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Must Africa always be reported

Must Africa always be reported by chaps in cowboy hats? MEDIA ♦ IAN HARGREAVES
	When people of earnest goodwill debate the	engagement, especially in America and Britain.
	future of the Internet and its effect upon	To African eyes, the west is fixated upon the
	journalism, it does not take long before	televisual image of the white aid worker cradling a
	someone raises the question of the growing gap	poor, sick African child, substituting what one
	between the “information rich” and the	speaker at the conference called a “tyranny of
	“information poor”.What use can the Internet be to	[id:29289] ” for previous types of political and economic
	that majority of the world’s population which does	control. Professor Helge Rønning of Oslo
	not even have a telephone? What use can it be in	University accused journalists not only of exporting
	Africa, which has fewer telephone lines than New	clichés, but also of failing to question sufficiently the
	York City?	motives of the aid organisations that provide their
	[id:29284] it is clear that the net is starting to make	air passage into disaster zones in return for emotive
	an impact in the world’s poorest continent. Tanya	publicity. If journalists collaborated with business in
	Accone, one of Africa’s small but growing number	this way, it would be “seriously questioned as a form
	of on-line editors, recently predicted that it would	of undue and unethical influence”, he said.Wilfred
	be “the great leveller of Africa”, enabling journalists	Kiboro, chief executive of the Nairobi-based Nation
	to e-mail their way past censorship, and encouraging	press group, urged [id:29290] to open their eyes not
	low-budget virtual publications for cheap	only to Africa’s manifest failures, but also to its
	distribution over the World Wide Web. [id:29285] the	successes. Kiboro mocked the western chaps in
	rebels fighting the incompetent government of	cowboy hats and combat fatigues, with more
	Congo have their own website, and many of Africa’s	pockets than there are days in the week, knocking
	newspapers are available in some form or other on	off their pieces to camera just beyond the backdrop
	the net.	of a five-star hotel.
	When Africa News Online (http://www.africanews.org), a	Too often the attempts to counter western media domi-
	web-based service which publishes news from more than 30	nation are ineffective. The Pan African News Agency, set
	African titles from the Sowetan to the Addis Ababa Monitor,	up in 1983 by the Organisation of African Unity, is a
	started up three years ago, it was able to network into	creature of governments and it has suffered the fate of
	only six African countries. Today it reaches 47 out of 54	all such mouthpieces - it is not trusted. In an attempt
	countries, and is starting to pay worthwhile royalties to	to revive the agency, the OAU announced last year that
	its member organisations.	it would be privatised, with the majority of shares sold
	All too obviously, this [id:29286] Africa’s vast rural poor.	to commercial African media owners. But so far only $12
	You could argue that anyone with their interests at heart	million of the intended $19 million has been raised. Afri-
	should concentrate not on either television or the	can journalists would like to see the agency in private
	Internet, but on radio. Africans own more radios	hands, but doubt that it will attract the resources to
	than telephones and, unlike the Internet, the radio	displace the distorted foreign media agenda.
	makes no demands on literacy and doesn’t involve	This may be too pessimistic. A privatised and
	call charges.	properly managed agency may be able to construct
	The one group that does have access to the	sound alliances with other agencies, not all of which
	Internet, however, is the continent’s own	[id:29291] Africa. As Mark Wood, editor-in-chief of
	increasingly confident and well-trained corps of	Reuters, points out: in the last year, his agency filed
	journalists. Judging by those who came to discuss	48,850 stories on Africa, of which 28,000 concerned
	the reporting of their continent at Cardiff	business, markets and economics.
	University last week, they are communicating more	Wood is an Internet enthusiast - for Africa, he
	effectively with each other and with the world	says, it is [id:29292] “ waiting to happen”. The Internet
	beyond Africa as a result of the Internet, [id:29287] the	is a technology beyond the absolute control both of
	culture of press freedom as they do so.	African dictators and western media empires, but
	Africans are certainly [id:29288] the way we report	one that supports the principle of free and open
	them. Since the cold war, the western public has	exchange which underpins global capitalism.
	stopped taking Africa’s politics seriously and,	Ensuring it stays that way is one of the more useful
	without apartheid, there is a loss of moral	things the west can do for Africa.

		‘New Statesman’, December 4, 1998

Must Africa always be reported

Must Africa always be reported by chaps in cowboy hats?