Africa needs unbiased reporting
Wang HaoChina Daily  Updated: 2005-06-16 05:51

My wife prepared a large bag with all kinds of medicines when she helped me packed for my Africa trip. She had heard that a simple mosquito bite might kill me.

About two weeks later, I was out of Africa safe and sound, bringing home the untouched medicine bag, and some new thoughts about how this mysterious and yet promising continent could be fairly reported.

I went to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, to attend the general assembly of the International Press Institute (IPI) late last month. As this prestigious journalism institution has moved its annual meeting site to this continent, reporting on Africa was naturally one of the hottest topics on the agenda. The speeches and debates set me thinking about Africa. And contacts with local people led me to reach this conclusion: Africa is not covered objectively by the Western media.

Africa has long been stereotyped as a dark, hopeless and poverty-stricken continent ravaged by disease, famine and armed conflict.

These images are only the negative sides of Africa. And they have been excessively repeated and played up. Such a stereotypical media approach has eventually created a kind of "psychology of failure," a presumptive mentality embedded in both Western and African society.

This mentality has resulted in bias and a refusal to accept positive information about Africa.

Having seen Africa with my own eyes, I will never link this land - known for its ancient cultures, diverse wildlife and spectacular landscapes - to the notion of a "dark continent."

Even regarding the issues plaguing Africa, there are quite a few success stories crying out to be reported.

Although nearly 70 per cent of the world's HIV/AIDS population live in Africa, the number of infected people is declining, unlike in many parts of the world. Uganda, which once had the highest rate in the world, has seen a drop in the number of infected people from 30 per cent in the early 1990s to around 10 per cent of its population today. Similar good news has also been reported from Kenya and Senegal. Officials in Nairobi say they have been receiving health delegations from Asian countries eager to learn from Kenya's experience.

Africa still has many armed conflicts, but the number has dropped by nearly 50 per cent in the past four years, and all the current conflicts are under negotiation for peaceful settlement.

But such stories hardly hit the headlines in the "mainstream" Western media because of their editors' poor knowledge of Africa and, more importantly, their need to satisfy a particular news agenda and marketing demand.

Wachira Waruru, chief executive officer of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, began his presentation by citing a case of how CNN reported a Kenyan Airways air crash five years ago.

On January 31, 2000, a passenger plane crashed into the sea near Abidjan, off Cote d'Ivoire. Eight people survived and 171 were killed. CNN kept readers updated about the disaster every few minutes until several hours later when it was discovered that most of the passengers were Nigerians.

"We were hungry for more details of the tragedy as we were familiar with the way big media networks like CNN handled such stories," Waruru said. "They usually dig deeper by introducing human stories into the tragedy."

In this case, Waruru recalled he got only basic facts and figures.

"Had that aircraft been full of American or European passengers, would CNN have lost its interest in this story so fast?" he asked.

Waruru's remarks triggered a heated debate over news value at the forum.

Responding to a European participant's call for upholding "a universal value, regardless of American values, Asian values or African values," Rwandan President Paul Kagame asked, "How universal are the universal values? Who sets the universal values? Did Africa contribute to these values? Should somebody set the universal values that Africa must fit into?"

It is only natural for the media, operating as business entities, to woo readers or audiences for high commercial returns. But the mainstream international media nowadays emphasizes its role as informer and entertainer while leaving its educational role and social responsibility behind. That is why we read about tribal killings, famines and diseases while so many positive developments do not hit the headlines.

However, the Rwandan president did not go on to blame the international press for giving Africa only negative coverage and ignoring positive developments.

"I am not here to ask for sympathy - (but) to seek a deeper understanding of the real issues, and then ask you to join us in our efforts to redress what has gone wrong on our continent."

The current socio-economic situation in Africa derives from deep external and historical factors. Therefore, fair reporting of Africa should proceed from an understanding of the past and present. Above all, we should look at Africa from a new and balanced perspective.

African participants in the conference were unanimous in pointing out that the solution to better reporting of Africa lies in a better job done by African journalists in their reporting of their own homeland. Eventually there will be an economically and politically powerful continent that has more say in the international community.

Wangethi Mwangi, editorial director of the Nairobi-based Nation Media Group, also looked at Africa's media outlets when probing the problem of reporting Africa. Among other factors, Mwangi attributed the current problem to African journalists' "inability to write competently on complex issues, resulting in them taking the easy route of locking onto a sensational story" and their "wholesale adoption of Western news values that emphasize the sensationally negative aspects of an issue in the hope of grabbing readers' attention."

Obviously, the change will emerge only after Africans start to portray themselves in a positive light.

The forum was told that much has been done to refocus local journalists on how to cover Africa positively. Joint news agencies have been set up to supply first-hand information about the continent to local and international media outlets. This is a substantial step forward.

Waruru, of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, recalling the coverage of Kenyan Airways crash, said it was a group of Kenyan journalists who rushed to the site of the accident and sent back a series of stories with a human touch that the audience really needed.

After all, it is the Africans who will eventually get their own house in order, build up their own image and tell the true story about their homeland.

(China Daily 06/16/2005 page4)

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