Sundaymail Editor
Ranga Mataire
Zimpapers Politics Hub
FOR media personnel who take their craft seriously, the past few days presented a chance for self-reflection following President Mnangagwa’s concern raised in an interview with the China Media Group at the just-ended Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing.
President Mnangagwa expressed concern in the manner in which the African media in general frames its narratives, saying: “But in African countries, you will find our media, if you are not careful, being influenced by external factors where they compare their situation with foreign positions, and as the media begins to criticise itself that it is inferior, it is because they are comparing themselves with a foreign situation.”
The President was not done.
He challenged the African media to be anchored in the concrete realities obtaining in their country so as to build a sense of pride and confidence among the citizenry.
While casual readers may have dismissed President Mnangagwa’s concerns as attempts to muzzle or compartmentalise the media into a monolithic framing, the truth is that since the end of colonialism, the African media in general has had its narratives dictated by others.
Maybe it has to do with the economies of scale, where the poorly funded African media finds itself mimicking and regurgitating the Western media’s framing of the continent. But, as African journalists, we can do better in “Writing Back to the Empire” and unwrite the numerous falsehoods heaped on unsuspecting audiences.
President Mnangagwa is not alone in his exasperation of the African media’s portrayal of the continent. In one of his speeches, former South African President Thabo Mbeki once asked why the media has allowed itself to be defined by outsiders.
Also, in his “I am an African” seminal speech, he urged Africans to rediscover their humanity, bound by a shared history, saying: “Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!”
Both President Mnangagwa and former South African President Mbeki’s concerns are informed by the fact that our continent’s story — our brand — has over the years continued being maligned not just by lazy tabloid journalism abroad but by some of our African media outlets.
Africa in general is suffering from negative stereotypical news coverage.
Most stories centre on conflicts or wars, poverty, slums, corruption, famine, droughts, floods, kidnappings, irregular migration and xenophobia, among others. With global newspaper revenues continuing to decline, the continent has become an easy target for eyeball-grabbing headlines.
This is why it is fundamentally important for Africa to take control of the conversation by telling our own stories and not to pander to how others see us.
No one is saying bad things do not happen in Africa. Plenty of bad things do happen, just as they happen elsewhere.
But the duty of the African media is not to easily fall victim of the Western media’s tropes about Africa.
It is the duty of the African media to give context and explain certain developments.
Writing about Africa must be treated as an existential issue because it defines our survival as individual African countries and as a continent.
I am using “writing” as a generic term for all media products, be it television, radio, newspapers, films and digital and online news. We can never progress as a continent as long as we allow others to continue influencing the manner in which we project ourselves.
Let us look at random examples of bad reporting on Africa by the West that the African media rushed to clutch and popularise.
An often-cited example happened at the turn of the millennium, in May 2000, when The Economist published a report on Africa titled “Hopeless Africa”, which projected the whole continent as doomed.
The report amplified challenges in only three countries — Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Mozambique — and inferred this to the entire continent.
This is very common in the Western media, whose audience feeds on the negative “othering” of the African continent. Since the time of Joseph Conrad, the Western audience has always been infatuated by the “exotic”, “wild” Africa inhabited by half-developed unintelligent beings.
Travelogues by explorers and missionaries fed them with such kind of stories and years later, the same audience is still fed with such a distorted diet.
Numerous researches confirm global news’ clear bias against Africa’s narrative.
A report by the Brookings Institute shows large discrepancies between international and local reporting on African subjects.
The report established that there were many more negative terms in the Western media about Africa, with the word “poverty” featuring prominently.
An example is that between May and September 2010, the most read United States newspapers and magazines carried 245 articles mentioning poverty in Africa, while only five mentioned gross domestic product.
Another research on how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) influence reporting on Africa titled “They Wanted Journalists to Say ‘Wow’ — How NGOs affect US Media Coverage of Africa” provides evidence of a disconnect between the data about Africa and the images prevalent in reporting on Africa.
This is so largely because of the role of international aid organisations and NGOs, which find it profitable to present as gloomy a picture of Africa as possible in order to keep attention and the “money flowing”.
Every African journalist knows that some NGOs are mere businesses dressed as Mother Theresa, yet they never question their intrusive conduct. So, when President Mnangagwa expressed his frustration with the African media, he is quite right in saying that much of the reportage is influenced by foreign factors. African journalists in general take a lead from negative reporting by the Western media.
The Western media sets the agenda in their reporting and African journalists think that bashing their own country or their own leaders is a “badge of honour” in the eyes of the West.
Africa must tell its own story, whether it is through journalism or marketing or finance.
The so-called international media will remain negatively slanted against the continent, so it is critical that the African media invest a lot in fact-checking.
There are many good stories to tell.
Poverty rates throughout the continent have been falling steadily and much faster than previously thought.
The mortality rate of children under five years is also dropping. Yes, stories of corruption are critical in ensuring accountability in both the public and private sectors, but so are stories that talk of Africa as being among the world’s most rapidly growing economic regions, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
And by 2050, various estimates point to a growth of population on the continent from one billion to two billion, of which 62 percent will be urbanised, which indicates a huge growth in consumer spending.
African journalists are duty-bound to promote the continent inwards and outwards.
With huge growth in content companies, brands can tell the African story.
We must tell our own story as accurate and as balanced as we can. Only then would the outside world start respecting us and would be embarrassed to continue slanting their stories like Joseph Conrad’s travelogues.
Chinua Achebe tells us that “until the lions have their historians, the history of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter”.
This African proverb is used to metaphorically describe how dominant groups (the West) inscribe power through historical narratives.
The legacy of historical writing is a legacy that promoted European and Western ethnocentrism, which created a racial apparatus that elevated humanistic global characteristics of whiteness while perpetrating the sub-personhood status that demeaned the humanity of black people.
Online Reporter