Namibia marks World Press Freedom Day with conference
WINDHOEK: Namibia will be celebrating World Press Freedom Day through a conference on 7 May 2010 organised by the Namibia Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the Polytechnic of Namibia and Genderlinks. The event plans to focus on access to information and the right to know in Namibia focusing in particular on women's rights.
Two new publications will also be launched on the day: The Gender Toolkit for Educators, developed by Emily Brown of the Polytechnic of Namibia, and MISA's So This Is Democracy?.
The Gender Toolkit for Educators: Gender and Media Progress Study assesses the concept of gender in the media, gender policies, stereotypes and ethics in the Namibian context. It looks at gender in relation to culture and governance, and provides media with gender-sensitive information, necessary for news production.
So This Is Democracy? is an annual MISA publication which records incidents of media freedom violations monitored by MISA during the previous year. It includes:
- A review of events affecting media workers;
- A detailed breakdown of press freedom violations and violent attacks against journalists for each country monitored over the course of the year;
- Identification of trends noted within each country;
- A gender and media overview for the entire Southern African Development Community (SADC) region; and
- A review of government policies that do not include sufficient involvement of civil society organisations and those most affected by these policies (called the African Media Barometer - ABM).
Source: UNESCO
