sierra leone: CPJ releases special report on Sierra Leone

CPJ releases special report on Sierra Leone

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released a report on the challenges facing journalists in Sierre Leone. Journalists, says the report, have begun to problems of corruption in the media and other unethical practices that undermined press credibility.

IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
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PRESS RELEASE - SIERRA LEONE

15 August 2002

CPJ releases special report on Sierra Leone

SOURCE: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a CPJ press release:

CPJ RELEASES SPECIAL REPORT ON SIERRA LEONE

New York, August 15, 2002-The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today
released a special report about the challenges facing journalists in Sierra
Leone since the signing of a peace agreement between government and rebel forces
in July 1999-an agreement that was cemented in May by the country's first
general election since civil conflict broke out more than a decade
ago. The report, titled "Identity Crisis," is now available on CPJ's Web site at
www.cpj.org

CPJ Africa program coordinator Yves Sorokobi, who spent two weeks in Sierra
Leone's capital, Freetown, in May, wrote the report. While there, he spoke with
local journalists about the state of government-media relations and how the
press was covering the intense political campaigning that preceded the May 14
vote.

As Sorokobi points out in the report, the desire to thwart unwanted interference
with the flow of information has led a surprising number of reporters in Sierra
Leone to seek political office. Journalists, who were targeted by all parties
during the decade-long war, have also begun to engage in impassioned
soul-searching about corruption in the media and other unethical practices that
have undermined the press's credibility.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to
safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information about press conditions
in Sierra Leone, visit www.cpj.org.

For further information, contact Yves Sorokobi or Wacuka Mungai at CPJ, 330
Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10001, U.S.A., tel: +1 212 465 1004, fax: +1 212 465
9568, e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], Internet:
http://www.cpj.org/

The information contained in this press release is the sole responsibility of
CPJ. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit CPJ.
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