MISA Botswana is among the most active media associations in the country. It is a strong member driven organisation advocating for, among other things, freedom of the press and freedom of information. Since it opened its doors on 15 September 1995 in Gaborone , MISA Botswana has

attracted 155 individual members and 20 institutional members. Membership comes at the price of 100 Pula for individual members and 1000 Pula for institutional members.

MISA Botswana is run by a National Director, Mr Modise Maphanyane, other staff members, is the Information and Research Officer, Advocacy Officer, Admin and Accounts Clerk and a Resource Centre Assistant.

The Chapter hosts an annual awards night as an incentive for local journalists to give it their best . It has been running media awards for 10 years now from only one award of Journalist of the Year to nine other different categories (Sports, Business, Investigative, Adolescent Health, News reader, Radio Presenter).

In September 2004, MISA Botswana held a successful Fundraising Gala Dinner and National Media Awards Night.

Here are the names of Award Winners and their categories; Sibongumusa Ndlovu, a correspondent with Mmegi and Yobe Shonga from the Botswana Press Agency (BOPA), jointly won Journalist of the Year Award. Their award comprised of a certificate, monetary awards, a floating trophy and a MISA Scholarship Exchange programme. Ndlovu and Shonga also won Investigative Reporter of the year and Photographer of the year respectively.

Journalist of the year runner-up went to Gabz fm presenter Bay Tsimane who also went away with Newsreader of the year prize. Others included Laona Segaetsho (Radio Botswana ) who scooped Radio Presenter of the year, Dikarabo Ramadubu (Midweek Sun) got Sports Writer of the year, Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Reporting went to Tiro Kganela (Botswana Television) and the newly established Sunday Standard Newspaper obtained the Newspaper Design of the Year.

Our Recent Activities

In September 2004 MISA Botswana embarked on a research project on Media Monitoring for Election reporting which was funded by the Netherlands Institute of Southern Africa (NIZA). The purpose was to determine if the ruling party in Botswana is actually using and dominating the public media coverage at the expense of opposition parties. To achieve this it monitored both the public and private media's coverage of the pre and post elections campaigns and election stories of the different political parties in Botswana .

The Broadcasting industry in Botswana is still waiting for the authorities to open the waves for more broadcasters especially for Community radios. The National Broadcasting Board (NBB) however, has promised to act on the matter accordingly. Preparations are underway to organize country public education campaigns on Community Broadcasting before NBB could start calling for applications. Read more