African news, western views

Is Africa interested in Africa?

Audiences do not necessarily share an interest in stories about other African countries and broader African stories unless these stories directly affect their lives.

“An audience without an interest in outside news makes it harder to put out more continental news,” was a point raised.

Participants highlighted that Africans also have their own perceptions and stereotypes of other Africans and that crept into how journalists write about other countries for their own audiences. As a result, African stories are few and can be shallow and void of nuance.

“African crisis sells, but when local media positively changes how they cover stories, broader African media will pick up on that trend,” said some participants.

Despite the constraints facing the journalism and media industry, participants said the industry needs to value its workers. They added that it would be important to equip freelance journalists on the continent, especially those in smaller countries that do not dominate Africa news pages like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa do.

Another way to elevate the standard of journalism in Africa is to award good journalism, they said. They pointed out that the continent needs to create its own unique awards to reward outstanding journalism in every country.

The findings of this study cannot be examined outside the context of the lack of resources that many media in Africa have as well as the unequal distribution of media freedom. Good, analytical journalism requires resources and the ability to express views. A lack of media freedom may also result in fewer resources for better media, as governments may for example withhold advertising expenditure or even actively harass and defund such media.

Solutions suggested by the research findings from the three sources include creating more awareness of the poor coverage and the need for commitment to better stories. In order to address the lack of resources, investment would need to be made into diverse, nuanced coverage.

Furthermore, networks of editors and journalists could function to pool stories and multimedia for use in different publications, in this way, more countries would be covered.

In response to this report, Africa No Filter is launching the continent’s first and only news agency that will focus on stories of creativity, innovation, arts & culture, and human interest to fill the gap in the market.

ANF’s goal over time is to leave an empowered narrative change ecosystem and an informed community of storytellers who work more deliberately to change harmful narratives within and about Africa.

Facts & Numbers

• 63% of outlets surveyed don’t have correspondents in other countries in Africa
• 1/3 of all coverage on Africa was from non-African sources, with AFP and BBC accounting for ¼ of all stories found in African outlets about other African countries.  African news agencies contributed minimally.
• 81% of the stories analyzed were classified as “hard news” e.g. conflicts and crises driven by events – they were also largely political in nature
• 13% of the news focused specifically on political violence, civil unrest, armed conflict
• South Africa, followed by Egypt were the countries with the most diverse coverage that was not necessarily linked to newsy events meaning that those two countries are probably the ‘best known’ on the continent