April marks the beginning of the anniversary of the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which at least 800,000 people were murdered.  Out of this incredible destruction, several media projects were born.

I’ve posted earlier about some of the various feature films ("Sometimes in April," "Hotel Rwanda," etc.) and documentaries ("God Sleeps in Rwanda," "Shake Hands with the Devil") based on those terrible days but the genocide also turns out to have led to some other ground breaking news-related initiatives.

One outcome of the genocide was the creation of the United
Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’
Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN),
which serves as a sort of news wire about conflicts in Africa, the
Middle East and Central Asia for the humanitarian community. Started in
1995 as a means of circulating information amongst organizations
helping cope with the aftermath of the genocide, IRIN has become a
multimedia source of alternative information about various
under-reported regions.  If you provide them a credit, you can also
re-publish their materials without charge.

Another outcome was the the trial for the three Rwanda journalists held by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in which they were found guilty of inciting genocide. The trying of media personnel for playing a role in genocide is extremely unusual. (One of the key such trials came out of the Nazi’s genocide campaign against the the Jews.)  Has the Rwanda trial discouraged other journalists from participating in hate crimes?  We will never know, but even if it stopped only one journalist from egging on listeners and readers to commit ethnic atrocities, then it will have accomplished a lot.   

Of course, the media coverage by other countries of the genocide has also been an area of great concern, at least among more reflective journalists.  One of those was Alan Thompson, who covered the genocide for the Canadian media, and has
since started several projects related to those events including an
educational exchange to help train Rwandan journalists as well as establishing an
historical archive of media materials from the time period.

Thompson also edited a new volume, The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, which came out earlier this year, that explores the genocide and various media-related issues (full disclosure: I have a chapter in this volume).  Readers of this blog may be particularly interested in the chapter
about how African media covered the genocide, penned by Professor
Emmanuel C. Alozie. One of the things I like best about the book is that you can read it online or download it for free.