The line up was massive, the carpet red, the persons eminent – but the media conference’s first day spent little time discussing media, and just as little time challenging the presidents present on media freedom. Andrea’s weekly column for the Star.
A few weeks ago, Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame had voiced his displeasure with an interview with the opposition candidate Victoire Ingabire. Amongst the many things he criticised was that the interview had been done by phone and email from Kampala – an odd thing to get upset about, not the least because he is so passionate about turning Rwanda into an ICT hub for the region. Since this interview had been done by the Nation Media Group’s East African, and Kagame was scheduled to be one of their many presidential star guests at the 50th anniversary pan-African media conference this week, would this mean that he’d pull back from his participation? Of course not – while Rwanda’s government PR machine is quite ruthless in squashing anything that they don’t like, Kagame knows better than that. Of course, he turned up, and of course he said all the right things that one would expect from Kagame.
Presidential guests and similarly high-ranking politicians may be useful for name dropping, but I hardly ever find them good value: Talking at people is part of their job description, and they have been practicing this for a couple of years at least (in Africa, make that a couple of decades). Typically, there’s hardly anything new, and after a while you can predict the ‘controversial’ ones - Museveni likes to complain about Nestlé’s refusal to set up processing facilities in Uganda and how as a consequence, value is added abroad so that Uganda is not, in fact, an aid recipient, but ‘donates’ to the West. Yawn.
Day one of the media conference was quite full of presidents, ex presidents and other official figures. At least around here, they are not always good news for the media: In his first term, president Kibaki did earn praise for an opening of the media space – until the raid on the Standard. Since raiding is a bit old school, the government now tries to go with the times, fragmenting the media sector through broadcast regulations that will do little to improve quality, but will fragment the industry and undermine its viability (Kenya: New Broadcast Regulations a Blow to Media Investors ). In Uganda, Museveni likes to rock up at the Monitor personally when displeased, and is still an owner of the other main daily. Rwanda does not really have a free press.
Kenya, the NMG’s home country, has one of the most exciting media markets in sub-Saharan Africa: commercially viable, vibrant and with some of the best journalists on the continent. I say this even though journalistic fare such as ‘wardrobe staples are … jeans and snickers’ regularly leave me gobsmacked. And so, while the idea of a media conference excites me because there’d be so much to talk about, I really didn’t want to go through another round of how Africa is portrayed in the international media. How long have we been discussing this? A decade? Longer?
Cue another round of international media bashing, with little consideration of the complexities involved: In the current international market, Africa represents only a small percentage – whether that’s fair or not is not the point, it’s a fact. So news will be devoted to the headline events, and yes, it is the job of the media to alert to death and disaster. They do that everywhere, and even my late grandmother, who lived in a small German town, complained 20 years ago that her local and regional newspapers always brought her the bad news. International media houses have the globe to cover, and an international audience to feed, with far bigger spending power in the industrialised countries whose main interest is not what happens in Africa.
I am also really wary of another spirited ‘let’s find the positive stories!’ effort. That approach has gained some traction, and now the international media pick up all sorts of lovely little NGO and non-profit efforts – cute, but ultimately a distortion as well because it’s not the non-profits that drive business. Covering Samasource’s effort to train refugees in camps in online outsourcing work often gets enthusiastic ‘how heartwearming’ reader comments, but that’s hardly representative of business in sub-Saharan Africa. And we shouldn’t downplay the fact that if you’re interested in the details, they are available: If you want, for example, you can pick up Reuters or Bloomberg online on inflation rate releases in a great many African countries, or read stock market summaries. There are business stories. There is analysis. Obviously not perfect, obviously not as in-depth as it should be – but how much of an international audience would really want to know so much more beyond the happy-refuge story? Do you endeavour to have your news provider feed you with detailed daily business, economic and political stories from, say, Kyrgyzstan? Thought not.
Finally, bashing international media is easy, but do the local media do any better? And that’s where I think the first day of the conference – which was, after all, headlined as a media conference, not a pan-African feel-good get-together had missed out on a huge opportunity to get down to the important issues in the media industry in Africa today: Access to information, media ethics, the restrictions of working in relatively small economies with a limited pool of advertisers and the possible conflicts of interest, the availability of media investors , how to train journalist and copy editors to avoid ‘jeans and snickers’ or ‘laughing stalk’ type stories, and generally write and report better, how to deal with threats from politicians, media regulations, and so on. The demand for digital content will explode thanks to fibre optic cables, transition to digital TV, and the continued strong growth in mobile subscriber numbers. Fewer presidents, more issues, is what I’m looking for.
Republished with kind permission from the Star.
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