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CNN Live At Daybreak

Kabul Newspaper Rolls Out, Despite Lack of Equipment

Aired February 04, 2002 - 05:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: There are many tough rebuilding jobs in Afghanistan.

CNN's Michael Holmes reports from Kabul on the challenges of getting out a newspaper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to the Afghan News Agency, Gakhtar, government-owned and under equipped.

This is the International News Department, just Namid Ollah (ph) and a much-used radio. A few steps down a dim corridor, Abdullah Amin (ph) transcribes other broadcasts by hand, not a typewriter in sight, let alone a computer.

SULTAN AHMAD BAHEEN, GAKHTAR INFORMATION AGENCY: We have nothing here. We need everything from a small radio cassette up to the satellite to have connection with the outside.

HOLMES: A few miles away, the presses, or rather press, rolls out this week's 5,000 copies of a government-owned newspaper from a site that used to print 20,000 copies an hour.

(on camera): You would be hard pressed to get a better illustration of the determination of these people to get the presses rolling again than taking a look at what they used to have. Barely seven years ago, this place was alive with the clatter of machines putting out everything from books to newspapers. Then, it became the front line in this country's civil war.

(voice-over): Down but far from out, that's the attitude of the press here in Kabul, and in fact there is growth. This is just the second edition of the city's only independent paper, "The Kabul Weekly," with articles in four languages. It is French funded and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) criticize, if gently, the interim administration.

ERIC DAVIN, COORDINATOR, AINA: Deliverance of expression, the freedom of expression is something quite new here. And if you compare it to the level of education of most people and especially journalists that you can find in Kabul, it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to see that we haven't been able to do the job properly so far.

HOLMES: Three thousand copies this week. A woman's magazine is planned, so too, a full-scale media support center, if enough funding can be found.

JAMILA AMWA, INST. FOR WAR & PEACE REPORTING: The main problem is they need training, because for 30 years, they journalists here have been under censorship.

HOLMES: Jamila Amwa of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting lives in London, but has returned to her native Afghanistan to lecture local journalists, train them and then commission them to write openly and without fear about their country.

AMWA: All Afghans want is independent journalism, but also understand that things cannot change overnight.

HOLMES: But they are changing.

Michael Holmes, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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