MEDIA
A
balancing
act
Investigative journalism and freedom of expression
By Chief Executive Team
survivor) we rarely get the impression
we are dealing directly with people in
Rwanda today, but only experts and
activists from the outside.
Every society has a multiplicity of
voices, even if they are all singing
from the same hymn sheet. It is the
responsibility of journalists to represent those voices in a fair and balanced manner. However, all societies
have limits to freedom of expression
and it is wise for journalists to approach these ‘red lines’ with caution
if they want people in those societies
to take their accounts seriously.
Two works of journalism have circulated in recent years that purport to
tell the ‘Truth’ about Rwanda. Untold Story (BBC 2014, producer Jane
Corbin) presents an alternative narrative about the 1994 genocide against
the Tutsi, stating that the Rwandan
government has manipulated perceptions to justify the establishment
of a dictatorship. Anjan Sundaram’s
book, Bad News (Bloomsbury Circus
2016), offers to expose to the reader
the contradiction between the government’s claims to support freedom
of expression and the reality of how
hard it is for Rwandan journalists to
deviate from a script written by the
very same government.
In the BBC film, Corbin asks us to
re-examine the events of 1994, accompanied by sinister mood music
and archive footage. ‘Expert witnesses’ are brought in to explain ‘the other
side’ of the story on camera, including various conspiracy theories and
alternative histories familiar to most
Bad News
The style of Bad News is as compelling (and occasionally as banal) as a
personal diary. It focuses on a print
journalism workshop Sundaram led
from 2009-13 in Kigali, with some
successes but many frustrations. He
places the blame for a lack of enterprise among the journalists on a culture of self-censorship and government intimidation.
people who have lived in or studied the
history of the region.
Sundaram penetrates intimately into
the lives of the journalists themselves,
describing in passionate detail their
moral dilemmas, growing paranoia
and stress-related anxieties, from the
position of a friend and colleague.
Corbin’s film operates at a distance
from the subject. This may be deliberate since the film-makers want to introduce the subject to those unfamiliar
with Rwanda’s history. The distance
may also be a result of her inability to
spend enough time in Rwanda, due to
budgetary concerns or the sensitivity of the subject. Despite footage of
Corbin wandering around Nyabugogo
we get the strong impression that this
is an outsider’s view - concerned, but
not engaged. With two exceptions (an
interview with a prison inmate and a
The strength of Sundaram’s narrative
lies in his long acquaintance with the
journalists he is working with, which
enables him to follow their careers
into government work, independent
papers and even into madness. Bad
News declares from every aspect subjective observations of everyday
life, intimacy with the protagonists,
undercover reportage - “I was there; I
saw these things.” As engaging as this
is, simply ‘being there’ is no guarantee that the narrator is reliable. If that
were so, then even the most rabid
OCTOBER 2016 EDITION - 33