SW Radio Africa

rdf:langString SW Radio Africa

rdf:langString SW Radio Africa

rdf:langString SW Radio Africa

rdf:langString Zimbabwe

rdf:langString SW RADIO AFRICA LOGO.jpg

rdf:langString SW Radio Africa was an independent Zimbabwe radio station that broadcast from London, England, from 19 December 2001 to 10 August 2014. With the government of Robert Mugabe keeping a tight rein on the local airwaves, the station produced and presented news and current affairs programmes for broadcast in Zimbabwe on short wave and on the Internet. Programme content covered the decline of the agricultural sector due to government sponsored farm invasions, the ever-increasing currency hyper-inflation and the effect that HIV and AIDS was having on the population. Much of the content comprised pre-recorded but unedited, international telephone conversations between the presenter and ordinary people on the ground in Zimbabwe. These untrained and unprompted members of the public gave their first-person report of happenings, often as they were going down. It was the fact that such reports were broadcast in an unedited form that gave the content huge legitimacy among the listeners. The news broadcasts were therefore considered more factual than those of the state broadcaster. Staffed and run by black and white Zimbabweans in exile, it aimed to promote democracy and free speech, and to counter the mis-information and hate speech broadcast as propaganda, by the government-controlled state Radio and TV stations. The station's website, www.swradioafrica.com, featured live online streaming, as well as archived broadcasts. Broadcasts were typically for just 2 or 3 hours each evening.