In the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide the country’s journalists, facing pressure to please the state, have lost confidence in themselves, and readers have lost faith in local media. Can the nation's news media reinvigorate itself, either from within or with assistance from global journalism actors? In this talk, Ruth Moon examines journalism practice in Rwanda to draw conclusions about news production and journalistic communities applicable to journalism fields everywhere.

Ruth Moon (PhD, University of Washington) is an assistant professor of media and public affairs at Louisiana State University. She studies power relationships and knowledge production with a focus on communication processes and journalistic practice in the Global South. She has published research in Digital Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism, Information, Communication & Society, and International Journal of Communication. Her first book, Authoritarian Journalism: Controlling the Press in Post-Conflict Rwanda (Oxford University Press), was published in 2023. Her research is informed by more than 10 years’ professional experience working as a reporter and editor for magazines and newspapers in the U.S.