN, Telkom, Barclays and Google.
For eighteen years the Highway Africa conference has been at the centre of Africa’s debates on journalism, media and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The conference has over the years become the largest annual gathering of African journalists in the world.
Furthermore, in the last seven years Highway Africa has evolved into a multi-pronged programme with the following components: -
- Research: mapping the terrain of the challenges of the interface of technology,
- Journalism and the media;
- Education and Training: responding to the identified gaps, this project makes a practical intervention by re-skilling, up-skilling, educating and training journalists;
- Conference: the flagship of the programme, it is the forum for critical reflection on journalism, media, technology and development in Africa- as just stated, the event that has been taking place for now 18 years.

With such a huge heritage and frequency, Highway-Africa is no longer a gathering but a movement that engulfs the whole continent and beyond.
And the incentives for the young journalists are many. One tip of the iceberg could serve as an example here. Consider the fact that, as put by one of the lecturers, “approximately seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. We’ve heard this narrative. Africa is on the move and Africa is the new destination for business.”
Specifically, the idea behind the 19th gathering was that more and more regions in the continent, like the rest of the world, are becoming urbanized. Some 3.5 billion people are now living in cities worldwide.
This situation comes with its challenges and opportunities, from sanitation to democratization to whopping population, economic growth and throbbing generation of youths. The conference was to ponder on how African media people can deal and report on these challenges.
Professor Anthea Garman, Deputy Head of School and Chair of Highway Africa Steering Committee, argued that the fact that nearly half of the world lives in a city does not mean that half all share the same standards of living and the same access to a city’s resources.
“In fact, our cities are becoming the sites of the most unequal, most unfair distribution of resources as this inexorable movement of humanity takes place. This is absolutely a topic for journalism and for this conference as we ask whether our cities, especially in Africa, are enabling or disabling environments for the majority of mankind”, She stated
These are the types of challenges the gathering tried to address during the two day conference. The Highway Africa gathering, started way back in 1994, as an initiative to see how the new media, the internet at the time, could be used in better reflecting development in Africa.
“Highway Africa has over the years distinguished itself as the most preeminent platform for, and the largest gathering of, media professionals, journalists and researchers across the continent and beyond to exchange views, share experiences and reflect on the challenges and opportunities of reporting in our continent and beyond.” Professor Sizwe Mbizela, Acting Vice Chancellor of Rhodes University, described the gathering.

The key word is to use the appropriate technologies to this end. But technology without a trained cadre will never work alone. And technology and trained cadre without motives and a sense of purpose will lead nowhere.
The 19th meeting, 30th - 31st of August, 2015, was aimed at providing the yeast that would ferment further specific actions by this group of highly enthusiastic people who believed that Africa is beautiful, notwithstanding its woes.

The activities were divided into two sessions:
- The First day saw the plenary session held on August the 30th. It went into three parts: the plenary session attended by all participants and was addressed by the key speakers, followed by a panel of discussion: the narratives of the city in journalism and the media.
- The parallel session was on how media report on South Africa and the other on the local community media.
- The afternoon part of the first day was divided into seven workshops. It was up to participants to each chose the subjects they wish to attend and discuss.
These workshops included:
1- Internet Governance Workshop,
2- Digital Tools for the News Room,
3- Sitting through Nutritional Science, Separating Hype from Scientific Research,
4- Media, Human Right and Communicable Diseases
5- Citizen Participation in an Era of Technology Innovation
6- Digital Media and Disability and, lastly
7- Science Journalism for Community Media.
And the third part of the day was launching of the two books:
- Democracy More than Elections: by Dr Brigalia Bam
- Selling Apartheid-South Africa’s Global Propaganda War: By Ron Nixon
- The finale of the first day concluded by interesting lectures delivered by veteran High Africa journalists and initiators on the experience and their visions.
Who represented Sudan in the gathering?
And thanks to a generous invitation, spurred by its policy of Corporate Social Responsibilities- according to Chris Maroleng, Group Executive: Corporate Affairs, MTN Group- Johannesburg South Africa - MTN Sudan sent three Sudanese journalists to the gathering, to rub shoulders with their African peers and absorb some of the experience of international experts who took part in the two day gathering.
The journalists were:
-Mr. Shawgi Abdul Azim
-Ms. Aisha Sammani
-Myself Mohamed Osman Adam
The trip was long, the schedule hectic, but the reward was great, worth every minute of it: from the plenary sessions to the launching of new books.
What are the main themes?
Edward Ndopu who currently heads Amnesty International’s Youth Engagement Programme for Africa in the human rights watchdog’s Johannesburg regional office, has underlined the role of the youth.
In one of the most interesting lectures as rightly cited by Highway African newsletter, Edward Ndopu challenged a number of contradictions.
“Africa cannot possibly rise without Africans themselves rising as well, and this means that young people need to be front and centre of the discourse,” Ndopu said. He described his broader role at Amnesty International as being to “inspire young people throughout Africa to take injustice personally”.
In working to achieve this, Ndopu feels that the Africa Rising” narrative must be critically engaged. This is vital because, approximately seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. We’ve heard this narrative”.
“Africa is on the move and Africa is the new destination for business.” He argued.
He wondered if there isn’t a contradiction between this narrative and the large numbers of youth who are disenfranchised from the socio-economic and governance structures of the continent.
About 70 percent of young people live on less than two dollars a day and by the year 2050, half of the world’s youth will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.” While the future belongs to them, the youth do not have a strong enough presence in the parliaments of the continent and are essentially excluded from decisions that will build a continent which they will ultimately inherit.
On narratives of the city and journalism, Ndopu said that even in cities young people are not able to find jobs and in some ways, the city distances itself from local conditions and is an architectural manifestation of an economy in which profit is detached from the place where extraction happens.
He concluded by saying that delegates could assist the #AfricaNot4Sale (Read it: Africa not for Sale!!) campaign by joining Amnesty international as members and amplifying the voices #AfricaNot4Sale;
Eric Chinje, CEO of the African Media Initiative kicked off the second day of the conference by challenging delegates to tell him what the acronym ICANN stands for.
Hundreds of delegates scratched their heads furiously as they tried to win Highway Africa director Chris Kabwato’s prize Dr Brigalia Bam’s Book, Democracy: More Than Just Elections. Prof Gerard Goggin, chair of the Media and Communications Department at the University of Sydney, was the only delegate brave and ultimately wise enough: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Chinje then introduced Pierre Dandjinou, ICANN vice-president for stakeholder engagement.
Dandjinou said that internet data is about numbers, names and how one interprets them. “Highway Africa is the place to be,” he said, and promised that ICANN would be making a contribution to the conference in years to come.
He argued that infrastructure, information, industry and people- these are the four ingredients for any uptake of the technology in society. He pinpointed that the internet was just a disruptive technology; it was here to lead us to do things differently.”
Benin-born Dandjinou encouraged fellow Africans to transform the continent, adding that it all boiled down to mental transformation. He was of the view that “Africa should be producers of the internet industry, not just consumers,” he said.
A continent of one billion people cannot rely on others’ production for the continent. It’s not normal!” Speaking on the possibility of variety, he said it was possible, although quite expensive. “You can put your language on the internet. People can access the internet in their own language.”
He argued that if you want to tell African stories, you must know about African stories. As far as digital technology is concerned, the media must be on par with the stakes that are behind the digital economy. The media should be at the forefront. These are important tasks if you want to transform Africa.
He later in another lecture said what was needed is training, training and training for the journalists to deliver stories. He said issues are there for African journalists to report on them from water to animal husbandry to agriculture and AIDS. His view is that without mastering their tools African journalists will not write stories that are of interest to people. His advice was that you have to break the numbers, make people understand them, speaking simple and plain language of everyday and be specialized in your subject.

Workshops on the sideline of the conference:

Health journalism 101: Human rights and communicable diseases:
One of the most important workshops and discussions held on the sideline of the gathering is one on the relations between human rights and the communicable disease, e.g. AIDS or tuberculosis.
The overall aim is to bring to the forefront issues that the media tends to forget. The discussions also focused on the need to respect the human rights of the people living with aids and how constant advocacy should be sought to protect the rights of all groups affected with the disease.
Lynette Mabote, an enthusiastic South African who is the regional advocacy team leader at AIDS and Rights Alliance for southern Africa was the main speaker and advocate during the workshop on human rights and communicable disease held on the margin of the Highway Africa 19th gathering.
A group of participants shared their experiences with regards to communicable diseases, how they are covered in the press and how rights are observed and how stigma sometimes coupled with lack of enacting laws infringe the rights of those groups.
Mabte and her team presented an interesting film to illustrate how a work of a group of lawyers and right advocates were able to correct a situation where a female Zambian lady who discovered she was HIV positive was subjected to all sorts of injustice. The film shows how voluntary work counts and how, one individual who break the silence barrier, can make a difference.
The AIDS Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a non-governmental organization working in 18 countries within the SADC region and East Africa, has made its way to this year’s 19th Highway Africa conference to urgently form a cohesive collaboration with journalists in an attempt to inform them about sensitive health reporting.
As an organization ARASA promotes a human rights approach to HIV/AIDS and TB in Southern Africa through capacity building and advocacy. LynetteMabote, the advocacy team leader, stated that the organization focuses its attention at specific populations groups such as individuals who identify as children who cannot access treatment for HIV and Tuberculosis. “We work around human interest stories surrounding HIV/Aids, focusing on legal and policy issues of stigma discrimination, and access to treatment,” Mabote stated.
ARASA has decided to join the conference because they have seen that 30 years into the HIV Aids epidemic, they see very little positive reporting on these issues. According to Mabote, the stories that circulate in mainstream media generally increase the violation of human rights instead of reducing it, thus hampering the organization’s ability to control and handle these issues of representation relating to the epidemic.
“We have decided to start a conversation with journalists to find out how do journalists best collaborate with health practitioners and activists to get better stories around epidemics and positive messaging that encourages people to test and to eliminate discrimination and stigma,” said Mabote.
ARASA aims at reaching more journalists across the spectrum, not just health reporters. This is because the human rights violations that happen are normally reported by general journalists.
“For instance when journalists have a scientific paper in front of them to write on, it tends to happen that they write what they think about it,” Mabote added.
What ARASA hopes to achieve is the creation of a lasting relationship with journalists and the media in general. “We want to make sure that when the media reports, there is no false messages being told to the public. Essentially, the organization wants to inform journalists on the technical and scientific understanding of health,” she said.
ARASA said it plans to continue to attend HA conferences and the NGO has recently launched a month long online training programme for African journalists, which aims to teach them how to tackle complex health issues sensitively.

Open Governance speaking truth to power:
In a discussion moderated by Executive Director of the Open Democracy Advice Centre, Mukelani Dimba, on August 31st, panelists discussed the topic of open governance.
The panel comprised of Qinisile Delwa from the South African Department of Public Service and Administration, Jay Kruuse Executive Director of the Public Service Accountability Monitor, Jimmy Gotyana National President of the South Africa National NGO Coalition, and Jesinta Kuda from the Zambia Land Alliance.
The speakers explored the narrative of how the African experience has been framed and reported on in terms of improving open governance. The discussion also focused on various aspects of open governance, why open governance is important, and how people can get involved in it in their countries.
Qinisile Delwa presented on how the South African government is implementing innovations aimed at empowering citizens. She spoke about the role of public participation in governance, particularly the National Development Plan Vision 2030. She said the action plan speaks to the role of the citizen in the future which is to be “active, mobilized and to be responsive.”
“This is what the government we are aiming at: to further develop partnerships with citizens,” said Delwa.
“Because we envisage a future, we’re addressing key development challenges that will result in a citizenry that is able to demonstrate the three points,” added Delwa.
Jay Kruuse spoke about social accountability and the importance of open governance partnership saying, “Governments have an obligation to justify and explain their decisions and actions to citizens”.
“Citizens have a fundamental right to demand justification and accountability from the government,” added Kruss.
Kuda spoke about the relevancy of open governance to ordinary citizens in Zambia, especially about access to information on land in Zambia.
“The Zambia Land Alliance is a non-governmental organization working for just land policies and laws that take into account the interests of the poor through sensitizing communities through radio programmes and community radio stations.”

Alternative is the new journalism:
This lecture was summarized and reported by Sisipho Skweyiya who pointed out that Rod Amner, Rhodes University lecturer and researcher, is incorporating ethnographic approaches to journalism in an attempt to understand the relationship between journalists and the spaces and places in which they work and report.
A former director and editor of the Development Media Agency, Rod Amner has focused much of his career on researching and practicing alternative journalisms such as public or civic journalism.
He believes that there is an urgent need for journalists and media to be introduced to each other and the respective issues they face, in an attempt to advance the adoption of more civic-minded journalism that connects citizens with official organs of state.
As a supervisor of a number of Masters level research projects, Amner showcased some aspects of the research he has been conducting with his team of students. One of the projects that Amner showcased during the session mediating the Territory – technology and relationship with community, was aimed at testing and developing new civic mapping methods for community journalists in hyper local areas like municipal wards and neighborhoods when reporting on social issues.
The research, conducted by MA student Hancu Louw, is centered on using ethnographic methods to map the civic life of citizens inhabiting a particular ward in the local Makana Municipality. “Hanc has been doing transect walks, meeting people, trying to identify third places, identifying the officials and meeting people in incidental spaces, the NGO’S and other community organizations,” Amner said.
He is also supervising research by another MA student Yandisa Sobahle, on digital media literacy and the potential of not only improving access to ICT resources, but also facilitating the training and development of endogenous skills within hyper local communities. Sobahle is working closely with citizens in their communities by going into physical spaces such as libraries and community resource centers to facilitate and train people on how to engage with the online media ecology of Makana Municipality.
To further implement this alternative approach to researching and doing journalism, Amner and his students have been conducting digital media literacy training sessions on Saturday mornings, with 27 community members from the ages 15 to 76 years.
During the sessions, participants are collaboratively taught how to navigate computer hardware and the web. “Some people are taught how to use a computer for the first time, while others are helped to create and log onto Facebook and blogging sites,” he said. The programme also offers more advanced support to participants in furthering their engagement with their local and wider community by blogging about and basically telling their own stories.
“Civic journalism is really about gently entering into social spaces and slowly developing story ideas by building relationships with citizens to uncover the massive stories that are not being covered by mainstream journalists,” said Amner.

Navigating DNS in the media:
For Dave Mann who summarized the lecture on navigating DNS in the media, today’s journalists and media practitioners are well versed, if not at least acquainted with the digital age. Still, many only see the internet as a tool.
He pointed out that in the session Domain Name System – Africa’s Potential, panelists touched on the benefits of knowing one’s way around the Domain Name Industry for the media.
Moderated by Luna Madi, the panel consisted of Mike Silber and Pierre Dandjinou of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Duncan Martin of South African Central Registry (ZACR), and Dr Jimson Olofuye of the Africa Information and Communication Technologies Alliance (AFICTA). While the panelists mostly spoke about the benefits of internet connectivity and domain hosting to Africa as a continent and individual African businesses and companies, the session also lent itself to the interests of a more internet savvy and connected journalist or media house.
“The internet has become incredibly intimate, connecting us all,” explained Madi, “That’s why knowing how to navigate it and better understand it is crucial.”
In brief, Domain Name System (DNS) involves the navigation of sites and destinations on the internet which uses IP addresses comprising letters and numbers. We can’t always remember these IP addresses so we use words instead, such as www.google.com. A DNS essentially brings the two together and takes you to your destination.
Dandjinou explained that of these domain names, only 16 new names were requested from Africa last year, highlighting a lack of knowledge about DNS amongst African businesses and individuals. On the upside, it means that getting oneself acquainted with the inner workings of DNS could increase the online reach of one’s business or individual profile globally.
By getting into the business of buying and selling domain names, one could benefit even more. What do these mean for journalists? Looking at Media24, Silber explained that the clever use of a domain name can positively impact on one’s online accessibility and engagement with readers. “They almost bombard you with the brand, but they associate that brand with their content such as news24, sports24 and property24, and all of those things and that comes down to a domain name,” he said, “To put it simply, it’s like putting up a sign outside your office. You can’t go too big or too small, you have to be strategic with your branding, and it’s the same with domain names.”

Will citizens ride to the rescue of troubled media?
As summarized by Annemarie Henson mainstream media is not effective when it comes to citizen participation and public service. The advances in social media are changing the way that we communicate with governance. This conversation started two years ago and will be an ongoing one. As Ben Akoh said, “You don’t want to miss out on the advances in the world.”
The “Citizen Participation in an Era of Technology Innovation” workshop took place on Sunday, 30 August in the African Media Matrix building with a panel consisting of Akoh, Gregory Omondi, Lucy von Sturmer, Paul McNally, Peter Verweij and Adam Clayton Powell III.
The main discussion was around the questions ‘Do citizens want a direct link with their government?’ and ‘What is the most efficient way for this to be done?’ Instead of the panelists presenting for hours, the audience was included and invited to ask questions and share their experiences.
“In the process of interaction, we learn a lot more,” said Akoh. The fact that journalism is in crisis was not far from many lips either, and while it’s not as bad as in the global North, it’s definitely coming to Africa, delegates noted, with several speakers declaring that regional newspapers would not survive. This is where citizen participation comes in though, because barriers to citizens voicing their views and opinions are often about access to technology, the language barrier and illiteracy.
On Monday, 31 August, Making All Voices Count (MAVC) hosted a pitching event where eight finalists competed with ideas for projects in South Africa that address the two key issues of safe spaces and local action, and eventually creating safe spaces for the voices of the marginalized. The finalists competed for a grant and development of their ideas.
Three finalists were selected at the end of the day by a jury. The winners of the event, VoiceUp, are working on a safe space for survivors of gender based violence to report violations using their mobile phones.
“Most women are afraid to go to police stations because they fear poor treatment and embarrassment; we want to test if through mobile and online services we can create a safer channel of communication.”
The runner-up, Roger Domingo from George, wants to amplify farmers’ voices. The farmers communicate their issues via WhatsApp and Facebook and the aim is to take their issues from across the country to politicians and political types.
“Farmers are historically some of the most marginalized citizens in our communities and through new media we can connect these previously isolated communities,” Domingo said.
Finally in third place was TalkSafety, a NGO that works with children and teachers to report on safety issues at schools.
“Schools often say ‘there’s no bullying here,’” the NGO said, “but we all went to school and we know this isn’t the case.
The NGO say they want to find a way for students and teachers to report on safety issues in order to provide decision-makers with accurate and reflective data.” The Making Voices Count team will spend the next six months working with the top-three, guiding them until their projects are ready for implementation.
Master Class- truth is the story:
The zookeeper gave the elephant a laxative. It stood for an hour. “Is it stuck in there?” he said, lifting the tail. The dead man was 38.”
Turan Ali, Director of the international media training center, RNTC believes this single tweet encapsulates the six crucial elements of a good story – namely a crucial question, gradual rise in tension, changing symbols, climax, universal truth or deeper meaning and resolution. “What I’m going to say this afternoon may upset a few people; it may be seen as heresy,” said Ali, as he started the Master Class workshop yesterday.
De-prioritising the inverted pyramid structure may seem like hearsay to those involved in journalism education and training, but to Ali, it is necessary to allow space for inventive, creative journalism that tells a good story.
The basic elements of story were explained by way of a story in the gripping soap opera genre.
The audience and Ali collaborated to explain the life of young and financially struggling Simone.
Harry, her wealthy boyfriend had just proposed. This would be perfect if it wasn’t for Julio, her Spanish lover – and the fact that she doesn’t really love Harry. “Even experienced journalists are story-blind [...] you can describe a story very easily. It’s a sequence of events. The six elements are just as important in a hard news piece as they are in a full length feature film,” said Ali.
In this mix, the audience had to identify the crucial, exposition question, explain how gradual rises in tension could happen, play around with different climaxes, speak to the consequences of the climax and finally, delve into the deeper meanings of the various narratives constructed. “The universal truth is the DNA of the story and explains the power of the story. Rule of thumb: if your universal truth sits well on a Hallmark greeting card, it’s not a universal truth – it’s more philosophical than that,” Ali said.
The universal truth that Ali thinks is the double helix of the good story is something that has often been contested by the journalists, film-makers and journalism educators in the 65 different countries he’s facilitated this workshop in. How could there be a universal truth?
“This is the importance of accurate, particular truths which need to be revealed by journalism so that the deeper meaning can be unlocked as the universal truth,” Ali said. “Story is not beginning, middle and end.”

Tackling censorship and child porn:
This was a workshop I attended personally on how vital it is to enact laws in an attempt to protect children and to prohibit pornography and with the moderators stressing the need for the family to be the frontline of protection and that it was better for a family to be stiff with their children at one moment in place of regretting their whole life.
But Youlendree Appasamy summarized the workshop nicely when she talked about trigger warning/ Content Warning: child abuse, sexual abuse, violence against children, child pornography.
Censorship, child pornography, media regulation, Section 16 of the South African Constitution – the Film and Publication Board (FPB) tackled these contentious topics head-on in the Draft Online Policy presentation on August the 31st on the sideline of the conference.
“What we are trying to do is keep up with the developments that have been happening in the last decade and a half,” stated Oupa Makhalamele from the FPB.
The Film and Publication Board (FPB) was established 19 years ago by the Film and Publication Board of South Africa. The FPB is a public institution mandated to regulate the creation, production, possession and distribution of certain publications and films by means of classification, the imposition of age restrictions, giving of consumer advice, and criminalizing of the exploitation and use of children in pornographic publications, films or the internet. This is according to the Film and Publications Act 65 of 1996 (amended in 2009).
The production and dissemination of child pornography in all forms, is what FPB seeks to curb and eventually eradicate.
To that end, public education programmes have been happening in schools all over the country and if necessary, legal and social work task-teams have been assisting the FPB in its campaign to curb child pornography.
Janine Raftopoulos spoke on the dangers of cyberspace and especially, the role of the internet in child pornography. They also stressed the need to issue water tight regulation and in strict language to deny those who oppose such laws under the pretext of freedom of speech any chance of frustrating the efforts.
Not many countries, to my knowledge in Africa have thought let alone tried to issue legislation preventing child pornography. The unit enforcing such regulations should be highly trained and specialized and has to receive the support of the companies that upload such films on their website.
Rest to say here that without the help and assistance provided by such sponsors as MTN it would be difficult for us journalists to attend such a rich and informative event.
It also provides a platform for us as Sudanese, part and parcel of the continent, to go and see how Africa sees itself and how we are seen within Africa. It is an opportunity for us to speak directly to our fellow Africans in place of receiving information and stories from non-African institutions.

*** This article is based on my personal note and participation in the event and on the article summarized on: OPEN SOURCE, an online paper published by the Highway Africa - Mohamed Osman Adam.

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