Vibrant local media struggles

Somali journalists are operating in a very difficult climate without equipment, resources, reference materials and professional training, according to Maria Frauenrath of the BBC’s training department. Frauenrath has held training courses for newspaper, radio and television journalists in Mogadishu, Hargeisa and Garowe as part of an 18-month project supported by the European Commission. In Mogadishu, there were now six radio stations - though they are not always on air - and four daily papers, with some 30 to 40 occasional news pamphlets. Describing the local media as “very lively”, Frauenrath noted that most young journalists had had their formal education interrupted by Somalia’s ten-year civil war. Although the press was vibrant, it provoked many local and international complaints, she said, adding that lack of institutions and government structures meant that journalists - as well as the people they wrote about - were vulnerable.