• • • explore the possibility of an additional form of classification for alerts, to indicate serious cases which need immediate and urgent support explore the possibility of establishing support teams in major towns and cities across the SADC region who will be trained to support journalists who need immediate assistance propose strategies for more effective responses from The Netherlands to serious media freedom violations in the SADC region - particularly in terms of lobbying EU and Dutch political organs as well as Southern African Embassies in The Netherlands. The research was critical to the development of the SADC Journalists Under Fire campaign. The consultative workshop (of which one is mentioned in this report, see 5.4.1.2) formed part of the research activity. MISA has never attempted a systematic analysis of the body of alerts it has issued over a period of time. It is as if the dissemination of the alerts is an isolated activity complete in itself. Although the widespread knowledge gained from the alerts informs MISA’s work on an ongoing basis, the alerts have never been applied in a formal analytical way to inform the other programmes and projects of MISA. The alerts, however, constitute an important source of data and provides the real-life authentic case studies on which its programmes and work should be based. It is the raw data of reality that graphically depicts the working conditions and media environment of working journalists in the SADC region. For this reason, it is essential that the alerts should be applied much more systematically to inform the media freedom work of MISA. The motivation for the study was to develop a more detailed and microscopic understanding of what was happening to journalists from a media freedom point of view (or lack thereof). This information would assist MISA to critically assess its programmes and projects to decide whether they are adequate, or in need of adjustment or expansion. No specific methodology for the study was agreed on as neither MISA nor the researcher was aware of anyone else attempting to undertake a similar activity. The analysis of the alerts therefore became a work in progress – a search for methodology by simply doing it, doing it again and making adjustments. The research was therefore experimental, but an attempt to use the Action Alerts as a meaningful platform to guide and inform MISA’s activities. Apart from conducting this research, the Terms of Reference also included the compilation of a list of laws mentioned in the alerts to inform MISA’s media legal reform activities, and assisting MISA with the development of a programme for more systematic and organised South-South support to journalists ‘under fire’. 5.6 2 National Tanzania - A research study on Understanding Public Awareness on Press Freedom and Freedom of Information was also conducted. The findings show that press freedom belongs to the people in the industry (media practitioners/journalists), it does not belong to the public. Unlike judges, teachers or doctors, the media is self-appointed or confirmed in office by politicians. The media is self appointed but sustained by a public that sees their output as valuable and which is willing to pay for it. The media should be, and can be, free of the political patronage, if only it enjoys public support. MISA Annual Report (April 2003 – March 2004) 46