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A review by itsalexjackman
Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship by Anjan Sundaram
3.0
Bad News is the memoir of [author:Anjan Sundaram|6937023], covering his time in Rwanda training journalists. Under the Kagame regime, freedom of speech and press in Rwanda are under attack - slowly and silently eroding in an effort to protect those in power.
Sundaram writes of his time leading a program, sponsored by foreign governments, to train students in the art of journalism. It is an increasingly dangerous and daring practice, as the government refuses to allow stories that criticize their efforts and shortcomings. Following the Rwandan genocide, Kagame has risen to power, painted himself as a hero of the people, and will do anything to retain it - including brainwashing the country's citizens into believing that his regime is what is best for them. The story is simultaneously a narrative specific of its place and time (Rwanda, April 2009-December 2013) and a more universal story of the necessity of a free press.
I was recommended this book by a clerk when the store did not have the book I was looking for ([book:The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin|12382651]) - the clerk clearly understood what I was looking for, and the recommendation was spot on. In this new time of political unrest in the US, I was able to read this book with more meaning than I may have previously. Now more than ever it is important that journalists seek and present the truth, in spite of a government that may compel them not to. Bad News covers the slow but sure destruction of the press in Rwanda, and in it you can find the warning signs and hallmarks of destruction you can look for in your own culture.
Stay vigilant.
Sundaram writes of his time leading a program, sponsored by foreign governments, to train students in the art of journalism. It is an increasingly dangerous and daring practice, as the government refuses to allow stories that criticize their efforts and shortcomings. Following the Rwandan genocide, Kagame has risen to power, painted himself as a hero of the people, and will do anything to retain it - including brainwashing the country's citizens into believing that his regime is what is best for them. The story is simultaneously a narrative specific of its place and time (Rwanda, April 2009-December 2013) and a more universal story of the necessity of a free press.
I was recommended this book by a clerk when the store did not have the book I was looking for ([book:The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin|12382651]) - the clerk clearly understood what I was looking for, and the recommendation was spot on. In this new time of political unrest in the US, I was able to read this book with more meaning than I may have previously. Now more than ever it is important that journalists seek and present the truth, in spite of a government that may compel them not to. Bad News covers the slow but sure destruction of the press in Rwanda, and in it you can find the warning signs and hallmarks of destruction you can look for in your own culture.
Stay vigilant.