CBC – The failure of the media in Rwanda
Did the media report on the Rwandan genocide? Were they irresponsible? Answer by Howard Adelman retired professor at York University
They were irresponsible in a number of respects. One, in not paying attention in the buildup of events. That is not as serious as it gets. They covered the downing of the plane somewhat but just as an event and there is a lot of misinformation at that time. As the event builds into genocide, the irresponsibility grows because they both under-cover the fact that it is occurring and secondly, they give a context in which it is occurring; largely – though there are exceptions – of Hutus and Tutsis killing each other in a sort of mob violence and ethnic groups murdering one and other, when in fact, there was a centrally organized genocide slaughtering the Tutsis, organized by the old military government. The irresponsibility comes too in the fact that people who were reporting that were not on the spot and were not consulting experts who… the knowledge was readily available. So, the irresponsibility also is institutional in the fact that the major TV stations and the major media outlets were not assigning personnel and were sending in parachute reporters instead of using stringers. So, there is a whole series and levels of irresponsibility that constitute their contributions. And we know directly that it influenced decisions, it influenced perceptions and therefore actions that were not taken that could have been taken.
Joan Leishman, reporter for CBC Africa from 1992-1994, was in Johannesburg during the genocide to report on the elections of Nelson Mandela’s party. She discussed about the problem of gathering information on the ground.
There are immense problems. I am not quite sure where to start on that. You know, one of them is just simply operating; trying to operate in war zones where you cannot find the truth or the truth seems quite elusive and you cannot call up the worldwide web, there are no phones even, so there is not an easy access to information. There was no government, there was no civil structure, the churches and the schools where you might have turned to for some insight were full of corpses. There was not an easy access to information. The people that you relied upon were aid agencies, who, of course, had their own agenda, and were in many cases…, in one case, I travelled with the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) rebels at the time before they took government, and you relied on them, they followed your every move. You needed them for protection and they tried to use you to spread their propaganda. So, there were many, many problems. Safety was a huge issue for us as well, certainly in the early days, after the president of Rwanda was killed. Safety was a big problem. Just getting around was a big problem because we were dependent on either the military, the UN or aid agencies.
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