By Fr. Giulio Albanese
Atlanta: It's eight o'clock in the morning. John has studied late into the night, sitting in front of a computer. He opens his browser and begins navigating the Internet. Like many young Americans, John has a PC that gives him access to the world's most popular information network.
Okello, on the other hand, lives in Lira, in North Uganda, where telephones are a rarity. There is only one for every thousand residents in Sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike John, Okello does not have access to an e-mail service, as is commonly used in the United States, and he can only send messages using pen and paper.
Despite the many achievements of modern technology, the geographical disposition of so-called "cyberspace" and, more generally, that of communication, faithfully reflects the criteria of economic geography. In other words, what the world powers call the "global village" exists only in part. In 1995, for example, 15 percent of the world's population possessed 75 percent of the telephone lines — but 50 percent had never made a phone call. In Sierra Leone, West Africa, for example, there are only 233 radios and 10 televisions for every 1,000 residents, while in the United States there are 2,122 radios, 850 televisions and 602 telephone lines for every 1,000 residents. Technology — never neutral — is unequally distributed between the world's North and South.
News Not In The News
Everyday life is made up of an overabundance of events. Journalism is the individuation of those events deemed newsworthy. It is very rare that those who witness events are direct sources of the news, because a network of those who select and code events as "newsworthy" stands between these witnesses and the news audience. Creatures of the industrialization of the productive information process, these "ringleaders of information," which dictate the rules of the news game, are called press agencies.
Here's how it works: the journalist no longer looks for news — instead the news finds the journalist. Reports are piled sky-high on their desks in offices and hotels far from the actual events, transforming the production of information into a passive elaboration of news. If a bomb explodes at the Limete marketplace of Kinshasa, in ex-Zaire, for example, most often stringers for Reuters or the Associated Press will select the event for inclusion in "the news." But if a similar event takes place in a rural village, that "news" will go unreported — largely because of a lack of sources. Thus, the disparity between the world's North and South is reflected not only in fact technology, but also and above all in the selection and distribution of the news. Why? Because the international news agencies of the industrialized countries (particularly the United States and Europe) are evenly distributed throughout the world's North, while in the South, particularly Africa, there are hardly any journalists of these same news agencies. The American television network CNN has only three bureaus in all of Africa, and the Italian Agency ANSA just two. These few international news agency bureaus in the world's South are relied upon (for financial reasons) by almost all other news providers. The director of a major European daily newspaper, for example, will find it more efficient to pay annually for a wire service, than to maintain and staff an office in Nairobi. When absolutely necessary, a reporter may be sent to the scene, but then only for a brief period. There are plenty of extremely valuable indigenous journalists, though unfortunately many of them, like Pius Njawé, director of Cameroon's popular independent newspaper La Messager, have suffered unspeakable abuse for merely defending freedom of the press. One thing is certain: the news that arrives from developing countries lacks in both quantity and quality because it is condemned to be peripheral in the general context of the international information circuits — i.e. the news in the news stream.
The Western press only gives coverage to the world's South when there is an exceptional event, such as the landing of the Marines in Somalia, or a devastating event, such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Finally some scandal involving an actress or a prominent figure on safari or the discovery of a child who has been living in the forest with the monkeys may make it into the main news stream. Needless to say, Africa is protagonist of a significant quantity of important cultural events. But you will read little in Western newspapers about the Pan-African Cinema and Television Festival held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (the next edition is due to take place from February 24 until March 3, 2001). The international media will undoubtedly once again ignore this African Hollywood. Meanwhile, the mass suicide In Kanungu, Uganda, in March, 2000, was given wide coverage as a macabre event that Western journalists reported with great imprecision, and according to cultural parameters that have very little to do with Africa.
After all, the criteria adopted for the selection of news unfortunately have nothing to do with the social, cultural or professional values of the individual journalists. So, for example, the larger the distance of the country from the reader, the more rapidly the events should unfold (this is why the slow progress of development in the South does not interest newspapers or news broadcasts in the North) and correspond to certain expectations ("Africa is always hungry"). The less importance given to the country, the more the events should be negative, stereotypical, or about "VIPs."
A Voice Against The Odds
Given this scenario, marked by serious imbalances in the distribution of news, alternative possibilities need to be identified that will give the world's South a chance to speak, to give voice to the voiceless. If the news events of the '80s and '90s unfolded largely on television, the new millennium is unfolding on the turf of digital technology, with the Internet at the center.
That's why, in December, 1997, FESMI (the Federation of Italian Missionary Press) and SERMIS (the Italian Missionary Service), in collaboration with the rest of the missionary world, gave life to MISNA (the Missionary Service News Agency), a news service specializing in the world's South. An experimental idea that took off with just one computer connected to the Internet, it quickly became a key source of news for many international news agencies and television networks. The secret to MISNA'S success is its relationship with thousands of missionaries and volunteers spread throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. They are privileged sources that witness with their own eyes the service of the truth of the Gospel. They are the starting points of an alternative information network, outside easy Western schematics and the logic of power that conditions the interpretation of reality and far from the catastrophism and sensationalism that are part of the everyday world of information. They dedicate their existences to giving voice to the voiceless. MISNA is still young and has a long road ahead. For the moment, the agency is made up of six lay and two religious journalists who offer news in three languages (English, French and Italian). The objective of the agency is to grow, backed by the Missionary Church, to serve the cause of man in the image of God.
Incredible, But True
Why is there so much interest in a small agency, specializing in the world's South — areas that before its existence had little resonance? How did MISNA even manage to influence a European head of state like Jacques Chirac, who in 1999 attempted to discredit a MISNA report about France's secret military involvement in Guinea Bissau? MISNA has succeeded thanks to news "scoops" of this sort, which it is now able to provide on a regular basis despite its relative lack of resources, because it can count on tens of thousands of direct witnesses to the facts it reveals. MISNA'S collaborators are 14,000 Italian missionaries (of around 40 different congregations) present in those areas, who easily number 200,000 if you add in foreigners and members of the lay civil society (associations, groups and movements that defend civil rights) with whom the agency is in constant contact. Despite the tremendous odds against it, the potential of the agency to deliver much-needed information is enormous; the secret is its distribution. This is in fact the strongpoint of MISNA: that it is able to exploit the presence of capillaries in the territory, which intercommunicate constantly through every means — fax, traditional and satellite telephones, PCs and modems. What made it possible for the agency to reach its goals, however, was its independent nature — a free expression of civil society and not an institutional voice, able to denounce, in real time, massacres and war crimes of every origin. The agency's online service is free for everyone, but for the most part it is the world's largest news agencies that give resonance to MISNA's work. It releases 20 to 30 news updates daily, as well as 30 thorough studies each month. (Access to the daily updates is free, while there is a fee to consult the database.)
Conclusion
The MISNA is still a young reality in the global mass media. Though [I speak] as director and founder, I believe that it has already accomplished two goals. First, it was able to create synergy among the missionary world (which includes not only the missionaries but also all forms of humanitarian intervention: NGOs, international volunteer associations, etc.) and the world press. A fruitful dialogue has allowed our agency to animate many journalists that have the world's South at heart. MISNA's second accomplishment — again, in the face of severe technological limits — is that of prophecy. On many occasions, the agency was in fact able to anticipate the events that were then given global coverage. One recent example is that of diamonds and arms trafficking, which MISNA has always denounced as the main cause of the devastation in Sierra Leone. In July, following the intensification of rebel violence, the United Nations voted for an embargo on diamonds from Sierra Leone, in an attempt to cut off the military provisioning of the rebels. Aside from the fact that the embargo seems to be effectively respected, it is important to underline how for years MISNA, giving voice to the local civil society, has promoted this initiative. I therefore believe that our agency's innovative type of journalism represents a sign of hope in the beginning of the third millennium for new forms of communication in solidarity with the poor.
— Fr. Giulio Albanese (direttore@misna.org), is the Director and Founder of the Missionary Service News Agency.
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