Cape Town conference: Africa must make its own news

Posted by Judy Lelliot on June 5, 2007 at 5:05 PM

Africans need to help themselves to achieve transparent, comprehensive reporting, was the conclusion of “Reporting Africa for Africans and the world”, a debate at the 14th World Editors Forum today.

Each of five speakers gave a short speech before the debate was opened to the floor. Chairman Mathatha Tsedu, Editor-in-Chief of City Press (South Africa), said that stories had to make “dollar sense”, and that the African story was often not profitable elsewhere in the world. He also mentioned the lack of press agencies in Africa.

Moeletsi Mbeki, Executive Chairman of Endemol (South Africa), said that the first thing African reporters needed to do was lose the “chip on their shoulder”. The notion that Africans are helpless victims is too widespread, in Africa and elsewhere, and this is limiting African journalism.

Azu Ishiekwene, Executive editor of Punch (Nigeria), said the “African story” was “death, destruction, disease and despair”, but that good news is under-reported, and journalists need to “rise up and fill the void”. He also listed skills that African journalists need to develop: specialisation, as well as better numeracy and fluency in foreign languages.

Finbarr O’Reilly, a Senegal-based Reuters photographer, listed some of the Reuters facilities for better reporting on Africa: an Africa website, as well as the Africa Journal, a weekly digest of events.

Cheriff Moumina Sy, Director of Publication, Bendre (Burkina Faso), said there is one formula that is repeated in African reporting, which could be done by one person. To turn this around, however, African journalists need to put more “personality” into their reporting, he said.

Guy Berger, Head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University (South Africa), pointed to the danger of referring to Africa as a whole. He said that African reporters needed to move from “mourning to mesmerising”, reporting what is really new in stead of repeating old stories.

It was pointed out from the floor that people enjoy negative news, and this is not particular to Africa. Audience members generally agreed that Africans need to generate their own good news; that bad news was often a result of bad governance, not bad media. The need for better press agencies in Africa was emphasised.