Namibia
SCORES:
Individual scores:

2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3, 2

Average score:

3.0

4.10

(2005 = 2.8)

Journalists and other media practitioners are organised in
trade unions and/or other professional associations.

ANALYSIS:
Employees of the state-owned media belong to the Public Workers Union. Private media workers are not unionised. The Windhoekbased press club has been inactive for years.
Some journalists are members of MISA Namibia and/or the Editor’s
Forum. Membership of both the Editor’s Forum and MISA Namibia is
less divided than was the case two years ago. The MISA board, too,
has become much more representative of the industry, as it has
members from the state broadcaster (NBC), a state-funded newspaper (New Era), the private print media (The Namibian), private
television (One Africa) and community radio (KCR). This indicates
some progress in uniting a long-divided sector.
There has been much talk within the industry about establishing a
media workers’ trade union. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has set up a regional office in Johannesburg to try to
establish unions for journalists in the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) region. It remains to be seen how this intervention will develop.

African Media Barometer - Namibia 2007

51

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