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Глубоко в провинции Мпумаланга, в далёкой северо-восточной части Южной Африки, газета с довольно скудным бюджетом использует комбинацию высокотехнологичных и низкотехнологических решений для улучшения жизней общин, которым она служит.
Эта газета инициирует новую, инновационную форму журнализма, которая не только ставит своих читателей в центр освещения новостей, но и напрямую вовлекает в процесс их сбора.
То, что делает эта маленькая газета, является уроком для более крупных и установленных средств массовой информации, которые ищут нетрадиционные потоки доходов и отстаивают свое существование и актуальность в эру сетевого и цифрового журнализма.
Общественная газета «Зивафи» тиражируется по населённым пунктам в районе Нкомази, который расположен в эпицентре пандемии СПИДа в Южной Африки, где доступ к свежим новостям крайне ограничен. Одна из самых больших проблем в этом регионе – загрязнённая канализацией вода. Каждый день женщины и молодые девушки часами собирают воду из рек и используют её для питья, приготовления пищи и стирки, но в эти самые реки часто утилизируются человеческие отходы. В результате число кишечных палочек иногда резко возрастает, вызывая диарею. И каждые несколько лет это провоцирует вспышку эпидемии холеры.
Используя грант и техническую помощь от Африканской Медиа Инициативы (АМИ), которая возглавляет стремление внедрить принцип приоритета фактов в журналистику африканских отделов новостей, репортёры «Зивафи» помещают старые смартфоны в пластиковых бутылках в реки региона. Работая как электронные микроскопы, телефоны используют свои камеры для регулярных съёмок со вспышкой. Эти фотографии потом увеличиваются и сравниваются с изображениями в существующей базе данных, чтобы установить уровень кишечной палочки. Результаты рассылаются местным жителям в форме СМС, оповещая их, где безопасно набирать воду.
Заканчивается процесс анализом полученных данных для выявления трендов в надежде триангуляции источников заражения.
Раз в месяц «Зивафи» публикует детальный отчёт с результатами, которым делится с другими общественными газетами и местными радиостанциями в регионе. Это вселяет надежду, что эта информация даст возможность обычным людям повлиять на власть, чтобы та, в свою очередь, предоставила доступ к чистой воде и надлежащим санитарным условиям. Читатели «Зивафи» также помогают собирать информацию, используя мобильное приложение для составления отчётов граждан. Эти истории очевидцев дополняют данные смарт-телефонов о воздействии загрязнения и его возможных источниках.
«Общий бюджет составляет всего лишь $20 000, включая в себя небольшую ежегодную зарплату журналиста, специализирующегося в области здоровья», ― говорит Джастин Аренштайн, стратег АМИ. «Но самое главное то, что с точки зрения долгосрочной перспективы медиа, «Зивафи» использует водный проект для создания цифровой основы, которая понадобится, чтобы выжить в ближайшем будущем».
До недавнего времени Африка оставалась позади остального мира касательно интернет связи из-за высокой стоимости доступа. Но теперь благодаря использованию подводных кабелей стоимость соединения, особенно на востоке и юге Африки, снизилась. Это пробудило начало новой захватывающей эры в журнализме, вспышку идей и инноваций, которые производят «newsyoucanuse» инструменты. Авторитетные СМИ всё чаще и чаще обращаются к гражданам, чтобы подключить их к сбору новостей и процессу разработки контента. Проект «телефон в бутылке» является примером того, чего можно достичь с ограниченными ресурсами.
В Кении «Радио Группа», третья по величине медиа-компания, начала программу «Звёздное Здоровье», первую из набора инструментов для читателя, которая призвана помочь им проверить данные докторов и узнать, были ли они уличены в противозаконных действиях. Один раз мужчина, работающий доктором, оказался ветеринаром.
Этот сайт оказался большим хитом в стране, где врачи-мошенники являются большой проблемой. Он также помогает пользователям найти медицинских специалистов и их ближайшие медицинские учреждения. Его также можно использовать, чтобы проверить, какие лекарства оплачиваются национальной схемой здоровья. Важно отметить, что результаты запросов на «Звёздном Здоровье» поставляются через премиум СМС-сервис, который генерирует поток доходов – ключевая модель в эпоху, когда средства массовой информации должны искать альтернативные схемы доходов от главного источника рекламы и, в некоторых случаях, тиражей.
«Эти инструменты не заменяют традиционную журналистику, они дополняют журналистский репортаж, например, помогая читателям узнать, как национальный сюжет про докторов-шарлатанов важен лично для них», ― говорит Аренштайн. Новости должны носить личный характер и быть действенными. Они должны стать важной частью стратегии цифровой трансформации СМИ, подчёркивает он.
Реалии журналистики сегодня заключаются в том, что кто-либо со смартфоном и основами цифровых навыков может стать «издателем», однако такой большой аудитории как у традиционных СМИ, у него вероятно не будет.
Например, в Нигерии, онлайн община «Сахара» имеет более миллиона подписчиков в социальных сетях, а это намного больше, чем у многих крупных СМИ. В будущем редакциям предстоит суметь использовать эти стихийные сети, но по-прежнему удерживать в центре голоса граждан.
Новаторский проект в изолированном штате Дельта в Нигерии совокупил работу средств массовой информации и сети гражданского репортёрства, «Голос Наижа», для введения в пользование оснащённых камерами дронов дистанционного управления для мониторинга экологически разрушительных разливов нефти. План заключается в том, чтобы раздобыть информацию для основных телевизионных и газетных партнёров в Лагосе и Абудже. Это предоставило бы газетам беспрецедентный доступ к тем частям страны, которые ранее были почти недоступны.
Беспилотники с фиксированным крылом сравнительно дёшевы и просты в управлении, но время от времени они разбиваются. “Новые запчасти такие, как крылья или части фюзеляжа, будут дорогостоящими и трудоёмкими, поэтому мы экспериментируем с 3D-принтерами для создания частей на месте и по требованию”, ― говорит Аренштайн.
Эксперимент с гражданской журналистикой основывается на работе «АфрикаСкайКам», которая в течение прошедшего года экспериментировала с дронами в Кении в рамках «первого в Африке новостного «глаза-в-небе»». «СкайКам» использует дроны и воздушные шары с камерами, чтобы помочь тем средствам массовой информации, которые не могут позволить себе вертолёты для сбора свежих новостей в опасных или труднодоступных местах.
В Южной Африке «Эколого-исследовательский Центр скворцов» использует «геожурналистику» и другие картографические технологии для улучшения своей отчётности, а также для анализа таких инцидентов, как незаконный отстрел носорогов и подготовленная охота на львов, а именно разведение ручных львов для отстрела богатыми охотниками. Исследования помогают раскрыть тенденции или связи с преступными синдикатами. Репортажи «Эколого-исследовательского Центра скворцов» способствовали запрету на подготовленную охоту в Ботсване, и помогают формировать законы о торговле носорогами и другими продуктами дикой природы в Китае и в Мозамбике.
Но реальность такова, что плохо обеспеченные ресурсами африканские редакции редко имеют собственные технологии или цифровые навыки для создания новых инструментов в режиме онлайн.
Таким образом, цифровая инновационная программа AMИ, а также аналогичные инициативы Google, Фонда Билла и Мелинды Гейтс и небольших доноров, включая IndigoTrust заняты построением внешних систем поддержки, чтобы помочь редакциям перешагнуть в цифровое будущее.
Доноры также сосредоточились на внедрении принципа приоритета фактов в средства массовой информации. Они помогают журналистам использовать общедоступную цифровую информацию из таких источников, как переписи населения или государственные бюджеты, для создания инструментов принятия решений, помогающих простым гражданам более взвешенно реагировать на жизненно важные вопросы.
«Код для Африки» вносит свою лепту в развитие новых технологий. Это сеть гражданских лабораторий, основанных для стран континента, чтобы способствовать инновации и работать с медиа и сетями гражданского журнализма во имя преодоления цифровой пропасти.
«Код для Южной Африки» (КдЮА) помогает всем, начиная с «Зивафи», редакция которой находится в посёлке и её проекту по предупреждению холеры, до национальных средств массовой информации, таких как «Мейл», «Гардиан» и «Сити Пресс».
«СМИ знают, что они переживают кризис, их бизнес-модель, которая основывается на рекламе, находится под угрозой, так как аудитории переходят в онлайн режим, но цифровые инновации по-прежнему трудно продать» ― говорит директор КдЮА Ади Эяль. «Прогресс ужасно медленный, потому что многие африканские владельцы СМИ не решаются инвестировать, не зная, как эти новые модели будут генерировать доход.
В результате многое из того, что южноафриканские редакции называют доморощенной журналистикой фактов, является простой визуализацией. Они создают очень мало действенной информации и практически никаких инструментов для новостей, которые люди могут использовать для принятия решений. Инвестиции в одноразовый проект высокие, поэтому важно, чтобы инструменты, которые выстраиваются, имели долгосрочную перспективу для редакционных сообщений, опираясь на которые люди могли бы действовать».
Хотя прогресс движется невероятно медленными темпами, но всё понемногу начинает обретать нужную форму «основной базы» наборов данных по всей Африке, которые собираются и сопоставляются на Африканском Открытом Портале для использования журналистами и гражданскими кодерами. Эти данные дают им возможность создавать приложения и инструменты, которые помогут организовать сообщества и получать доход.
КдЮА также строит внутреннюю инфраструктуру «невидимку», с помощью которой редакции смогут создать новостные инструменты быстро и дёшево. Это включает поддержку таких инициатив, как «Открытая Африка», которая помогает редакциям оцифровать и извлечь данные из документов-источников. КдЮА также спроектировала серию открытых, машинно-считываемых, богатых данными прикладных программных интерфейсов (ППИ), которые редакция может легко подключить к своим мобильным приложениям или веб-сайтам. ППИ инструменты, такие как Вазимап, используют переписи населения, избирательную документацию и другие данные, чтобы помочь журналистам понять составляющие общин, вплоть до уровня района. Каждый из этих ресурсов является инструментом не только для СМИ, но и для гражданских активистов и общественных сторожевых, говорит Аренштайн.
В недавней колонке о том, что ожидает газеты в будущем, Фериал Хаффаджи, редактор «Сити Пресс», национальной южноафриканской воскресной газеты, которая борется за выживание в цифровую эпоху, пишет: «Все поменялось. Даже то, что кажется осталось таким, как прежде. Будущее ждёт нас, и оно завораживает. Вам просто нужно взглянуть на смарт-телефоны в бутылке и на 3D-печатных дронов чтобы понять, что это будущее медленно, из редакции в редакцию, из проекта в проект, превращается в реальность.
Раймонд Джозеф внештатный журналист в Кейптауне. Он член совета директоров «Биг Ишью» в Южной Африке, Твиттер @rayjoe
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This article originally appeared in English in the autumn 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Seeing the future of journalism” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2014%2F09%2Fseeing-the-future-of-journalism%2F|||”][vc_column_text]While debates on the future of the media tend to focus solely on new technology and downward financial pressures, we ask: will the public end up knowing more or less?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”59980″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/09/seeing-the-future-of-journalism/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”La tecnología de fácil manejo está ayudando a los periodistas africanos en sus investigaciones, incluso con presupuestos limitados, informa Raymond Joseph
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En África, los drones se están utilizando en nuevos estilos de periodismo, Mavik/Flickr
En lo más profundo de la provincia de Mpumalanga, al extremo noreste de Sudáfrica, un periódico sin apenas recursos está utilizando una combinación de alta tecnología y sistemas más rudimentarios para mejorar las vidas de las comunidades a las que abastece. También ha introducido una forma de hacer periodismo pionera e innovadora, que no solo sitúa a sus lectores al centro de su cobertura, sino que también los involucra directamente en las operaciones de recopilación de noticias.
Lo que está haciendo este periódico supone una lección para medios de comunicación más establecidos que buscan nuevas fuentes de ingresos no tradicionales, y los cuales, en la era del periódico digital y en red, lo están pasando mal para sobrevivir y no perder relevancia.
Ziwaphi, este periódico de carácter comunitario, se distribuye a comunidades en el distrito Nkomazi, situado en el epicentro de la pandemia de sida en Sudáfrica, donde hay poco acceso a la cobertura informativa. Uno de los mayores problemas de la zona son las corrientes contaminadas con aguas residuales. Las mujeres y niñas pasan horas cada día recogiendo agua de los ríos para beber, cocinar y lavar, pero a menudo estos ríos también se utilizan para el vertido de residuos humanos. Esto hace que en ocasiones se disparen los casos de E. coli, provocando diarreas. Y, cada pocos años, hay un brote de cólera.
Gracias a una subvención y a la asistencia técnica de African Media Initiative (AMI), punta de lanza de las iniciativas por arraigar el periodismo de datos en las redacciones africanas, Ziwaphi está colocando smartphones viejos, metidos en botellas de plástico transparente, en ríos de la zona. Los teléfonos funcionan como rudimentarios microscopios electrónicos, al utilizar sus cámaras para sacar fotos corrientes con flash. Después, se recogen estas fotografías, se magnifican y se comparan con imágenes de una base de datos existente para detectar niveles peligrosos de E. coli. Luego se envían los resultados a las residentes por SMS, informándolas de dónde es seguro recoger agua.
Cerrando el círculo, el periódico analiza los datos en tiempo real para detectar tendencias e incluso, con suerte, triangular las fuentes de contaminación.
Una vez al mes, Ziwaphi publica un análisis detallado basado en los resultados que se comparte con otros periódicos de la comunidad y con las emisoras de radio locales. Así esperan que la información pueda empoderar a la gente de la región y obligar al gobierno a abastecerla de agua limpia y servicios de saneamiento. Los lectores de Ziwaphi también ayudan a recolectar información por medio de una app móvil de avisos de ciudadanos, que complementa así los datos de los smartphones con relatos de testigos sobre los impactos de la polución y las posibles fuentes de contaminación.
«El total del proyecto solo costó 20.000 dólares, incluido un modesto salario para un reportero especializado en salud a tiempo completo durante un año», explica Justin Arenstein, encargado de estrategia para AMI. «Pero lo importante, desde un punto de vista de sostenibilidad mediática, es que Ziwaphi está utilizando el proyecto del agua para construir el esqueleto digital que necesitará para sobrevivir en el futuro próximo».
Hasta hace poco, África se encontraba a la zaga del resto del mundo en lo concerniente a internet por los altos costes de acceso. Hoy, el despliegue de nuevos cables submarinos está contribuyendo a abaratar el coste de la conectividad, especialmente en el este y el sur del continente. Esto ha dado pie a una nueva y emocionante era periodística, con una explosión de ideas e innovaciones que están produciendo herramientas para lo que se han venido a denominar «noticias útiles». Los medios tradicionales están intentando conectar cada vez más con la ciudadanía, involucrarla en la búsqueda de noticias y en los procesos de producción de contenido. El proyecto de los móviles en botellas es un ejemplo de lo que se puede conseguir con recursos limitados.
En Kenia, Radio Group, la tercera entidad mediática en tamaño, ha puesto en funcionamiento Star Health, el primero en una serie de kits de herramientas para ayudar a los lectores a comprobar fácilmente la reputación de los médicos y descubrir si alguna vez han sido declarados culpables de negligencia. Se dio un caso en el que un hombre que estaba ejerciendo como médico resultó ser veterinario.
La plataforma, que ha demostrado ser todo un éxito en un país en el que los doctores poco fiables son un problema extendido, también ayuda a los usuarios a localizar especialistas médicos en su centro de salud más cercano. Además, puede utilizarse para comprobar qué medicinas están cubiertas por el sistema nacional de salud. Es de destacar que los resultados de las consultas en Star Health se envían a través de un servicio Premium de SMS que genera un flujo de ingresos crucial en estos tiempos en los que los medios de comunicación se han visto obligados a diversificar modelos de financiación ajenos a la publicidad y, en algunos casos, a la venta de ejemplares.
«Estas herramientas no reemplazan al periodismo tradicional, sino que mejoran el reportaje periodístico al ayudar a los lectores, por ejemplo, a descubrir cómo una noticia nacional sobre médicos estafadores les afecta personalmente», indica Arenstein. Las noticias han de ser personales y prácticas, y deberían convertirse en parte importante de las estrategias de transformación digital de los medios de comunicación, subraya.
La realidad del periodismo hoy día es que, aunque los medios de difusión no cuenten con el público masivo de los medios tradicionales, cualquier persona con un smartphone o conocimientos digitales básicos puede convertirse en «editor».
En Nigeria, por ejemplo, la comunidad online Sahara tiene más de un millón de seguidores en redes sociales, muchos más que muchas entidades tradicionales. El reto en un futuro será para las redacciones, que habrán de aprovechar estas redes comunitarias sin perder de vista el hecho de que la voz de la ciudadanía ha de seguir siendo central.
Un proyecto pionero en la aislada región nigeriana del Delta ha visto trabajar a los medios convencionales junto a una red ya existente de información ciudadana, Naija Voices, en la introducción de drones a control remoto con cámaras incorporadas que detecten y vigilen posibles vertidos de crudo destructivos del medio ambiente. El plan es distribuir las grabaciones a los principales canales de televisión y a periódicos colaboradores en Lagos y Abuja. Esto facilitará a la prensa un alcance sin precedentes a partes del país que hasta ahora han sido prácticamente inaccesibles.
Los drones de alas fijas son relativamente baratos y fáciles de manejar, pero también se estrellan de vez en cuando. «Conseguir partes nuevas, como las alas o piezas del fuselaje, sería caro y llevaría mucho tiempo, así que estamos experimentando con impresoras 3D para generar piezas in situ y según las necesitemos», explica Arenstein.
Este experimento de información ciudadana parte de la labor de AfricaSkyCam, que lleva un año experimentando con drones en Kenia como parte de «la primera cámara aérea para una sala de redacción africana». SkyCam usa drones y globos equipados con cámaras para ayudar a los medios que no pueden permitirse helicópteros a cubrir noticias de última hora en situaciones peligrosas o ubicaciones de difícil acceso.
En Sudáfrica, el Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Reporting está utilizando «geo-periodismo» y otras técnicas de mapping para amplificar el alcance de su labor periodística y analizar noticias como la caza furtiva de rinocerontes y la caza de leones en recintos cerrados —se crían leones mansos para que adinerados cazadores de trofeos les disparen—. Las investigaciones ayudan a desvelar tendencias o vínculos con sindicatos del crimen, y a la cobertura de Oxpeckers Center se ha atribuido el fomento de una reciente prohibición de la caza en recintos cerrados en Botswana. También han contribuido a la redacción de leyes sobre el comercio de productos del rinoceronte y otras especies salvajes en China y Mozambique.
Pero lo cierto es que las redacciones africanas con pocos recursos no suelen contar con la tecnología ni los conocimientos digitales para construir nuevas herramientas online.
Es por ello por lo que el programa de innovación digital de AMI —e iniciativas similares por parte de Google, la fundación Bill & Melinda Gates y benefactores de menor envergadura como Indigo Trust— están construyendo sistemas de apoyo externo para ayudar a las redacciones de estos medios a dar el salto a un futuro digital.
Estos donantes también se están centrando en introducir los nuevos enfoques del periodismo de datos en medios tradicionales. Están ayudando a los periodistas a utilizar información digital de acceso público, proveniente de fuentes como censos o presupuestos del gobierno, para construir herramientas que asistan a la ciudadanía en la toma de decisiones más informadas sobre problemas que que les afectan a diario.
Entre quienes están ayudando a impulsar este enfoque desde las nuevas tecnologías está Code for Africa, una red de laboratorios tecnológicos municipales para países de todo el continente que tienen como objetivo fomentar la innovación y trabajar con medios y redes de periodismo ciudadano, de modo que puedan superar la brecha digital.
Code for South Africa (C4SA) está ayudando a todos, desde el periódico Ziwaphi —con sede en un barrio marginal producto del apartheid— y su proyecto de alertas de cólera, hasta medios nacionales de comunicación, como el Mail & Guardian o el City Press.
«Los medios saben que están en crisis. Ven amenazado su modelo de negocio basado en la publicidad a medida que su público se pasa a internet, pero la innovación digital sigue siendo difícil de vender», afirma Adi Eyal, director de C4SA. «El progreso es horriblemente lento porque muchos dueños de medios africanos se muestran indecisos a la hora de invertir sin antes saber cómo generarán ingresos estos nuevos modelos.
»A consecuencia de ello, la mayoría de lo que las redacciones sudafricanas llaman periodismo de datos de producción propia, en realidad, no es más que visualización. Están creando muy poca información útil y prácticamente nada en lo que se refiere a herramientas informativas que la gente pueda usar en la toma de decisiones. La inversión en un solo proyecto es significativa, así que es importante que las herramientas que se están elaborando sean duraderas, para que las redacciones puedan utilizarlas para informar sobre problemas y la gente pueda actuar».
El progreso será extremadamente lento, pero aun así los cimientos se van colocando poco a poco, a medida que los «rizomas» —conjuntos de datos de todas partes de África— se recolectan y cotejan en el portal African Open Data, para que sean utilizados tanto por periodistas de redacción como por gente que sepa programar. Tener estos datos supone la posibilidad de crear aplicaciones y herramientas que servirán para construir comunidades y generar ingresos.
C4SA también está construyendo la infraestructura «invisible» de soporte para ayudar a las redacciones a construir nuevas herramientas de forma rápida y barata. Esto incluye el apoyo a iniciativas como OpenAfrica, que ayuda a las redacciones a digitalizar y extraer datos de documentos fuente. C4SA también ha construido una serie de interfaces de programación de aplicaciones (API) de lectura mecánica ricas en datos que los periodistas pueden incorporar fácilmente a sus apps de móvil o páginas web. Las API accionan herramientas como WaziMap, que utiliza censos, elecciones y otros datos para ayudar a los periodistas a investigar a fondo las estructuras de las comunidades a nivel de distritos locales. Cada uno de estos recursos es una herramienta no solo para los medios, sino también para activistas ciudadanos y vigilantes del interés público, afirman Arenstein.
En una columna reciente sobre el futuro de los periódicos, Ferial Haffajee, editor de City Press, un periódico dominical sudafricano que está pasando por dificultades para reinventarse en la era digital, escribía: «Nada es lo que era. Casi nada es lo que parece. Tenemos un futuro, y es muy seductor». Y solo hace falta ver los smartphones en botellas y los drones impresos en 3D para entender que este futuro se está convirtiendo, redacción a redacción, proyecto a proyecto, en realidad.
Raymond Joseph es un periodista independiente con base en Ciudad del Cabo. Está en el consejo de Big Issue Sudáfrica y tuitea en @rayjoe
This article originally appeared in the autumn 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine
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With the new year comes a new battle in South Africa as critics hit back at the proposed “draconian” Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill they say doesn’t differentiate “between espionage and an act of journalism”.
The bill comes against the backdrop of ongoing government hostility towards the media. Exposés by journalists of corruption and cronyism within the ranks of the governing African National Congress (ANC) have led to accusations by the party that the media casts it in a “negative light” and acts in opposition to it.
On the face of it, the legislation is a ham-fisted attempt to push through by stealth key aspects of the stalled and deeply flawed Protection of State Information Bill, which was first introduced in parliament in March 2010.
Dubbed the Secrecy Bill, it has reached the penultimate step in the legislative process, requiring only that President Jacob Zuma sign it into law. But, in the face of stiff opposition and threats of a Constitutional Court challenge, it has been gathering dust on the president’s desk for over two years, unsigned.
“Whole sections of the [Cybercrimes] Bill are copy-and-paste from the Secrecy Bill,” says Murray Hunter, a spokesman for the freedom of expression Right2Know (R2K) campaign. A draft version of the bill was published in August last year, with two months allowed for comments.
In a preliminary submission, R2K says some provisions of the Cybercrimes Bill go way beyond those contained in the Secrecy Bill and include “harsh, draconian penalties that would muzzle journalists, whistleblowers and data activists”.
The bill makes it an offence to “unlawfully and intentionally” hold, communicate, deliver, make available or receive data “which is in possession of the state and which is classified”. Penalties range from five to 15 years in jail and, worryingly, there is no public interest defence or whistleblower protection.
Hunter concedes that while policies that promote the online security of ordinary citizens are necessary, the bill is part of a raft of new “cybercrime laws popping up across the world that threaten internet freedom”.
“The policy debates in the US and UK are examples of a renewed appetite for backdoor access to privately-owned networks,” he says. “The idea is usually that governments say they want to users to have greater security against ‘outside’ threats, but still want government agencies to be able to penetrate that security.”
The bill effectively hands over the keys of the internet to South Africa’s Ministry of State Security and would dramatically increase the state’s power to snoop on users and wrests governance away from civilian bodies.
“Remember that security means protecting people’s information not only from ‘cybercriminals’, but also from state surveillance,” says Hunter.
Put another way, it’s a bit like having a really great lock on your front door, but leaving the spare key under the mat; either a system is secure against all threats or it is vulnerable to all threats.
Another big concern is that the bill, in its current form would potentially criminalise digital security analysts.
“One of the major protections for internet users’ security is a global community of security analysts and researchers who test the systems, apps and websites as a civic duty, in order to point out and fix security flaws that put the general public at risk,” says Hunter. “Basically, they are online activists who are constantly trying to find security weaknesses in other people’s systems [often belonging to governments and private companies] in order to point them out and get them fixed.”
But the bill would make these practices a criminal offence unless it was “authorised”, and in doing so would potentially make ordinary users less safe.
All of these moves contain uncomfortable historical echoes — it’s only been 22 years since South Africa became a democracy, and surveillance against citizens was among the apartheid government’s notorious specialties.
So the idea of a democratically-elected government, backed up by laws that legitimise intercepting its private citizens’ information, is especially fraught.
As temperatures soar and an “epic drought” tightens its grip on the country, all indications are that it’s going to be a long, hot summer in more ways than one, as activists and journalists prepare to fend off yet another attempt to curb South Africa’s hard-won freedom.
The media does not care about us, they never report things relevant to us and papers are only interested if there is bad news about us, the elderly, gap-toothed man says.
The digital revolution is also passing his community by, he adds. His deeply lined face and brow offer testimony to his day-to-day battle to eke out a life in the “temporary relocation area” of Blikkiesdorp, where many of Cape Town’s disenfranchised have washed up.
“Internet is expensive and doesn’t work well there, and there’s nothing in the papers that talks to us and about our struggle and lives. It’s like we don’t exist.”
“As inequality deepens and social cohesion falters, South Africa needs a media that can offer expression to the full range of voices and facilitate the substantive and complex debates about the social and economic future of the country,” says Mark Weinberg, national coordinator of R2K.
Issues on the agenda include the need for a free and diverse press, the concentration of ownership of South Africa’s media in the hands of four dominant players and the ongoing political interference in the affairs of the SABC, as the ANC tightens its control of the state broadcaster. Participants also voiced concerns at the slow pace of South Africa’s transition to digital terrestrial TV, which will free up bandwidth for high-speed internet and new independent radio and TV stations.
During one session, a community journalist from one of Cape Town’s poorest townships angrily berated the big media houses and called on his “comrades” to march on their offices to “force” them to fund smaller, struggling independent media. Around the room, I noted many others nodding in agreement.
The anger at a perceived lack of transformation in the country’s media is fueled by the fact that the print media is still largely dominated by a handful of powerful companies, even though the landscape has shifted since the birth of a new, democratic South Africa in 1994. The anger was not only aimed at big media houses which stand accused of using predatory pricing tactics to force smaller, less well-resourced outlets out of business.
Participants also had their sights firmly set on government and its failure to support independent community print and radio. Often the main source of income for some small media is paid-for government advertorial, another participant pointed out. The result is that recipients of this revenue are reluctant to rock the boat and report critical stories about government for fear of losing this vital income.
The summits come against the backdrop of a new push by the government to introduce a Media Appeals Tribunal amidst ongoing reporting by South African media on corruption and the squandering of taxpayer money as the economy contracts, raising fears of recession.
William Bird, the head of Media Monitoring Africa says the Media Appeals Tribunal “is bad because, aside from the potential limitations to freedom of expression, it simply won’t address the core concerns over the quality of news content, diversity, transformation and what some perceive as overly negative coverage”.
As a journalist, I was often taken aback during the course of the summit at the depth of anger and isolation felt by ordinary people, especially those from poor communities who felt the media serves the rich and that they are denied a voice.
Nevertheless, I left the summit feeling hopeful. The passion of the man from Blikkiesdorp and others like him and their determination to take the fight to big media and government help remind me that while South Africa may have problems, our democracy remains strong and robust.
This column was posted on 26 November 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
Holding a dustbin in front of his chest the young bare-chested student stands defiantly in the middle of a dusty road, facing down a squad of heavily-armed riot police.
Suddenly his body begins jerking crazily like a puppet on a string as bullets fired by a police marksman armed with a high-powered FN rifle smash through his useless shield and thud into his body. Almost four decades later this deadly tableau that played out on an Alexandra Township street a few days after the 16 June 1976 student uprising against the use of Afrikaans began in Soweto is still etched into my memory.
As a young reporter, I had been assigned that day to cover the unrest that had spread to Alex, as the flames of insurrection raced across apartheid South Africa like wildfire.
Over the weeks that followed, I regularly witnessed how police reacted with deadly brute force against student protesters armed only with rocks and anti-apartheid songs.
I also remember the mass meetings and marches in the early 70s against harsh apartheid laws by students at Johannesburg’s Wits University, which were inevitably broken up by police with vicious dogs and armed with whips, batons and tear gas.
So it was with a sense of déjà vu that I sat and watched on television almost two decades into South Africa’s young democracy as riot police used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to break up country-wide protests by students against above-inflation university fees hikes. They were also demanding that universities end the outsourcing of campus cleaning and maintenance jobs and for the people who do them to become full-time employees.
What South Africa has been witnessing is a reawakening of activism among students after a hiatus of almost two decades. For a week, campuses across the country embarked on the biggest nationwide student protests since the birth of the new democratic society in 1994.
But student and youth-led activism in South Africa is not new. It was pressure by the ANC Youth League leaders, including Nelson Mandela, which forced the organisation’s leadership to adopt a programme of action in 1949, including mass resistance tactics like strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience. It was also pressure on the leadership by youth that resulted in the 1952 launch of the Defiance Campaign against unjust apartheid laws.
But one big difference in these latest protests was the harnessing of social media as a rallying and activism tool. Powered by the #FeesMustFall hashtag the issue went viral with over half a million tweets and counting as Twitter became a powerful tool in the hands of the protestors.
With the ubiquity of smartphones among the students, Twitter became the go-to source to keep up with the rapidly unfolding story as the protests spread to 18 university campuses in eight of the country’s nine provinces, forcing the suspension of lectures and the cancelation of exams.
In the early days of the protests, some callers to radio shows at first dismissed the students’ actions as hooliganism.
Having evicted students, many holding their hands in the air as a sign of non-violence, the protest continued on the streets around Parliament–but once again police reacted with a heavy-handed response.
But Twitter also captured some poignant lump-in-the-throat moments as social media showed students of all races and political persuasions joining hands, and white students forming a human shield around black students in the belief that police were less likely to act against them.
As demonstrators on the lawns outside chanted and sang, President Jacob Zuma met with university chancellors and students leaders, before his government capitulated to student demands. As the protests continued outside, Zuma appeared live on national TV and announced that there would be a 0% increase in university fees in 2016.
The news immediately spawned the jubilant new hashtag #FeesHaveFallen with some protesters saying that the suspension of 2016 fees was just the beginning of their struggle and vowed to continue the fight for free university education.
One thing is clear: after a week of protests by South Africa’s future generation of leaders, the country’s democracy was far stronger than when it began – and the high toll paid by the young man with the dustbin lid and others had not been in vain.
Back in the days when the ruling National Party and their thought police ruled South Africa with an iron fist, one of the most powerful bodies tasked with enforcing Apartheid’s staunch Calvinistic values was the Film and Publications Board (FPB). A group of conservative, mainly Afrikaans men and women, it was their job to scrutinise and censor publications: books, movies and music.
Anything depicting even a hint of a mixing of races resulted in either an outright ban or, in the case of movies, ordered to make jarring cuts that often edited out key parts of the story. Suggestions of sex – between people of different colours – was verboten. Anything of a perceived political nature that didn’t fit in with ruling party’s narrow views was instantly banned.
The power to ban publications lay with the minister of the interior under the Publications and Entertainments Act of 1963. An entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica explains its purpose: “Under the act a publication could be banned if it was found to be ‘undesirable’ for any of many reasons, including obscenity, moral harmfulness, blasphemy, causing harm to relations between sections of the population, or being prejudicial to the safety, general.”
The result was that literally thousands of books, newspapers and other publications and movies were banned in South Africa – and possession of them was a criminal offence.
I still have clear memories of returning from visits to multiracial Swaziland with banned publications hidden under carpets, slipped behind the dashboard or under spare wheels. That was how I got hold of a copy of murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko’s I Write What Like and exiled South African editor Donald Woods’ Cry Freedom, about the life and death of Biko.
I still remember clearly how my heart skipped a beat when border guards checking through my car got uncomfortably close to uncovering my contraband literature. It was a huge risk because, had it been discovered, it would have meant prosecution and a criminal record for possession of banned literature.
Even having a copy of Playboy was a criminal offence and more than one South African found himself with a criminal record after a copy of the magazine was found stashed in his luggage on his return to South Africa from an overseas trip.
But when South Africa’s new, post-Apartheid constitution came into effect in 1996, it brought new freedoms for South Africans: books and movies banned by the Apartheid government were unbanned. Sex also came out into the open and, for those so inclined, pornography became freely available in the ubiquitous sex shops that opened their doors on high streets and side streets all over the country.
Then, the world wide web was in its infancy in South Africa, available only to the academics and privileged few who could afford it. But now, almost two decades later in a move that has raised fears of a new wave of censorship, the South African government last month approved a bill that has been widely criticised for seeking to curb internet freedoms. Informed by a draft policy drawn up by the FPB it seeks to amend the Film and Publications Act of 1996 – which had itself, replaced the Apartheid-era version of the Act – by adapting it for 21st century technological advances.
The amendments “provide for technological advances, especially online and social-media platforms, in order to protect children from being exposed to disturbing and harmful media content in all platforms (physical and online)”, according to a recent cabinet statement.
“The bill strengthens the duties imposed on mobile networks and internet service providers to protect the public and children during usage of their services,” it said, adding that the regulatory authority would not “issue licences or renewals without confirmation from the Film and Publication Board of full compliance with its legislation.”
The draft policy covers several areas including preventing children from viewing pornography online, hate speech and racist content.
But it also led to fear that it could be used to impose pre-publication censorship. These fears were allayed to some extent when a compromise was reached exempting content published by media registered with the Press Council of South Africa, which recently revised its press code to include regulation of online content exempted from the bill. But this is cold comfort for media who are not members, leaving them and bloggers, social media commentators and ordinary citizens vulnerable.
As it now stands anyone uploading content to the internet or posting content to social media would need to register with the FPB and submit their content before publishing anything. The proposed changes to the law would severely limit South Africa’s hard-earned, constitutional right to free speech, warn critics, who believe it would not pass constitutional muster.
This is reinforced by a legal opinion prepared for the Right to Know Campaign (R2K), which believes that the proposed bill is unconstitutional in several areas and also “unjustifiably limits the right to freedom of expression”. Opponents have made it clear that if it passes into law they will take it to the Constitutional Court.
There is no doubt that the battle lines have been drawn. Already 32,000 people opposing the bill have signed an Avaaz petition, while another 9,000 people have signed an R2K petition.
But the real issue is whether the FPB would be able to enforce it and whether trying to police the internet is just as bizarre as their predecessor’s banning of Black Beauty.
Despite Standing Order 156 incidents of police harassment of journalists continues. (Photo: Jaxons / Shutterstock.com)
Raymond Joseph has joined Index as a columnist
Working as a reporter in the spiraling cauldron of violence in South Africa of 70s and 80s, I learned early on to be wary of the police, who would often harass, bully and even detain journalists for doing their job.
Often it happened when police, armed to the teeth, went into operational mode, firing teargas, baton rounds and even live ammunition to brutally break up protests.
While reporters were also targeted, it was photographers and cameramen who were really in the firing line. Toting cameras, they were easily visible. Their pictures or footage were regularly destroyed by police and their equipment damaged or confiscated.
As a young reporter, I became adept at stashing exposed rolls of film, slipped to me by photographer colleagues, down the front of my trousers to hide them from the police.
Anyone who worked as a journalist in those turbulent times has stories to tell of being pushed around and bullied by the police who saw the media, especially those working for the anti-apartheid era English language Press, as “the enemy”.
Fast forward two decades into post-apartheid South Africa and practically every working journalist also has a story of police harassment to tell, often arising from incidents when they were reporting or filming police officers. Many less serious incidents go unreported, accepted by journalists as part of the job.
This is happening despite the South African Police Service’s own Standing Order 156 that sets out how the police must behave towards the media. The language used is unequivocal and leaves no room for misunderstanding. It makes it clear that police cannot stop journalists from taking photos or filming, including photographing police officers. It also states that “under no circumstances” may media be “verbally or physically abused” and “under no circumstances whatsoever, may a member willfully damage the camera, film, recording or other equipment of a media representative.”
But, problematically, Standing Order 156 only deals with media and makes no mention of civilians who film the police using mobile phones.
“One shortcomingthat we discovered in putting this together is that there isn’t enough protection for bystanders with cell phones,” says R2K spokesman Murray Hunter. “Under the Constitution, everyone has the same right to freedom of expression – working journalists and ordinary people alike. It’s especially important since bystanders with cell phones are often sources for mainstream media.
“But the direct orders that we refer to in this advisory only instruct police not to interfere with old-school media workers. So bystanders may still find themselves in a situation where the Constitution recognises their right to freedom of expression, but a police officer on the ground doesn’t.”
An example of the important role now played by citizens in newsgathering is the video footage shot by a bystander on a mobile phone of police brutalising taxi driver Mido Macia for an alleged minor parking offence. Sent anonymously to the Daily Sun newspaper, it led to the dismissal of nine policemen, who are now on trial for the killing of Macia.
One beacon of hope is that Standing Order 156 is under review after SANEF complained to the police about repeated media harassment. R2K sees this as an opportunity to include protection of the rights of citizen reporters, as well as media professionals, says Hunter.
But that could take time and involve protracted negotiations. And even if it happens there is no guarantee that police will heed the force’s own rules, or that the harassment of journalists and others will end.
It seems that the more things change, the more they will stay the same.
Quadcopters, like this one flown by Ben Kreimer of the University of Nebraska’s Drone Journalism Lab, are being used by AfricanSkyCam to collect images. (Photo: AfricanSkyCAM/University of Nebraska)
In conjunction with the Cambridge Festival of Ideas 2015, we will be publishing a series of articles that complement many of the upcoming debates and discussions. We are offering these articles from Index on Censorship magazine for free (normally they are held within our paid-for archive) as part of our partnership with the festival. Below is and article by Raymond Joseph on n how low-cost technology is helping African newsrooms get hold of information that they couldn’t previously track from the autumn 2014 issue. This article is a great starting point for those planning to attend the Technologies of revolution: how innovations are undermining regimes everywhere session at the festival.
Deep in Mpumalanga province, in the far north-east of South Africa, a poorly resourced newspaper is using a combination of high and low tech solutions to make a difference in the lives of the communities it serves.
It is also pioneering a new and innovative form of journalism that not only places its readers at the centre of its coverage, but also involves them directly in the newsgathering operation.
What this small newspaper does is a lesson for bigger, more established media outlets, which are searching for new non-traditional revenue streams and which, in the age of online and digital journalism, struggle to survive and remain relevant.
The Ziwaphi community-based newspaper is distributed to communities in the Nkomazi district, situated at the epicentre of the South Africa AIDS pandemic, where there is very little access to news reporting. One of the biggest problems in the area is water contaminated with sewage. Women and young girls spend hours every day collecting water from rivers for drinking, cooking and washing, but these same rivers are also often used to dispose of human waste. As a result the E.coli count sometimes spikes, causing diarrhoea. And every few years, there is an outbreak of cholera.
Using a grant, and technology assistance from the African Media Initiative (AMI), which is spearheading the drive to embed data-driven journalism in African newsrooms, Ziwaphi is placing old smartphones submerged in clear plastic bottles in rivers in the area. Functioning as simple electron microscopes, the phones use their cameras to take regular flash-lit pictures. These photographs are then magnified and compared against images from an existing database to detect dangerous levels of E.coli. The results are delivered via SMS to residents, informing them where it’s safe to collect water.
Completing the circle, the newspaper analyses the real-time data to detect trends, and hopefully even triangulates the sources of contamination.
Once a month, Ziwaphi publishes an in-depth story based on the results, which is shared with other community papers and local radio stations in the area. The hope is the information can then empower ordinary people in the region to force the government to deliver clean water and sanitation. Ziwaphi’s readers also help gather information themselves using a mobile-based citizen reporting app which supplements the smartphone data with eyewitness stories about the impacts of the pollution, and possible sources of contamination.
“The total project only cost $20 000, including a modest salary for a year for a full-time health reporter,” says Justin Arenstein, a strategist for AMI. “But the important thing, from a media sustainability perspective, is that Ziwaphi is using the water project to build the digital backbone it will need to survive in the near future.”
Free Thinking! A unique partnership in 2015, Cambridge Festival of Ideas are working with Index on Censorship to offer in-depth articles and follow-up pieces from leading artists, writers and activists on all of our headline events.
In the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine Spies, secrets and lies: How yesterday’s and today’s censors compare, we look at nations around the world, from South Korea to Argentina, and discuss if the worst excesses of censorship have passed or whether new techniques and technology make it even more difficult for the public to attain information. Subscribe to the magazine.
Until recently Africa lagged behind the rest of the world where the internet was concerned, because of the high cost of access. But now the deployment of new undersea cables is helping bring down the cost of connectivity, especially in east and southern Africa. This has sparked an exciting new era for journalism, with an explosion of ideas and innovations that are producing “news you can use” tools. Established media is increasingly reaching out to citizens to involve them in their news-gathering and content production processes. The phone-in-a-bottle project is an example of what can be done with limited resources.
In Kenya, the Radio Group, the third largest media house, has set up Star Health, the first in a set of toolkits to help readers do easy background checks on doctors and learn whether they have ever been found guilty of malpractice. In one case a man working as a doctor turned out to be a vet.
The site, which has proved to be a big hit in a country where dodgy doctors are a major problem, also helps users locate medical specialists and their nearest health facility. It can also be used to check whether medicines are covered by the national health scheme. Importantly, the results of queries on Star Health are delivered via a premium SMS service that generates an income stream, crucial in an age when media needs to diversify revenue models away from reliance on advertising and, in some case, copy sales.
“These tools don’t replace traditional journalism, rather they augment journalistic reportage by, for example, helping readers to find out how a national story on dodgy doctors personally affects them,” says Arenstein. News must be personal and actionable and should become an important part of the media’s digital transformation strategies, he stresses.
The reality of journalism today is that, even though outlets may not have the large audiences of conventional media, anyone with a smartphone or basic digital skills has the ability to be a “publisher”.
In Nigeria, for example, the Sahara online community has over a million followers on social media, far more than many media houses. The challenge in the future will be for newsrooms to tap into these grassroots networks, but still keep citizens’ voices at their centre.
A pioneering project in Nigeria’s isolated Delta region has seen the mainstream media working with an existing citizen-reporting network, Naija Voices, to adopt remote-controlled drones fitted with cameras to monitor for environmentally destructive oil spills. The plan is to syndicate the footage to mainstream TV and newspaper partners in Lagos and Abuja. This would allow the newspapers unprecedented reach into parts of the country that had previously been largely inaccessible.
The fixed-wing drones are relatively cheap and simple to fly, but they crash from time to time. “Getting new parts, like the wings or pieces of the fuselage, would be costly and time consuming, so we’re experimenting with 3D printers to create parts onsite and on demand,” says Arenstein.
This citizen-reporting experiment builds on the work of AfricanSkyCam which for the past year has been experimenting with drones in Kenya as part of “Africa’s first newsroom-based eye-in-the-sky”. SkyCam uses drones and camera-equipped balloons to help media that cannot afford news helicopters to cover breaking news in dangerous situations or difficult to reach locations.
In South Africa, Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Reporting is using “geo journalism” and other mapping techniques to amplify its reporting and to analyse stories such as rhino poaching and canned lion hunting – breeding tame lions for wealthy trophy-hunters to shoot. Investigations help uncover trends or links to criminal syndicates and the Oxpeckers Center’s reportage is credited with promoting a recent ban on canned hunting in Botswana, and helping to shape laws on trade in rhino and other wildlife products in China and in Mozambique.
But the reality is that poorly resourced African newsrooms seldom have the in-house technology or digital skills to build new online tools.
So, AMI’s digital innovation programme and similar initiatives at Google, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and at smaller donors including the Indigo Trust are all building external support systems to help newsrooms leapfrog into a digital future.
Donors are also focusing on embedding data journalism approaches into mainstream media. They are helping journalists use publicly available digital information from sources such as censuses or government budgets to build decision-making tools to help ordinary citizens make better informed decisions on bread and butter issues affecting their lives.
Helping drive the new-tech approach is Code for Africa, a network of civic technology labs planned for countries across the continent to help drive innovation and to work with media and citizen journalist networks, to help them bridge the digital divide.
Code for South Africa (C4SA) is helping everyone, from the township-based Ziwaphi and its cholera alert project, to national media outlets, such as the Mail & Guardian and City Press.
“The media know they’re in crisis, with their advertising-based business model under threat as audiences shift online, but digital innovation is still a hard sell,” says C4SA director Adi Eyal. “Progress is painstakingly slow because many African media owners are hesitant to invest before they know how these new models will generate revenue. The result is that much of what South African newsrooms are calling home-grown data journalism is just visualisation. They’re creating very little actionable information and virtually no news tools that people can use to make decisions. The investment in a one-off project is high, so it is important that the tools that are built live on, so that newsrooms can use them to report on issues and people can act.”
Progress is painstakingly slow, but nevertheless the building blocks are slowly being put in place as the “root stock” — datasets from across Africa — is collected and collated on the African Open Data portal for both newsroom journalists and civic coders to use. The data means they can create applications and tools which will help them build communities and generate income.
C4SA is also building an “invisible” back-end infrastructure that newsrooms can help build news tools quickly and cheaply. This includes support for initiatives such as OpenAfrica that helps newsrooms digitise and extract data from source documents. C4SA has also built a series of open, machine-readable, data rich application programming interfaces (APIs) that newsrooms can easily plug into their mobile apps or websites. The APIs drive tools like WaziMap, which uses censuses, elections and other data to help journalists to dig into the make up of communities, right down to local ward level. Each of these resources is a tool not only for the media, but also for civic activists and public watchdogs, says Arenstein.
In a recent column on the future of newspapers, Ferial Haffajee, the editor of City Press, a national South African Sunday newspaper that is struggling to reinvent itself in the digital age, wrote: “Nothing is as it was. Nor are most things what they seem. We have a future, and it is tantalising.”
And you just need to look at the smartphones in a bottle and 3D-printed drones to know that this future is slowly, newsroom by newsroom, project by project, becoming a reality.
Read more about the future of journalism in Index on Censorship’s latest magazine. Read more here and find out how to subscribe either in print, digital replica or app.
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