Capital

A mediocre menu

Take a wild guess and see if you can identify this nation. It has dozens of fat, full color daily newspapers, oodles of glossy magazines, several television networks and over 200 radio stations boasting an amazing diversity. Well? You have probably ventured the U.S.A. or another developed nation. You have probably even guessed it would be China, India, Brazil… but not a country right across our southern lawn-the Republic of Kenya. One other piece of media trivia: collectively, this nation, in stark contrast to Ethiopia, is a veritable bookworm. To quote the figures, Ethiopian's daily average newspaper circulation, stands [crawls would be a more suitable verb] at 0.4 newspapers per 1000 people. In other words, (just imagine) only one newspaper is available for every 2100 Ethiopians. In Kenya, there are 8.3 newspapers for every 1000 people. This is still quite low by international standards but is nearly 1000% times higher than our country's embarrassingly low rate of daily newspaper circulation.
Ethiopian electronic media is even sparser. The nation has less than a dozen radio stations (A.M, SW and FM) and just a single television station that must rank as among the most boring channels in existence.
The writer, in a previous special series, "Media in Ethiopia" had tried to explore the background history as well as current realities that have resulted in such anemic performance and lack of development even compared to other Least Developed Countries (LDC). It is not practical for Society to recycle neither the analysis nor the conclusions of Media in Ethiopia. Instead, as this page is in fact our readership community's window for public commentary, more space is reserved this week for readers' opinions of Ethiopian media. So here goes!

How do you rate Ethiopian private media?

I may be somewhat biased on this topic because I come from a media family. My late father worked in radio and my mother is a retired video editor. I grew up hearing about their experiences during the very early days of modern media in Ethiopia and just cannot bring myself to declare that our media is totally worthless. It simply would not be fair. The current low standard of media in my country is not the fault of early pioneers such as my parents and their contemporaries. Let’s not forget that Ethiopian media, like most other good things, was destroyed by 17 years of military rule and …well you know what I mean…

S.S 33,
Advertiser

Despite all our talk of promoting democracy and the right of free expression, we Ethiopians have never understood what these basic human rights really mean. From the family unit to the highest authorities of the land, our very culture restricts us from both speaking our mind and also from tolerating when others do so. Therefore, in such a socio-cultural situation, how can a robust media ever be created?
Shimelis R, 29,
KG teacher

Ethiopian media is in such a bad state that it is incapable of copying international media, let alone be a creative force!

Melaku F. 31,
Business person

To me, it’s all a matter of time. Let us not be too impatient and expect media in our country to reach the levels found in even neighboring nations. Ethiopia is still very much in a revolutionary phase which, in my opinion, has been active for more than three decades. When this country finally stabilizes from this constant eruption, one good day in the future, then not only the media, but all other social, economic and political inadequacies will naturally ameliorate. I say wait and see… and oh, keep those fingers tightly crossed.

Ali J. 55,
Retired bus driver

I fear (if indeed it is a bad thing) that Ethiopian media (print, TV and radio) will effectively die before reaching puberty. I state this because with the growing availability of world media, including internet based data and information services, New Media will surely overtake Old Media much before the latter develops fully.

Martha Aaron 24,
Internet addict