Ghana’s leading English language radio station, JoyFM, held an official launch for a hard-hitting weekly show created by Knight International Journalism Fellow Sylvia Vollenhoven. Called “Hotline,” the program takes on issues such as poverty, education, health and agriculture in an exciting new format.

Mobile phone technology is driving media innovation in Africa, surpassing the Internet and transforming communications across the continent, African experts said during a panel discussion sponsored by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C.

The panelists included mobile media expert Justin Arenstein, a new Knight International Journalism Fellow from South Africa and a co-founder of African Eye News Service; Amadou Mahtar Ba, CEO of the African Media Initiative in Nairobi, Kenya; and Sunday Dare, an award-winning investigative reporter and a new Knight Health Jour

The prevailing violence against the press in Mexico in 2008 has mobilized journalists to organize and seek ways to combat self-censorship and to restore press freedom in the country.

Speaking at a luncheon organized by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the International Center for Journalists, Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, also questioned other practices used by journalists after 9/11. He called for journalists to correct the record on stories now known to be lies. Shadid said that news organizations now owe readers “a more compelling reality."