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Monday, June 12, 2006

Mulunesh Released; Tensae Radio; World Cup Fever

I reported that Mulunesh Abebayehu, a Kinijit councillor, was detained without charge for seven months and published her letter. She had started a hunger strike two weeks ago. Last Friday, she was released on bail. Hail the power of bloggers!
Tensae Radio; what's happening?
There is no single independent press in Ethiopia at the moment. The broadcast media is a government propaganda machine. Tensae Radio started broadcasting to Ethiopia to fill the media gap. As radio is a powerful medium in Ethiopia, Tensae can play a huge role to counter-act TPLF's propaganda, keep people informed about the struggle, transmit the opposition's vision etc... Tensae radio is having problems doing that.
-The time of its transmission is not suitable to Ethiopian audience
-The accuracy of its information is very questionable.
-It news and programme format is unattractive (no interactive programmes, poor interviews, lack of popular voices)
- It is getting rather jaded theses days; not reporting the most significant happenings that have been reported on the web
I recommend that Kinijit's international leadership take communication strategy seriously and come up with ways to improve Tensae radio (making it more credible and attractive). We shouldn't underestimate Radio's incredible power.
World Cup Fever?
The world cup temperature here in Addis has gone more than the real heat at the real playing fields; which of course is always good news for TPLF. ETV as usual is on the business of transmitting every game live. In most cities of the country the game is shown on large screens in squares and other public places. The focal point of conversations has turned from politics to football. Most taxis aren't working after 8 in the evening. It seems this month is going to be a break for many Ethiopians from the saddest chapters of their latest history.
(Updates on Birhanu's story to come latter)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow EZ,

Aren't you being a bit too harsh on Tensae? I have heard gripes about its inconvenient transmission
time for city folks and sometimes
it might make a few reporting errors, but who doesn't? I hope you are not trying to compare it
with VOA which is fully funded by
Uncle Sam and my tax money.

Tensae does a good job considering
its meager resources and volunteer staff. Of course, there is always
room for improvement. Why don' you rag on all the freeloaders who turn
on Tensae everyday without ever sending a penny to support it?

Anonymous said...

i think the bloggers should take over the readio too.

ethio pundit - should do the analysis part of the show

EthiopianPolitics - should do the interviews

ET wonquette - should be the openionated presenter

and you ethio Zagol- should do the information updates THE News.

Viva Bloggers!

Anonymous said...

Very entrepreneurial idea by anonymous above!

Anonymous said...

Dear ethiozagol!
Would you please just say one thing at least as to what you said
about the information by Tinsae to be questionable?
Otherwise, what you are doing is shutting the window of hope of information for Ethiopians by just creating a gap between the people and Tinsae.
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Cool-Z, I hope Tensae radio would take your inputs into consideration - specially the time factor - very important indeed. The diaspora needs to work more than ever since "Coming to America" - the sequence, woyane style is coming to theaters near you soon http://www.ethioforum.org/pdf/tplf_secret.pdf (pg 9-10)