Journalists from eight African countries shared personal stories of being threatened and censored during a meeting with Georgia State professors on Sept. 30.
Current and former journalists from eight African countries met with Dr. Leonard Teel, Dr. Douglas Barthlow and a few graduate students for a discussion centered around freedoms of the press in the United States.
The event was included in a 21-day tour around the United States that was arranged by Mississippi Consortium for International Development. The tour was created to teach African journalists about the history and modern-day structure of broadcast journalism in America.
Teel says events like these shed light on the problems journalists in Africa are facing every day.
“I don’t think we are well aware of the problems with the freedom of expression in Africa and the bravery [journalists] exhibit in publishing and broadcasting things that the presidents don’t like,” Teel said. “We’ve heard here that they’ve been threatened several times and have lost their jobs and it’s amazing what they go through to publish truth.”
Senegalese reporter Sarah Mensalih Cisse said she covered the president’s attempt to change the constitution alongside her coworkers for six months without pay after her boss asked them not to.
She said she hopes journalists and citizens in Senegal can use social media to bring awareness to the issues they are facing.
“Americans are very lucky,” Cisse said. “Our media is controlled by the government and sometimes we lose our voice when we don’t go in the way that the government goes. It’s very complicated sometimes.”
The journalists said that their constitutions protect freedom of expression, but powerful individuals can still censor the media.
Sassou Ayawo Agbolo-Noamessi, a former journalist from Togo, said journalists would gain more freedom working for private media rather than state-run outlets.
Still, he said the private media is subject to government influence, too.
“Most of the time, at least where I was working, the private media works very closely with the government, too,” Agbolo-Noamessi said.
Despite insults and threats, most journalists continue to produce controversial content.
Andre Senankpon Dossa, an editor in Benin, said the president threatened his colleagues and said his children were more educated than journalists during a live broadcast.
African journalist Gisele Nnemi Nga Epse Emessiene started her own news magazine in Cameroon so she could voice her opinion more freely.
“You can’t have freedom of expression without economic freedom,” Emessiene said.
Barthlow said the communications department is currently in the process of amending the journalism curriculum. He said he wants students to graduate with the multimedia skills necessary for employment in the changing field, but he also wants them to take more interests in what’s happening outside of America.
The event was translated by Dr. Michael Rengstorf and Anna Mason.
