Participants at the conference

Joseph Warugu from Kenya

Amanyehun Sisay

Befeqadu Hailu and Christoph Plate

Participants in discussion

Nathalie Rose from the Seychelles

In Addis Ababa, Warungu, together with a dozen senior radio managers from as far afield as South Africa and the Central African Republic, discussed the history of PSBs and the need for civil society and parliaments to make them truly public again.

Many of them have deteriorated into mouthpieces for their respective governments and ruling parties, but there are still committed professionals at these PSBs, who need to be encouraged to do the journalism that in many countries the Constitution tells them to do: that is to serve the society and its right to accurate information.

The challenges of public service broadcasting in a society at trouble with itself were explained by Yonatan T. Regassa, Deputy Director General of the Ethiopian Media Authority.

As an addition to this conference, Professor Franz Krüger from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa launched his newest research, “Greening Africa’s News Deserts”, a publication about how to make local radio stations more sustainable on the continent.