Otisi and his colleagues huddled around the one computer in the room with Web access, eager for a chance to explore this strange, new universe of hot links and bookmarks. You would think the last thing people need in poor countries emerging from military rule or civil war is Internet training. But that was my assignment, as part of a two-week course in investigative journalism sponsored by the World Bank Institute , the Commonwealth Broadcasters Association and the Canadian International Development Association . It was a humbling experience. In North America, we take fast, cheap access to the Web for granted.
Children play on it, consumers surf for bargains, businesses make millions.
But in Africa, journalists are hungry to use the Web as a tool for democracy despite the daunting obstacles. Now, the Web is poised to become a central weapon in the fight to preserve and expand press freedom. One newspaper even used the Net to stay alive. The editor of The News, Babafemi Ojudu, says in a 1997 crackdown, the government seized the newspaper's telephone lines, but Ojudu managed to stay in touch with his reporters by hooking up his laptop to friends' phones and used the Web to obtain vital information. Olusegun Obasanjo Nigeria's new, democratically-elected president Olusegun Obasanjo is no longer jailing or shooting journalists who dare to speak out.