Tedla Asfaw
Ethiomedia Editor Ato Abraha Belai's this week interview with Ben covered a lot of grounds and what I found it interesting is his call for the Diaspora Ethiopian media conference. Ato Abraha accused some websites without giving names who are posting materials which damages the interest of Ethiopia.
Ato Abraha Belai condemned those sites that characterize the Ethiopian army in Somalia as "Woyane's" army who went on and congratulationg those who dragged the dead soldiers. However, he was not heard taking a clear stand on the Ethiopian army's involvement in Somalia and the innocent Somali lives lost.
Dirty things happen during war and journalists should expose both sides in the war and bring these realities to the readers as it is and let the people make their own judgment. We saw few articles from New York Times posted on Ethiomedia which accounts the atrocities committed by Ethiopian soldiers in Ogaden and we should have done a lot of work in exposing on what is going on in Somalia.
I remember there was an interview in Chicago Public Radio few months back with Dr. Birhanu Nega and the same day a prominent Somali was interviewed and I found that Ethiomedia only posted Dr. Birhanu's clip.
I emailed Ethiomedia editor that It was wrong not to post the Somali part because it was very informative on the crisis going in Somalia which highlights the escalation of war in the Horn and the personal account from inside sources which is hidden from mainstream media. This audio clip would have given listeners a wide perspective who visited www.ethiomedia.com.
Luckily some sites put the whole audio clip from the Chicago Public Radio and we learned a lot from it and were it not for other sites we would not have gotten that information. Of course the media conference helps to set the standards for putting all the relevant information for the public to sort it out but media outlets should not also pick what they want us to read or hear.
