South Africa

With elections behind him, South African President Jacob Zuma should underscore his commitment to media freedom by calling for a thorough legal review of legislation that could restrict reporters' access to sensitive public information, the International Press Institute (IPI) said Thursday. IPI, which held its annual World Congress in South Africa less than a month before yesterday’s national...

South African authorities should drop charges against a journalist who was roughed up and detained after photographing police officers allegedly involved in bribery, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Ricky Dire, a journalist with the Daily Sun, also received death threats. In a telephone interview with CPJ, Dire said that on the evening of Friday, January 18, he responded to a call...

Five newspapers line a vendor's makeshift table built from cardboard and sticks but most customers go straight for Isolezwe, one of South Africa's growing Zulu-language dailies, says an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. "I guess people feel comfortable reading in their language," says Blessings Kupe from his stand at a busy Johannesburg taxi rank where he offers the country's most-read papers...

The Sunday Independent on Sunday said police have been harassing one of its journalists following an exposé on allegations of fraud, corruption and nepotism. Following the reports, the police were granted an interdict by the North Gauteng High Court to silence the paper, according to Eye Witness News. The paper said the journalist who wrote the article was being followed by the police and had her...

As the leaders of the ruling African National Congress meet this week in the eastern city of Durban, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the South African government to abandon two projects, one to create a media tribunal and one to pass a bill protecting information involving “national security.” The press freedom organisation offers South Africa’s media and...

South African journalists launched a campaign Sunday to fight what they say is an attempt to curtail media freedoms in a nation known for one of Africa's freest and most open constitutions, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. In a declaration published in all main Sunday newspapers, the South African National Editors Forum said media restrictions proposed by the ruling African National...

The dramatic arrest of Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika at the newspaper's Johannesburg offices has sparked outrage in South Africa. Wa Afrika was whisked away Tuesday by at least eight members of the police priority crimes unit the Hawks - without an arrest warrant - on charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice, the newspaper reported on its website. Wa Afrika was driven off...

South Africa’s The New Age newspaper, a daily that plans to start production in September, said the Times of India Group has taken a stake in the business and it will have an initial print-run of 170,000 copies, Bloomberg News has reported. The details: [ Link] The Gupta Group, the family which controls Sahara Computers Ltd., control the newspaper, which will compete with at least five large daily...

From his slurred babbling to his dumbstruck appearance, every sign of High Court Judge Nkola Motata's alleged inebriation was captured for posterity - not by a journalist, but by a member of the public using a cellphone. Motata's case is a classic example of citizen journalism, in which ordinary members of the public take on the role of journalists, and cover an unfolding story themselves. Their...