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News from Darfur
Written by: Andrew Stroehlein
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Getting information out of Darfur has always been difficult for news organisations, probably never more so than today. But one network of journalists has some 50 correspondents addressing the crisis from the ground in Darfur, as well as from South Sudan, eastern Chad and Khartoum.
If you tend to roam only in the info-spheres of Western news sources, you may not be familiar with Radio Dabanga, a project supported by the Dutch media development NGO Press Now, because their broadcasts so far have only been in local languages. Plus, its shortwave output and podcasts are only a few months old, so its young footprint is not yet huge outside its primary target audiences.
But while billed as "by Darfuri for Darfuri" and thus initially flying somewhat under the international radar, Radio Dabanga now has English translations online, and I encourage you to have a look. Some recent posts, for example, discuss a wave of arson attacks in IDP camps. Interesting and important stuff.
I'm very glad Press Now has added these English updates, not just for the selfish reason that I can finally read their output, but also because information from the ground really is needed, particularly right now, when the situation is evolving more quickly than it has been for a while.
Having chaired a couple panels at an EU conference on media development here in Brussels over the past two days -- where one of the informal conclusions was "NGOs are the new media" -- I'm glad to see such a good example of what can be done in a place where traditional media are getting shut out (and on occasion shutting themselves out by not covering it or cutting down on foreign news coverage generally). Local journalists can tell you what's going on if they have a platform to get the news out there...
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Journalist Andrew Stroehlein is Communications Director for the International Crisis Group, the conflict resolution organisation, where he promotes responsible coverage of current and potential conflicts and helps draw attention to forgotten wars around the world.
