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Liberians
wash at an Ebola information station in Monrovia. The government has
implemented restrictions on journalists reporting on the outbreak. (AFP/Pascal
Guyot)
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The Ebola crisis in West Africa is unrelenting,
and journalists on the frontline of reporting on the virus are caught between
authorities wanting to control how the outbreak is reported, and falling victim
to the disease themselves.
Liberia's media is in a fight for
survival, with its government continuing its clampdown on the press which began
after the first cases of Ebola were reported there in March, according to
CPJ research
and interactions with local journalists and rights activists.
On September 30, the government
announced it was taking over the issuing of accreditation for both local and
international journalists to practice in the country, according to news reports.
The Press Union of Liberia has accused the
government of going against a Memorandum of Understanding signed in the early
1990s between the PUL and the government, in which the PUL was put in charge of
accrediting individual journalists, while the government, through the Ministry
of Information, registered media houses, the reports said. The government has
reneged by saying the memorandum is not backed by any statutory law, government
spokesman Isaac Jackson responded.
On October 2, the government announced
new media restrictions barring health workers from speaking to the press, and
requiring all local and foreign journalists to obtain official written approval
before contacting and conducting interviews with patients, or recording,
filming or photographing healthcare facilities, according to news reports.
Journalists without this permission are at risk of
arrest and prosecution, the reports said. Health officials said the
restrictions were necessary to protect the privacy of patients and health
workers, and applied to local and international journalists, according to news reports.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in an
October 1 letter to Parliament also requested additional powers to restrict
movement and public gatherings, and the authority to appropriate property
"without payment of any kind or any further judicial process," The
Associated Press reported.
The president, citing the need to bolster the
fight against Ebola, sought the suspension of several articles in the Liberian
constitution including freedom of expression and the press, movement,
labour rights, and religion. Lawmakers, some warning the country risked turning
into a police state, rejected the request, Tennen Dalieh, program assistant at
the Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding in Liberia, told me.
Sirleaf's request in Parliament came on
the heels of a three-month state of emergency imposed on August 6 where, in a televised speech, Sirleaf
warned of the use of "extraordinary measures," including suspending
citizens' rights, in the bid to contain the virus.
Liberia has the highest
casualty with 2,458 deaths out of 4,493 confirmed, probable and suspected
deaths linked to Ebola, recorded in seven countries worldwide, according to
World Health Organisation figures published October 15.
Dalieh recounted to me how "this
is becoming a way of life; the sound of sirens, trucks loaded with
bodies." Mae Azango,
a CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee and journalist with the independent FrontPageAfrica,
said she has witnessed the incremental pile-up of bodies, at times nearing 100
daily, being deposited for cremation at the only crematorium in Monrovia which belongs to the Indian
community. "I am frightened! It is worse than anything you can
imagine," Azango told me. "People are dying on a daily basis. We are
dying Peter! We are dying, on a daily basis!"
The news that three Liberian
journalists died from Ebola is a reminder of the risks the press can face. The
PUL announced the deaths of Cassius Saye, a cameraman at Real TV, and Alexander
Koko Anderson, a contributor to Liberia Women Democracy Radio, who both died in
October, according to news reports and local sources. Freelance journalist Yaya Kromah
died in September, the reports said. It is uncertain in what circumstances all
three contracted the disease, local journalists told me.
With Ebola making headlines around the
world, international news outlets have deployed journalists to cover the story
in West Africa. Ashoka Mukpo, an American freelance journalist who was working
for the U.S.-based NBC News, contracted Ebola in October, according to news reports. Mukpo is among at least five Americans evacuated
to the U.S. for treatment after contracting Ebola in West Africa, news reports said.
"Now that I've had first-hand
[experience] with this scourge of a disease, I'm even more pained at how little
care sick West Africans are receiving," Mukpo tweeted on October 13.
In Sierra Leone, two journalists have
died from Ebola, according to news reports. Victor Kassim, a journalist at the
Catholic station Radio Maria, died in September, news reports said.
His entire family, including his child and wife, who
worked as a nurse, succumbed to the disease, Kelvin Lewis, president of the
Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), told me. Mohamed Mwalim
Sheriff, a journalist with Eastern Radio, died in June, according to news reports.
One account said that at the onset of the Ebola
outbreak Sheriff had interviewed a Muslim cleric who cared for a patient, Lewis
told me. Sheriff may have contracted the disease during the burial of the Ebola
patient, he said.
With the epidemic rising despite a state of emergency, the Sierra Leone government embarked on a three-day lockdown of the country on
September 19 to allow health workers to go door-to-door to educate the public
and locate Ebola victims.
This led to the discovery of 130 new cases, according
to news reports. In the midst of the ravaging disease, journalists showed how the press can help a nation in crisis. With radio the main source for
information, the media dedicated hours of broadcast time to enlighten the
public about the virus.
"We started doing our own messages
and broadcasting. We started by giving up free advertising space in our
newspapers and giving up 30 minutes airtime free on the radio for Ebola
messages," Lewis told me.
The Sierra Leone government has openly congratulated journalists and acknowledged the
positive contribution of the media to end Ebola, and called for the
media's continued partnership to combat it, according to news reports.
This is a stark contrast to how the government
initially accused journalists of spreading rumors about Ebola, before the
disease spiralled out of control and led to the sacking of Health Minister Miatta Kargbo, Lewis told me.
The SLAJ, with support from the
government, U.N. agencies and the U.S., has been organising training for
journalists on how to report responsibly on the virus, according to news reports.
Lewis explained how messages that Ebola had no
cure were reframed to enlighten people that survival is possible if they seek
help early. Such messages helped abate suspicions from the public on the
intentions of the government to quarantine them, with many believing that
because there is no cure they would die.
Even legislators had to rethink fighting the media over reports
that questioned how $1.7 million in funds to fight Ebola in their
constituencies was being utilised, according to media reports.
"Parliament summoned me twice and
they saw reason for their focus to be on stopping Ebola and not journalists
whose responsibility, I explained, is to report the concerns and important
issues the public raises, including money meant for fighting Ebola," Lewis
told me.
In Guinea, CPJ reported
the deaths of journalist Facely Camara, of Liberte FM, and Molou Cherif and
Sidiki Sidibe, media workers with Radio Rurale de N'Zerekore, and five others in
September. They were killed by a mob while covering a public health awareness
campaign in villages.
The BBC reported
that many villagers accused health workers of spreading Ebola. Three weeks
after their death, soldiers prevented a team of journalists and lawyers who had
obtained official permission to investigate the murders, to enter the village,
Radio France International reported. Their equipment was seized and, when it was
returned, recordings and photos had been deleted, the report said.
The lack of education about Ebola poses
a great threat to the eradication of the virus. The effect is the alarming
increase worldwide in the stigmatisation of citizens from Ebola-affected
countries, which the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad
al-Hussein, has warned against, according to news reports.
On October 13, Cameroon authorities deported
three Sierra Leone sports journalists and two sports ministry officials who arrived
in Yaoundé on October 8 to cover international soccer matches between the two
countries, according to news reports.
Cameroon police and immigration officers barred
BBC correspondent Mohamed Fajah Barrie, and Frank Magnus Ernest Cole and
Mohamed Kelfala Sesay, both journalists with Mercury Radio, from leaving their
hotel because the Sierra Leone Football Association had not included their names in the official list of delegates
declared free of Ebola, Barrie told me.
"We were humiliated. It was very
disgraceful," Barrie said. "We were confined at the hotel, isolated
at the airport, and escorted even up to the entrance of the plane."
African governments have called on the
world to assist in the fight against Ebola; a plea being taken with more seriousness since its discovery in countries outside
Africa, including the U.S. and Spain. The U.N. Security Council in an October 15 statement
has however warned that the world's response to Ebola "has failed to date
to adequately address the magnitude of the outbreak and its effects."
With the world focusing on countries
stricken with Ebola, any government seeking to supress the media at this time
will surely be viewed as having misplaced priorities. Sierra Leone, which has
received international commendation for its efforts, seems to understand this.
Liberia could do more to use the press to help its efforts.
The implications for reporting on Ebola
are clear, and public enlightenment campaigns by the media, such as the Ebola
page on the independent FrontPageAfrica's website, are steps in the
right direction.
Journalists and their employers however, must also think about
their safety and well-being when reporting on the virus. CPJ has advice on
covering epidemics in its Journalist
Security Guide, which is available online in several languages.
There is a distinct difference in the
protective measures being taken between local and internationals journalists
covering Ebola in West Africa. Stringent precautions taken by international
media outlets include providing disinfectant sprays, surgical gloves, boots,
plastic overalls and bio-hazard kits, according to news reports.
The BBC reported
having a bio-hazard expert working alongside its journalists in Sierra Leone as
part of its risk management. But what are the options for less sophisticated
local media outlets, many of whose journalists are poorly paid and barely have
necessary working journalism tools?
"We don't have any of those
protective measures like the foreign media. We are just making sure that we
follow the rules--no touching, wash your hands with chlorine, don't get too
close to people," Lewis said.
In Liberia, Azango explained to me how
journalists like her have been left to provide their own protection.
"Where will journalists get hazard kits when even health workers don't
have enough and the government doesn't want us to report?" Azango asked.
"We are on our own. I wear a long-sleeve coat, put on rain boots, and have
a hand sanitizer in my bag when I go reporting. That's all."
For journalists, media professionals,
and news outlets, the price of telling the important stories around this
epidemic ravaging West Africa should not come with the cost of lives.
Journalists worldwide have begun sharing their experience and ways they are covering
Ebola, according to news reports. Yet, the death of media workers is having a
deflating effect on the morale, journalists repeatedly told me.
For Liberian authorities, the necessity
of a working relationship with the media cannot be overemphasized. The
government would do well to start forging a united front with the media and
other actors. This is a first step to ensuring the collective survival of its
citizens.
Peter
Nkanga, an independent bilingual investigative journalist based in Abuja,
Nigeria, is CPJ's West Africa representative. Peter specializes in human rights
and advocacy reporting.
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