Tom Rhodes

While newspapers elsewhere in the world shrivel, thanks to shrinking ad revenue and online competition, they are still dominant in much of East Africa, where a growing middle class and prohibitively expensive online browsing have allowed the printed word to survive and even thrive.

Hubaal, Somaliland's critical and much-beleaguered daily newspaper, is back on newsstands after a presidential pardon last week. The paper was shuttered on orders of the attorney general in June without explanation.

I must have received at least a dozen communications from worried friends and colleagues, asking the whereabouts of the chief editor of the highly critical Rwandan website, Umuvugizi.

Sometimes when a paper produces a defamatory piece, an apology will be published on page two in the next edition along with the day's news.