Lots of overseas journalists visit the Guardian's morning news conference at its London headquarters. Few are invited to speak and fewer still have had the impact of Berna Namata, the Thomson Foundation's Africa specialist.
Namata, leading a group of eight Rwandan journalists on a five-day study tour to London, stunned the Guardian journalists with her opening words. Asked to talk about the state of journalism in Rwanda, the Kigali-based editor said conditions for journalists had improved. No-one is killed anymore.
She was listened to in silence as she described a journalistic environment far removed from the experience of most of the London-based journalists in the room.
Benefits and Challenges The media sector in Rwanda is benefiting from a series of favourable policy decisions by government including setting up a self-regulatory body, the Rwanda Media Commission, decriminalising defamation and the enactment of the access to information law.
But challenges remain, related to limited skills and business challenges with most journalists unable to earn a decent living from their trade which makes them susceptible to brown envelope journalism where money is handed over to encourage journalists to write a positive story or spike a negative one.
Media freedom The visit to the Guardian and other news organisations was the culmination of a programme organised by the foundation to raise journalistic standards in Rwanda and funded by the British High Commission in Kigali as part of a Foreign Office mission to support media freedom.
Emotional Exchanges Sixty journalists took part in November in the first leg, an online exercise aimed at making more use of the country's access to information law. From the 60, a shortlist of nine - most of them experienced journalists - was drawn up to participate in a week-long course in the capital Kigali with experts on submitting information requests, media freedom and investigative journalism. The final leg was in London.
As well as the Guardian, the journalists toured BBC Africa and Channel Four News and had lively - and at times emotional - exchanges with editors and reporters about ethics, best practices and how to cope with pressure.
At all three organisations, the meetings with journalists went well beyond the allotted time, partly from curiosity about Rwanda, partly from awareness of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, partly from a desire to show solidarity with journalists working in difficult conditions.
There were some poignant moments. One of the Rwandans, after listening to a Channel Four editor talk about a major investigative scoop, questioned whether she deserved to describe herself as a journalist given the lack of such stories in Rwanda. The editor reassured her she was as much a journalist as he was given the restrictions she had to operate under in Rwanda.
Culpability of journalists in the genocide There were a lot of no-holds barred conversations such as over the culpability of journalists in the genocide. The no-holds approach continued on a visit to Parliament to meet the deputy speaker in the Lords, Lord McFall, and former Conservative international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, who has made many trips to Rwanda.
Mitchell praised the Rwandan government for its success in making the country relatively secure and cautioned against Western condescension in expecting Rwanda to shift speedily to full media freedom. That might take 100 years, he said, a figure he quickly revised downwards in response to the looks of surprise from the Rwandan journalists.
Other visits included the Foreign Office, Article 19 and the Commonwealth Secretariat, the latter especially relevant because the heads of government meeting is being hosted by Rwanda later this year.
Access to information requests As well as the visits, there were a series of courses held at Thomson Foundations London headquarters. One participant practised the techniques he learnt during the mobile journalim course by shooting and editing video of the trip. Other courses included how to cover financial affairs - how to make sense of company accounts, contracts and the procurement process - politics and security.
Story ideas first discussed in Kigali were developed further, including some that had originated from freedom of information requests. Several of the story ideas are well-developed and should eventually be published or broadcast.
One of the impacts of the course is that the access to information legislation in Rwanda, which had been under-used since being passed in 2013, is now being tested, with hundreds of submissions over the last few months. As well as helping journalists, this also helps government officials become used to the idea they have a duty to supply information.
Ewen MacAskill Investigative journalism
Ewen MacAskill is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former defence and intelligence correspondent for The Guardian who acts as a mentor for Thomson Foundation trainees.
We get around. Explore our project map
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Lots of overseas journalists visit the Guardian's morning news conference at its London headquarters. Few are invited to speak and fewer still have had the impact of Berna Namata, the Thomson Foundation's Africa specialist.
