adminLovemore Chikova News Editor
Someone suggested during an informal discussion at the recent Third Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation in Beijing that there must be effective ways to challenge the dominance of Western media.
This torched a “little” debate, with some arguing the idea was plausible, while others thought it would be a futile attempt.
Those who dismissed the idea cited how Western media has been so entrenched, especially in African societies, that almost everything they say is taken as the gospel truth.
Then, from nowhere, someone suggested: “Why not pull resources together and come up with our own version of CNN or BBC?”
There was dead silence when another person pointed out that CCTV (China Central Television) was already available, but had not managed to match the influence of the Western media so far.
This debate emanated from the undeniable fact that Western media has not been fair in its reportage of both Africa and China.
And media observers believe that time has come for the two to strengthen their cooperation in media to challenge the existing stereotypes being churned out by the Western media.
The cooperation in media between China and African countries has already attracted the attention of Western critics, with volumes of articles being produced on what it entails.
What has been clear in the discourse is that Western countries are unsettled by that kind of relationship.
“China wants to colonise Africa using the influence of the media,” they argue.
The West successfully used the media in its bid to control the minds and culture of Africans.
And there is now genuine fear from those quarters that this unbalanced approach is getting a great deal of scrutiny. They would not want cooperation between Chinese and African media to succeed for obvious reasons.
So, an academic debate has been going on whether or not the global media has been fair in its coverage of Africa. In an instant, the media has become the forbearer of the West’s neo-colonialism game. This is seen in the way the Western media portrays Africa. Such media breaks down the boundaries in Africa and start portraying the 54 countries on the continent as one.
A conflict in one of these countries is often reported in the Western media as a conflict in the whole continent.
Conflicts do happen everywhere and it would be folly to think that there can never be conflicts in Africa, considering its vastness.
But these conflicts are usually isolated and only in certain countries.
Africa has often been portrayed as a “hopeless continent” like what the Economist magazine did on the cover of its May 2000 issue.
Imagine if you are an investor and you come across such a screaming headline. You obviously start thinking if the investment would be worth the while. The continent is also often referred to as a “dark continent” by Western media.
Yet, Africa is a continent full of hope as evidenced by its abundant resources and the determination of its people to chart their own destination.
For most people who get their view of the world from Western television channels and newspapers, Africa is a continent where chaos reigns.
In such media, there is little to show Africans’ daily progress against the odds that look impossible.
The media disregards history and thus fails to put Africa’s present state into perspective, thereby shielding Western powers from the blame of their role in the continent’s status.
It seems like Western media reportage on Africa has to fit a certain box.
If the story does not fit into this box, it’s either heavily edited to conform or is just thrown away.
It is unfortunate that the coverage of Africa by foreign journalists usually comes in the form of doom and gloom and done without putting stories into context.
New York Times once had a story on the conflict in Darfur region in Sudan, where it was reported that a trail of corpses stretched for miles into the bush from the United Nations offices.
To the reader, such is a horrific scene.
If it was in another area, the editor would have asked the reporter to give the details.
For instance, exactly how many miles did the corpses stretch? How many corpses were there? How did the reporter know the corpses were stretching for miles if there is no mention of the miles?
So, when it comes to Africa, it seems journalistic principles of collecting facts fall by the wayside and reporters cannot be bothered to be too specific.
Many Africans now do not think Western eyes have a good track record of seeing what is really happening on the continent.
Western governments have been bringing development aid to Africa, but a recent report called “Honest Account — the true story of Africa’s billion dollar losses” published by Health Poverty Action indicates that the aid is just a smokescreen.
It says the aid is cover for illicit financial outflows and unfair trade policies against African countries.
The same report indicates that the continent records annual net loss of $58,2 billion mostly flowing into the pockets of Western governments or transnational corporations.
This does not mean there are no bad things happening in Africa — there are — for instance food crises, wars, coups and corruption.
But in as much as these should be highlighted, the progressive side of the continent also needs to be taken into consideration.
There are countries with excellent systems in Africa, be they in infrastructure, industry, education and even the social status of the citizens.
For instance, China has been doing a lot in establishing infrastructure in Africa and to help the continent industrialise.
Multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects are being undertaken with the help of China, but these are rarely talked about in the Western media.
When they are written about it’s usually in a negative light.
The story of the new city built by the Chinese in Angola in an area called Kilamba comes to mind.
This is a beautiful area complete with offices, residential places, roads and all amenities, built at a cost of more than $3 billion. While people were still applying to occupy the place and the allocation was not yet done, the BBC carried a report in 2012 indicating that China had built a ghost town in Kilamba.
What is important is for the developing countries to put together strong media platforms that can help fight these stereotypes being churned out by Western media.
The Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation can be a good start to achieve that. In both China and Africa, there is a yawning gap for media that can give more objective, impartial and balanced public opinion about the world.
For this media cooperation to succeed, the planners must not lose fact that the world is now globalised.
Anyone who comes with the news first is believed more.
So, the positive story of China and Africa should always be ahead of the negative story that can be difficult to correct once it reaches audiences first.
These days of advanced technologies, people are no longer interested much in analysing stories after reading or watching.
They now normally watch, read and spread the news, thanks to the one touch communication gadgets now readily available.
They don’t mind if it is a rumour or an outright lie.
Online Reporter