This blog has returned from
its holiday early. There is so much going on in Swaziland at the moment my
fingers are itching to get at the keyboard.
But don’t feel too sorry for
me. I am outside of Swaziland at the moment where the Internet technology is so
superior that I am able to publish this blog while sitting on the beach. (I
know this will make friends in Swaziland sick with envy).
Another good reason for
getting back to the job of monitoring the media is a report about me that appeared in the Weekend
Observer on Saturday (26 July 2008). In a fashion that is typical of Swazi
media, the newspaper didn’t bother to talk to me. As a result the report is
full of inaccuracies, lies and half truths. But back to that later.
I’m guessing here, but
maybe one reason the Weekend Observer didn’t interview me is that my
reputation precedes me. I don’t see it as my role in life to get my name in the
newspapers or my face on television. For that reason when I am approached by
journalists for a comment I don’t try to give them a quote they can use.
Instead when they ask me a question, I tell them what I think.
Anyone who regularly reads
this blog will know what I think about what’s going on in Swaziland and you can
work out for yourself why the media often choose not to report my comments.
There was a classic case of
this earlier this month (July 2008). Days before I was due to present the
results of my research into censorship and self-censorship in
the Swazi media. I was telephoned by state-controlled Swazi TV.
A journalist wanted me to appear live on the station’s breakfast show to
discuss the report.
It was obvious to me that
Swazi TV hadn’t actually read the report because if it had it would never have
called me. My report was highly critical of King
Mswati III and the way he dictated what the media could and could
not write about him.
Can you imagine the scandal
if I had appeared live on state-controlled television and said this?
Last year when the Times Sunday published a
report from an overseas’ news agency that was critical of King
Mswati III’s personal spending, the king summoned the Times’ publisher
to one of his many palaces and threatened to close down the
nominally-independent newspaper group unless an abject apology was forthcoming.
The apology came and the newspaper group still publishes.
The fallout at Swazi TV if
my comments had gone on air would have been enormous. Swazi TV is the
mouthpiece of the Swazi Government and the monarchy. The very reason for its
existence is to prop up the status quo in Swaziland and to broadcast propaganda
on its behalf.
I have no doubts that
people at Swazi TV would have lost their jobs if I had gone on air and I
personally would have been a marked man by Swaziland’s not very efficient ‘secret
police’.
So, I declined the offer to
go live. I didn’t tell the journalist who was on the phone what my report
revealed, but I did offer to do a recorded interview in advance of the
programme. This way, I figured, I could say what I wanted to say and Swazi TV
would have the choice not to use it.
It wouldn’t have used it of
course. Thereby demonstrating how self-censorship worked in the
state-controlled media.
In the event Swazi TV
didn't take me up on the offer. I think this was due to the lack of facilities
the station has. It is easier to have someone come into the studio for a live
broadcast than to send a journalist out with a camera to do a report.
Now back to the Weekend
Observer. Its report was about my leaving my job at the University of
Swaziland (UNISWA) and what would happen to journalism
teaching there now.
As I said the reporter
didn’t bother to contact me, but did use a blogpost I wrote for some background information.
Even then the reporter made
a grave error. The reporter said I was leaving UNISWA ‘because he [Rooney] felt
he had achieved what he had set out to achieve by coming to Swaziland’. This is
actually the exact opposite of the truth. I left UNISWA because I felt it was
impossible to achieve anything worthwhile there.
The Weekend Observer report
also contained other inaccuracies. It stated that I would be replaced as
professor by a Fulbright Scholar. It didn’t explain what one of
these was, but it led the readers to believe this was something ‘good’.
In fact there is no
Fulbright Scholar. UNISWA applied to have someone come to work in journalism
under the Fulbright scheme but no one wanted to. Instead, the US embassy in
Swaziland offered to send someone under a different scheme. The person who is
coming is an English language teacher (not a journalist) with very few
appropriate qualifications and hardly any teaching experience.
Incidentally, the UNISWA
spokesperson quoted in the report refers to this visitor as ‘he’ when in fact
the visitor is a ‘she’ (the UNISWA spokesperson doesn’t seem to be on top of
his brief here). I am sure the visitor will be a willing worker and I wish her
well, but an unqualified volunteer is not a replacement for a professor and the
volunteer is only at UNISWA for one year.
The fact that UNISWA thinks
that an unqualified person is a suitable replacement for an experienced
academic speaks volumes about the academic standards at the university.
The UNISWA spokesman also
said the university is advertising internationally for a replacement professor.
The vacancy has been known since October 2007 and no such advert has yet appeared.
The reason for this is simple. UNISWA usually advertises with the Association
of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) but because UNISWA hasn’t been paying its
bills, ACU has refused to take any more of its adverts until it coughs up the
cash.
Anyway, that’s enough about
me. Come back again soon for reports on why Princess Sikhanyiso thinks her
‘dad’ is loved by his people and why the Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe has
been invited to King Mswati III’s birthday bash.
2 comments:
Had to laugh when I read the article about you in the Weekend Observer - for now you're gone and the daggers are out.
So glad you're back early - now i can hang my wet hankie on the line to dry....
Looking forward to hearing about Princess Sikhanyiso. I just watched her in Without the King.
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