THE UNSWAZI BOY IS BACK IN TOWN

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.

See also


CENSORSHIP – ADVERTS AND LIBEL
FAREWELL, BUT NOT FOR LONG