Clik here to view.
Panelists during the media dialogue
A two day Annual National Dialogue on Media Development in Rwanda started today in Kigali with a call for media practitioners to be responsible, business oriented and professional.
Minister of Local Government, James Musoni, officially opened the dialogue that brought together a large number of local and international media practitioners as well as stakeholders at Kigali Serena Hotel.
Musoni said that the platform provides the media an opportunity to discuss how they can jointly work together to place the African media in a global context in terms of its objectives and deliverables.
“The African media ought to tell its own story from the continent’s perspective and in a most fair manner to avoid misrepresentation by the foreign media.
We need to make a collective effort in telling our own story. This is the job of a politician, the editor and the ordinary consumer of media products” he said.
Through this years’ theme: “A reformed media; building capacities to exploit opportunities” most views of media experts thought that the local media has not been doing its part in looking for business and instead put the blame on government even after the media law reforms.
Among the ideas and suggestion that were raised by participants in the discussions include the need to brand the media outlets in order to establish media outlets that attract readership, avoiding plagiarism especially in online media, introducing the minimum wages strategy in media to avoid uncontrolled movements of journalists to and from among media houses.
On the issue of branding, media expert, and East African renowned columnist, Charles Onyango Obbo, of the Nation Media, said that there is no way a media house or outlet can succeed without branding.
He gave an example of The East African newspaper which has its own headline mark and a not more than 40.000 copies on the market, as a limit.
Local media practitioners raised concerns of lack of business and adverts from government, low readership and circulation and problem of diversity in information distributed to the populace.
In a rather bizzar twist of the discussion, Ugandan media investor and head of The Independent, Andrew Mwenda, was ‘accused’ of taking business and adverts from government; but in his response he said that for the last two years he has not had any advert from the government and his paper had become a local product just like others.
He noted that the ‘allegations’ were cheap talk and rather some kind of ‘stupidity’
However, the head of Rwanda focus newspaper, Shaka Kanuma, who was a panelist on enhancing professionalism session, told Rwandan journalist that they should be held accountable for the growth and development of the media outlets and stop blaming the government.
Backed by Kim Kamasa, the head of Government communication agency, he said that the local media has not been able to showcase their potential in order to attract any sponsorship, and said that this is coupled with a mentality of blaming others for their lack of creativity.
In the general feeling of the participants it was clear that the issuses faced by the Rwandan media have not changed from the last four editions since the initiation of the media dialogue. Most media experts said that the Rwandan media should start thinking positively, business oriented and showcasing the professionalism in order to make profit and succeed.
One of the panelists, Samba Cyuzuzo, Owner of Umuseke.com (an online Kinyarwanda website) said that profitability is not the one that is going to lead to professionalism it will instead be the other way around…professionalism will lead to profitability.
By the end of the day one, the topic of discussion was “Effective enforcement of ethical standards in the media: The role of the Self Regulatory Body” in which the Rwanda Media Comission was center of discussion.
Christopher Kayumba, a media consultant said that the comission needs the support of media houses and government in order to succeed in addition to that; there is need of internal legitimacy and external legitimacy.