Botswana Sector 2: 2.1 The media landscape is characterised by diversity, independence and sustainability. A wide range of sources of information (print, broadcasting, internet) is available and affordable to citizens. ANALYSIS: There is no longer any vernacular language newspaper in the country as the only previously existing one (Mokgosi), closed shop at the end of 2005 after operating for three years. The closure has been attributed to the fact that the newspaper did not get enough advertisements and support from the market. It started out as a fortnightly broadsheet and then changed into a weekly, with an original print-run of 10,000 - a number which it did not manage to grow and which had fallen to 4, 000 by the time it folded. Newspapers survive on a growing or steady readership The Mokgosi management tried to position the newspaper as a mass circulation paper, given that the majority of the population are Setswanaspeaking. But there has now been a clear realisation that Setswana is on the wane as the main language of choice. Many Setswana speakers have difficulties reading their own language because they have been brought up in English. There is no political commitment to preserve Setswana – nor is there a national language policy that might help protect it from extinction. The newspaper could have been a mobilizing tool for language rights. But there is no longer any prospect that the initiators will revive the paper. As for English language papers the market still appears to be saturated with a large number of offerings. The country has a high literacy rate (84%) and papers are generally affordable at prices below that of a loaf of bread, an internationally accepted form of measuring the affordability of newspapers. 14 African Media Barometer - Botswana 2007