The daily live transmission of the BBC Focus on Africa programme has been suspended following a report that was critical of the government. The programme, which is broadcast on the state radio, Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), has been off air for a week. The government has also banned all state media from reporting on protests and strikes currently taking place in the country.
A BBC news team trying to reach the town of Zawiya were detained, beaten and subjected to mock executions by pro-Gaddafi forces. The team of three were detained on Monday at an army roadblock and taken to a military barracks in Tripoli where they were held for 21 hours. After release they left the country.
The Guardian reports today that its correspondent, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, and his travelling companion Andrei Netto, from the Brazilian newspaper Estado, are missing in Libya. Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi national, was last in touch with the paper through a third party on Sunday.
BBC Radio and Radio France International (RFI) are now off air in Ivory Coast. The government of Laurent Gbagbo denies taking action against the radio stations, but in the past the government has blocked both these stations. Pro- and anti-government media have complained of threats, harassment and attacks.
BBC director general Mark Thompson was a bit wimpish during the Newsnight debate [watch here] about the future of newspapers, when it was put to him that BBC online news was “distorting the market”. The corporation is unnecessarily defensive on this issue.
The BBC is distorting the market only if you buy into the idea that news must always be a “market” whose terms of trade are defined by commercial organisations like the FT, News Internatonal, the Guardian and Associated Newspapers. Whenever such organisations get the chance, of course they will complain that free BBC content is cramping their ability to make profits out of online news.
If, on the other hand, we talk about ‘funding models’, we see a different picture. The BBC has a funding model which is very successful and the big commercial organisations have one which, thanks to big cultural and technological changes, is currently less so. The BBC model — non-commercial news provision funded by what is effectively a hypothecated tax — is a triumphantly brilliant idea which has served this country extremely well for many decades.
BBC output is high-quality, trustworthy, independent, accessible and fantastically popular. (Yes, they get things wrong sometimes, but producing a news service is not like running the Faberge egg factory: perfection is not an option.) More than that, the BBC provides a benchmark for all the other journalism we see; by its example and reach, it keeps journalism (relatively) virtuous in this country.
If commercial organisations have trouble making money on the internet, let them go away and find a solution. That their funding model doesn’t work is no reason to go smashing up one that does.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University. He tweets at @BrianCathcart