Ethiopian museum immortalises heroes of African journalism

“Hailu did not let go of his camera,” recalls Mengistu Abebe, a veteran frontline reporter for the State-owned Addis Zemen newspaper in a recent interview with The Reporter website.  “It was one of the saddest moments in my life. They worked closely with me and it’s a sad loss.”

Hailu and his colleagues have been immortalised in a new museum established by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) at the company’s new headquarters complex at Shengole, some 10 kilometres from central Addis Ababa.

The new complex was inaugurated on July 5, 2023 by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, with the shift from the old headquarters next to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, a short distance from the Palace in the capital, heralding a new dawn for one of Africa’s biggest, oldest and most developed broadcasters.

Besides celebrating the journalists who braved the war to report from the frontline, the EBC museum showcases the technological development of broadcast equipment through the years.

“This is called a Bolex camera. The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation started with this camera,” EBC’s head of public relations, Abayneh Zewdu Shay, says as he takes us through the museum on the ground floor of EBC Complex.

He stops where Hailu’s camera is placed in a corner, next to a photograph of the fallen cameraman and two of his colleagues in action.

“Something so emotional here is this camera,” Mr Abayneh explains, lifting the big Sony Betacam. “During Ethiopia’s war with Eritrea in 1999, the cameraman, holding this heavy camera on his shoulders, was running towards a scene and the enemy fired into his chest and into the side of the camera, leaving a bullet hole here,” he points at the damaged section of the camera.

The EBC museum is one of few globally that showcase the advancement of radio and television technologies.

The idea of the museum was mooted in 2014 with the objective of displaying the various technologies over the years, apart from collection and preservation of objects to commemorate Ethiopia’s media heroes, who contributed to the growth of journalism in the country and on the African continent.

“Our legendary journalists contributed to the Ethiopian media industry. This museum helps current journalists to learn from these heroes and stand strong for their profession,” Mr Abayneh explains.

The idea of having radio broadcasts in Ethiopia was born on Tuesday, July 21, 1931, when Emperor Haile Selassie laid a foundation stone for a new radio station at Nifas Silk in Addis. After four years of construction, the first broadcast went on the air on January 2, 1935.

Ethiopian television had to wait some 29 years to air its first broadcast on November 2, 1964.

The EBC now has three radio stations, Ethiopian Radio, FM Addis 97.1 and FM 104.7, and five TV stations, The Ethiopian Television, ETV Entertainment, ETV languages, ETV Kids World, ETV Parlama and ETV Afan Oromo.

The EBC is also the owner of a new media platform, dot stream, and its radio, TV and digital platforms transmit in 11 languages, including Arabic, English and French.

The broadcaster’s CEO Getnet Taddesse reflects on its importance to the democratisation of Africa at large.

“The Ethiopian Radio is a pan-Africanist media locally founded to tackle the invasion of the Italians through well-organised messages. It also played a paramount role for the decolonisation of some southern African countries. During the apartheid era, for instance, the Ethiopian Radio helped Nelson Mandela and his party, the African National Congress (ANC), to put down the burden of the then depriving regime from the shoulders of South African brothers and sisters,” he says.

At the time, the ANC had a 15-minute radio programme that helped disseminate propaganda to South African freedom fighters.

“It was not only the ANC that received the service from the agelong radio station, but also Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe’s Zanu party, which had the opportunity to cash in the 15-minute broadcast from Addis Ababa,” Mr Getnet explains.

It was also the Ethiopian Television that aired a broadcast of the first presidential summit of the Organisation of the African Union (OAU).

“Since its birth, the EBC became the voice for the voiceless through editorial content, which covers African issues under the ambitious plan of “Agenda 2063,” Mr Getnet notes. “I’m working hard with my team to transform the EBC with a brand theme, ‘EBC towards content, to an African level.’”

“It is in this vein that the EBC gave live coverage of the recent African Union Commission leadership debate which took place from AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.”

Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Djibouti Foreign Affairs minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf and Richard Randriamandrato, a Madagascar former Foreign minister, took part in the debate ahead of the February election, in which they will be seeking to succeed incumbent Moussa Faki of Chad.

“The EBC is contributing to the national responsibility of lifting Africa from poverty, and to see democracy and good governance prevailing across the continent within the frame work of AU and Igad which, we believe, contributes a lot to African journalism,” the CEO says.

The EBC’s sources of funding are mainly advertising, sponsorship, radio and television licence fees, with partial support from the government to cater for its 2,200 employees.