African news, western views

How African media badly covers Africa

| THE INDEPENDENT | One-third of all African stories in news outlets on the continent are sourced from foreign news services according to a new report from Africa No Filter (ANF). The ‘How African Media Covers Africa’, highlights the fact that stories about Africa continue to be told through the same persistent and negative stereotypes and frames of poverty, disease, conflict, poor leadership and corruption.

Many stories about Africa in the media still follow the “if it bleeds it leads” trail – even when written by African journalists for an African audience. This was a common point that emerged during closed roundtable discussions held in November 2020.

Western coverage on Africa is geared towards western audiences who want the ‘typical’ surface African story such as famine and crisis. This feeds into negative stereotypes that paint Africa as a devastated continent lacking in agency.

The report points at three stories that appeared about Liberia that all were poor and two portrayed the country as poor and its citizens desperate and buffoonish. The story “Liberia man drowns rescuing dropped $20 note in Monrovia river” seems to poke fun at the tragedy of a man dying. Another story, also originally from the BBC and published in Ghanaian media, “(President) Weah blasts Liberian youth for asking him for money”  is based on a statement by the Liberian president that claims he gets texts from youths asking him for money for rent. Such coverage is not only salacious but seems to single out Liberia as ridiculous.

Such frames and narratives have real-world implications, impacting foreign investment in Africa. Stories that depict political upheaval could reduce perceptions of security. This has a direct impact on youth and the opportunities people see in their countries, on migration, on creativity and innovation.

As a result, the research sought to look at the kind of coverage Africans would encounter about the continent as a whole and about other countries.

“Media is incredibly influential in setting the agenda and determining narratives about Africa,” says Moky Makura, executive director at Africa No Filter.  “The research clearly shows that despite years of independence, Africans still don’t hold the pen when it comes to writing our stories.  More importantly, we continue to promote the narratives about Africa being broken, dependent and lacking agency through the stories we share in our media about each other. We need to take back the pen.”

Africa No Filter is a not-for-profit set up last year to help shift harmful and stereotypical narratives about Africa through research, advocacy and grant-making to storytellers.  It is funded by the Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundation, Comic Relief, the Hilton Foundation and the British Council.

Makura adds: “Ironically, 50% of editors surveyed thought their coverage of other African countries did not contain stereotypes. It shows clearly that we have some work to do in educating ourselves about the role we play in perpetuating outdated stereotypes about ourselves.

“Narrative matters and it has implications beyond just storytelling, it impacts investment in Africa, on youth and opportunities people see in their countries, on migration, creativity and innovation,” Makura says.

The research surveyed 38 African editors, analyzed content from 60 African news outlets in 15 countries (Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, DRC, Egypt, Tunisia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal) between September and October 2020.

In addition, four facilitated focus groups were held with 25 editors of African media, editors of Pan African outlets and international correspondents.

Talking points included: The ways African stories are framed in African media outlets, the types of stories prioritised, constraints on reporting on Africa and how the negative stereotypes of the continent can be shifted through the media.

A key point raised in the first session was: “One of the main topics being left out of the narrative is change: change on the continent, in countries and how it is being brought about by the youth.”

The results confirm challenges and experiences that are common knowledge within the industry: advertising revenue and newsrooms are shrinking, influencing the kind of news that Africans read and that news is largely negative and conflict filled.

Key findings from the report show that the sources for news gathering on African countries are problematic, the resulting content continues to feed old stereotypes, and often the quality of local journalism doesn’t allow for nuanced and contextualized storytelling that is critical for telling stories about the 54 countries in Africa.

Covering conflicts and disputes under topics such as elections, politics, crime, conflicts and protests predominates and such stories are also considered more newsworthy by editors.

In the study, coverage of some countries were mostly or all related to events, such as elections in Guinea and Tanzania and protests in Nigeria.

The report notes that common media practice is to select stories based on news values such as the impact of stories (as in how many people were impacted by an event), the surprising nature of the event (such as natural disasters). New stories are considered more newsworthy than older ones. Conflict generally makes for good news as does what happens to prominent people rather than those who are unknown. Media, the world over, select stories that will get attention and much of this attention may be due to the negative nature of events.

Editors and journalists interviewed in groups and surveyed acknowledged that there were stereotypes in their own and other African media’s coverage. Up to 87% of the editors surveyed said it was important or very important to cover African stories but 92% cited scarce resources as the biggest challenge to cover Africa more extensively.

The editors said there is need for deeper coverage but the available funding dictated that they use stories by western agencies, which often are in line with the expectations of western audiences, to cover stories from Africa.

In fact, agencies account for almost half (43%) of the stories about African countries in the media review.  Only 19% of the agency stories in the sample size were from agencies based in Africa. This means that it is often non-Africans who set the agenda or offer perspectives on African affairs and events.