MEDIA IN RWANDA

One of the first things that strikes you about Africa is that it has a long way to go in fostering media as a force for good in society, people all want to use it for their own ends. The extremes are government media and anti-government media both want to manipulate the situation, silence the other side and at best smear their opponent. Rwanda is a different country to most of the world, this is the only country where the media killed, they were an instrumental pillar of the genocidal regime in spreading hate, mobilizing killers and maintaining the momentum of the killings which lead to a million dead. Therefore the present government is deeply suspicious of privately owned mass-media, with good reason I would say but this has its own problems. The government of Rwanda has one of the best reputations of all the African countries but this glowing image is slowly being tarnished by its caustic relations with private media.


We recently had a number of incidents which highlighted the rift between government and media. The best example was the “Umuvugizi” debacle; the paper produced a spurious article about the president where they compared him to Hitler, this was a calculated step to bait the government and sadly the government took the bait. So Bizumuremyi disappeared fearing for his life and so tarnished the lustre of this government’s image. I was appalled by the article but it raised a serious issue “Should we only give freedom of speech to people we agree with?” Other issues were where does freedom of speech end and incitement begin? Before all those questions are answered we have to address another issue, “Is it possible to criticize a government without negative consequences or physical harm befalling you?” Rwanda has a number of issues holding it back from developing a free and fair media which all agree is vital for development of democracy.


Firstly I would like to state that there is almost no such thing a free and fair media, for social, economic or political reasons the media is held back. Even in Europe media outlets have a stance or bias in some way, they are often owned or allied to a particular group or point of view. For example in the UK; The Telegraph is Conservative while The Guardian is Socialist, so you already know their angle before they start but that said they “give the devil his due” as in they give credit where it is due. These outlets have identified a section of society that agrees with their views and caters for this section providing specialised news and opinions. In Rwanda I will use the example of Umuseso; the bête noir of Rwandan media as they inspire both exasperation and a grudging admiration among the public. If umuseso and its leader Charles Kabonero were wise they would have been a multi-million dollar business by now but because they come from a background of pamphleteering and agitating, they couldn’t see the big picture. Umuseso speaks the language of the street; it is visceral, unflinching, and not bothered with detail or sources. They just spew whatever will get the biggest response and whatever will further their persecution complex.


Their writers or journalists are not formally trained so they do not know how to file a story, to quote sources for every fact no matter how self-evident and to generally play the game of courtship that is media i.e. knowing how to keep on basic good terms with people in case you need them one day. They burn every bridge as they go along, bite every hand that could potentially feed them and get up the noses of everyone. Umuseso fills a vacuum that has been left void by the State media; there is a saying that “he who pays the piper calls the tune” and the source of funding dictates the type of medium. There are 3 types of funding for media

Private funding – this is where a private citizen bankrolls a media outlet making it immune from bankruptcy, the outlet is subject to his/her whims like Rupert Murdoch at Newscorp.

Public funding – this is where a government funds the outlet, the New Times of Rwanda or the BBC are examples of this. This means the outlet is subject to government pressure, even the BBC saw this first hand during the start of the Iraq war when the Director-general had to resign due to anti-government bias.

Sales and advertising – this is the best source of income for a paper; it makes it responsive and accountable to its readership. It is the most honest appraisal of a newspaper but it is also the most dangerous as most newspaper barely make a profit.


In the absence of a vibrant private sector the government often has to step in to fund media, apart from Radio which is profitable but print, television and internet quite often have government funding. These government funded media are a good example why the state should not fund media; they are banal, uninspiring and crass. Starting with the New Times; there is never a hint of news to be found, just what the government wants you to hear, Rwanda is undergoing tremendous change at the moment but none of it is being documented because the outlets are run by bloated yes-men/women out to save their jobs. A typical story is “Minister lauds cooperatives” or “Minister calls for gender equality” I agree with these issues but there are better ways to address this. Media goes through an evolution as the public becomes more media-literate but Rwanda is stuck in a time-warp where media is concerned. When you have the opium of the masses that is TVR, you see the full extent of this malaise; the production values are so poor that the average laptop can make better programming than their output. The news is a dull roll call of the various conferences and symposia held in Kigali, a hurricane could hit Kigali and it wouldn’t get a mention.


What all this says is the government doesn’t want to explore the full potential of media as a means of changing lives for the better, it instead sees just the most immediate rewards. TVR should have its budget quadrupled or it should shut down because it doesn’t perform any valuable purpose. That sounds like idiocy in a country without enough schools and hospitals; why should we invest in TV? TV is a unique medium; it emerged in the post-war years as American GI’s were coming home and marrying, it grew with the aspirations and needs of the baby-boom society. No other medium has done more to promote consumerism and the modern lifestyle than TV. Radio cannot fully promote modern values which are more visual than audible. Seeing a car on TV makes you aspirational, hearing a car doesn’t, what Rwanda is suffering from is lack of ideas, lack of dreams, lack of knowhow. That is to say the high ambitions of the government are not matched by the subsistence lifestyle of the masses. It is one thing to turn on GTV and see white people living the modern lifestyle and another to see your own countrymen living that lifestyle. Most middle-class people live in gated communities far from the lower-classes and their only interaction is from their bubble of their air-condition 4x4 hence lower classes see the 4x4 and high wall as the only indicators of wealth.


I am fed up with screaming from the outside, I want to do something about it and have decided to write my own online magazine. It will most likely land me in hot water and will ultimately involve imprisonment and torture but that is a small sacrifice to end the banal crass garbage that passes for media here. I believe that in the long run a language for dialogue will be devised for the government and media to interact without friction. The problem is when you have to criticize individuals with power, quite often middle-ranking government officials who are leaching funds through corruption and don’t want to lose their pie. This government is bye and large; honest, committed, forward-thinking and hard-working but there is an element of corruption starting to creep into view. The gigantic 4x4’s and ludicrously huge houses are monument to this, but the question is can you criticize a part with offending the whole? A lot of these people are my extended family so it would be betrayal of sorts but the lie cannot outlive the truth and the truth will out.