Open society not possible without media—Osisa

Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa), an initiative that lobbies for more transparency in the region, has challenged the media to dig deeper in all corners of governance and leadership to ensure that leaders do not abuse public resources for their own good.

Osisa programme manager Dumisani Moyo said this on Friday during the graduation ceremony of 25 journalists drawn from the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) who had completed a two-week long Journalism Summer School (JSS) course in Lusaka, Zambia.

He said despite that the initiative is now established, its objective for an open society cannot be achieved if the media does not support them.

Moyo said the region is losing a lot of resources to corruption by senior government officials and lack of transparency in management of public resources.

Currently, Malawi’s economy is going through troubled waters owing to the infamous Cashgate, which exposed free-for-all plunder of public resources, forcing donors to suspend their support to Malawi.

Said Moyo: “We value strong journalism in the region. We know there is too much corruption, underperformance and lack of transparency, especially in African governments.”

JSS coordinator Emily Brown, who is also Media Technology head of department at the Polytechnic of Namibia, thanked Osisa for the initiative and asked for more such training saying it brings a new feel and approach to issues in the media.

This year, the course focused on extractive industries. The trainees graduated with a regionally accredited certificate covering advanced investigative reporting, economics journalism, gender in the news and in the newsroom, health journalism, journalism ethics, online journalism and media management and leadership.