Africa Table - Journalism Under Censorship: Personal Experiences and Reflections

Date
-
Event Sponsor
Center for African Studies
Location
Encina Hall West, Room 219

Join the Center for African Studies for our weekly lunchtime lecture series.

Speaker: Arif Elsawi, John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, Stanford University; Journalist

How can professional journalism be conducted in regimes with deterrent political, security and socio-economic conditions?

Arif Elsawi began his John S. Knight Journalism fellowship at Stanford by working to deepen his understanding of the journalism environment beyond my country, and particularly in authoritarian regimes. He attended classes in African studies, international relations, media and design-thinking, as well as talks by experts at the Center for African Studies and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for international Studies. He has gained knowledge and new insights into areas such as media economics and technology’s role in reporting and distributing news that is shaping his work on his journalism challenge project.

About Arif

Arif Elsaui is a journalist in East Africa, focusing on Sudan and South Sudan. After the Sudanese government cracked down on independent media in 2008, he and other journalists created the Sudanese Journalists’ Network to campaign against censorship and advocate for laws protecting press freedoms. He was head of politics and economics coverage at the Al-Ahdath, an independent newspaper based in Khartoum from 2007 to 2009, when he relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, because independent Sudanese media was collapsing. Al-Ahdath was later shut down by the government. Earlier in his career, Elsaui was a reporter at Al Sahafa, for whom he covered peace talks between the government of Sudan and the Sudan people’s Liberation Movement, including the development, signing and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. He has reported from the Eastern African region, specifically Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda, for the past 7 years. In 2014, he was the first Sudanese Youth Leader Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington DC.

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