In 2009, Anjan Sundaram began a journalist's training program in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Often held up as a beacon of progress and modernity in Central Africa, the regime of President Paul Kagame--which took over after the 1994 genocide ravaged Rwanda's population--has been given billions of dollars in Western aid. And yet, during Sundaram's time there, almost every reporter he instructed was arrested or forced to leave the country, caught in a tightening web of strict media control.

With Bad News, Sundaram offers an incredible firsthand look at the rise of dictatorship and...