Excellent articles for anyone interested in journalism, Kenya and women's rights

[MmeLindor.]

I was recently in Kenya with a group of bloggers and journalists reporting on women's rights, particularly reproductive rights.

One of our group is a blogger for the Guardian and has written a series of articles looking at how Africa is presented to journalists, and how many don't look past the propaganda to see the real issues.

It was something that we talked about a lot while we were there. What is real, what is show, how much can we believe?

It was certainly possible to walk through the hospitals and institutions and see only what the organisers and NGOs wanted us to see.

Martin J Robbins started with the truth about Kibera slum and not believing stats that you have not falsified yourself then went on to report on the Pumwani Maternity Hospital.

Irin Carmon blogged for Salon about Pumwani Maternity Hospital, as did yours truly.

Check out the Declaration of Interest on the Guardian articles.

bump for the morning crowd

Thanks. Marking my place to read later.

goodmorning - read it last night; interesting stuff (I will overlook his $100 million or so estimate in the second article though...)

will be in touch soon

Lynn you seem to be saying that journalism has lost it's way and journalists aren't capable of investigative reporting anymore. Is that what you intend? If so, what do you think are the most promising alternatives for the general public who want to know what is really happening in places they have no access to?

Namegames
It is a tricky question. I do think that there are still very good, independent journalists but there are also many who simply take a press release and write about it without giving much thought to it.

I am very much an amateur, but even I had moments of WTF when presented with a 'story' that didn't add up.

And since learning how little journalist are paid to write articles, even for national newspapers, I wonder how long we can sustain good investigative journalism.

The IRP aim to help journalists and bloggers get out there and find stories that might be missed (with funding from Gates and others) but if all we see is pre-packages tidy stories, I'm not sure how much new info we can bring to the reader.

An independent trip to Kenya to investigate these issues costs money and the reward for the story is not likely to cover the costs.

So we have a quandary. With ever more readers turning from the traditional print newspapers to the online editions, it is not likely that journalists will be able to earn enough to cover the costs of these investigative articles.

If the alternative is privately funded trips, then the danger is that journalists are no longer fully independent or rely too heavily on what is presented to them.

latest article about Granny Obama and shagging rabbits