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Texting news to beat the censors

By Adam Foldes for CNN

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(CNN) -- Radio journalists broadcasting news about Zimbabwe have turned to texting their bulletins via mobile phones.

In order to beat the censors, journalists from SW Radio Africa have decided to text headlines to listeners after radio signals were jammed.

"It's really only with full access to information that you can promote democratic principles," says Gerry Jackson, the founder of London based SW Radio Africa.

Following the 2000 shut down of her Capital Radio station, Gerry Jackson left the country for London. Using short wave transmission and the Internet, she began broadcasting SW Radio Africa.

Her attempt was successful until 2005, when the government of Zimbabwe began using Chinese technologies to jam the broadcasts.

In December of 2006, SW Radio Africa began to expand its business plan. The station launched an SMS news delivery initiative via the mobile phone network in Zimbabwe.

With one of its largest supporters being the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA), SW Radio has been able to build from a base of 500 subscribers in December of 2006, to 2,000 subscribers today -- with about 100 new subscription requests a day.

However, as Jackson says, the process can be prohibitively expensive. And SW Radio Africa depends primarily on donor funding.

Zimbabweans are far too poor to pay for this service, with an unemployment rate of 80 percent and the highest inflation in the world approaching 1,600 percent, and rising.

Fitting the news into the 160-character maximum limit for each text message is also a problem.

Despite such challenges, Jackson and her group of journalists continue to embrace existing technologies to support their effort. In an article at Media Helping Media she talks about embracing podcasting.

"With the movement of technology today it is getting harder for oppressive regimes and dictators to block access to information ... and that's a wonderful thing," Jackson says.

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