Better behaviour will bring better African reports

Media scholars have told African leaders to clean up their act, spruce up their image and develop guts to handle large global assignments if they want positive coverage, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.

 

The scholars and delegates representing foreign media at the Pan Africa Media Conference heard that the continent was so riddled with stories of conflict, corruption and hunger that there was no way it would get positive coverage.

 

In turn, businessmen and politicians told the media to report the positive growth of the continent with the same zeal they report the negative aspects.

 

Like in past forums, there was much discussion about the establishment of an independent African media channel, modeled on Al Jazeera, to champion the African cause.

 

 Prof Anton Harber, the head of the University of the Witwatersrand's journalism programme, said it was time the continent fixed the negative publicity portrayed by the foreign media.

 

He gave the example of the World Cup in South Africa, saying if nothing bad happens, the 18 000 journalists accredited to cover the event will write positive stories.

 

Warning that, “But if it turns out to be a disaster, the story will change to portray Africa as chaotic, violent and a repressive zone.”

 

For his part, International Press Institute (IPI) Executive Director David Dadge told the conference that African leaders had to get their governance right so as to improve press freedom and expand coverage of issues in the continent.

 

"Poor leadership has had a disastrous impact on press freedom not only on the continent, but also the world," he said. Quoting the latest IPI statistics on press freedom,  Dadge said there was urgent need for a reversal of this trend.

 

The countries he cited include North Korea, which has been ranked number 196 in terms of repression of media freedom. In Africa, the states identified include Burkina Faso (86), Chad (165), Zimbabwe (186) and Eritrea (190).

 

"From the statistics, it is now clear that there's a correlation between poor leadership of a country and press freedom,"Dadge argued, adding, "without press freedom you cannot get positive coverage."

 

Dadge's comments elicited sharp reactions, with one panellist disagreeing with his analysis. The chief executive officer of Uganda's New Vision newspaper,  Robert Kabushenga, said the issue was much "broader and bigger" than was being portrayed in the presentation.

 

"Press freedom issues go far much beyond the quarrels between the state and the media... it also revolves around the financial might of a media house. Those with a huge financial base cannot easily be intimidated. They can withstand oppression,"  Kabushenga said.

 

However, the other panellists, among them  Trevor Ncube, the publisher of South Africa-based Mail and Guardian and Zimbabwe Independent newspapers;  David Makali, editor of Expression Today; and Dr Mesan Mawugbe of Ghana's Centre for Media Analysis, thought otherwise.

 

Ncube concurred with the argument that African states that still had "strong men" were poor at media freedom. "The leaders see the media as a threat ...this should not be the case. These leaders should view us as partners in development and not their enemies," he said.

 

Ncube, however, asked journalists on the continent not to give up hope, saying, politicians would never give them the freedom they desired on a silver platter. "You have to fight for it," he urged.

 

Billionaire businessman Mo Ibrahim supported the idea of an African channel saying, "its the only way to have our story told," but called for more consultations.

 

-March 23, 2010 by Dennis Itumbi

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Source: www.journalism.co.za/index.php (accessed on 23.03.10)