Media Check: Africa

DIASPORA DIALOGUE: MEDIA CHECK AFRICA SUMMARY

DATE: MAY 19,  2011
VENUE: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
529 14th Street Northwest
Washington D.C., DC 20045

CO-HOSTED BY THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS
AFRICA DIASPORA FOR CHANGE (ADC)    
MS. DEIRDRE CHILDRESS OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR BLACK JOURNALISTS (NABJ)
TRANSAFRICA FORUM (TAF)

INTRODUCTION

• Event started at 6:40pm with Ms. Anna Mwalagho performing a poem that spoke volumes about the perception about Africa and Africans in the media. (The riveting poem can be found at: http://www.annamwalagho.com/poetry.html)
  

• Ms. Julian Kiganda, President of ADC and Vibrant Design Group proceeded to explain briefly about the program and acknowledged the presence of special guest speakers whom she had either met during The Renaissance Festival or with whom ADC was already collaborating with in various areas that concerned people of the African Diaspora.  The special guest speakers were Ms. Deirdre Childress and Mr. Mwiza Munthali.

PERCEPTION ABOUT AFRICA AND PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN THE MEDIA 

• Ms. Deirdre M. Childress,  the Vice President of NABJ who is currently running for NABJ President and is the Entertainment Editor for the Philadelphia National Inquirer begun with the powerful statement that "Perception becomes reality".  This reiterated all that Ms. Mwalagho poetically explained in her poem as Ms. Childress insisted that it is time for change.  It’s time to change the false and negative perceptions about Africa and its people. She plans to push for these changes which mainly arise through the media, through NABJ’s "World Affairs Task Force", if she succeeds in her contention for the Presidency of NABJ. 
• Ms. Childress explained how her visit to Senegal for the African Renaissance Festival helped change many of her own perceptions about Africa.  She was extremely impressed with the entire organization of the event as well as the fact that the African Renaissance Monument is bigger than most of the world’s largest famous monuments.  Yet these kinds of things are not readily mentioned in the mainstream media. 
• She insisted that we need to recognize people who are making a difference not just in how Africa and people of African descent are perceived but also those who are using the media to push for much-needed change.  Here she gave the example of Jean Claude Kavumbagu of Burundi who will be receiving NABJ’s Percy Qoboza Foreign Journalist Award 2011 for fearlessly speaking the truth through his work as a journalist.
• Ms. Childress made a clear point that there are many who consider themselves journalists, either through print or digital media.  In fact, due to high use of the internet to gather information and news many are now using blogs as their source of information.  The danger here, she warned, is that though "any journalist can be a blogger, not every blogger is a journalist".
•  Mr. Mwiza Munthali, the Public Outreach Director of TransAfrica Forum and host of Pacifica WPFW’s   "Africa Now!” proceeded to reiterate the need for an initiative such as "Media Check Africa".  He shared with attendees a report done by TransAfrica Forum in which they studied reporting by “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post”.  It is important to note that with printed media such as The Post and The Times, there’s an editing element involved which isn’t necessarily the case for digital media.  One of the conclusions derived from the report was that though conflict in other areas of the world such as Ireland usually requires in-depth research as to cause, this is not the case with conflict reported on the African continent.  Furthermore, the language used in the reporting often leads to make the conflicts in Africa to seem "insignificant" and "primitive/tribal" whereas those in other areas of the world may be described as arising from "religious" or "ethnic" differences.  

 SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

• When we see errors either in digital or print media we should see it as our duty to let the editors and journalists know their mistakes.  We have to see it as our obligation to bring about the change in perception as it will not happen on its own
• Errors in reporting on Africa have been most recently seen on the worldwide stage whereby most have labeled Egypt, Lybia and Morocco as  "Middle Eastern countries" instead of African countries with people of Middle Eastern descent
• We can also share our opinions, facts, corrections, tell our own stories through social networking sites, blogs, columns that can expand knowledge and as one attendee put it "Take the mike back".  Others reiterated this point by insisting that we must force change by going from formal to more informal media avenues and becoming our own "ambassadors"
• Most attendees supported the idea on developing a central repository whereby such columns, e-mails with corrections of stories with errors and where we can tell our own stories.  The challenge would be in how to set one up that could be accessible to the masses but the "Media Check Africa" Initiative being proposed by Ms. Childress is a possibility especially since it would be housed through a respected association of journalists.  An attendee offered a differing opinion of "United we stand, separated we stand" meaning that a central repository is not necessary and people can still bring about the needed changes by operating on their own.
• Mr. Munthali suggested that we support community radio, which is not influenced by corporations’ support, because it provides news with facts on people who are marginalized in other types of media.
• We can make a concerted effort to look for journalists who are reporting our story accurately and with some positive outlooks as well
• Mr. Menelik Zeleke, President and CEO of the Ethiopian TV channel "My Africa Channel" provided another solution.  He offered help to anyone who needs to get important information out about news in Africa and to help gain access to lawmakers
• Ms. Mary Elliot suggested adding a YouTube link to ADC website with the kind of stories of Africa we would like to see more of
• The other suggestion was to share ideas on how various portals can unite on this and other initiatives
• An attendee insisted on unity and working together to bring about the changes being suggested and that we must be careful not to "preach to the choir".  Ms. M. Kiganda confirmed the importance of how collaborative efforts will multiply what we are trying to do by reminding attendees that the very program we were all attending was a collaborative effort between three different organizations with the same goal of bringing about change for people of African descent but with different ideas on how to go about it and where their focus is.
• Ms. Loàn Sewer, Vice President of Vibrant Design Group suggested that we look into how we can utilize the Entertainment Industry Council that gets hot topics filtered into television shows as a way of "telling our story"
• Mr. Eby Aka, Senior Strategist for Global Caravan for Education and Cultural Exchange and author of The Walk to the Stage of Honor,  insisted on encouraging more involvement from young people.  He suggested that we ensure that the young people do know their own story accurately and it’s up to the elders to educate them.  We need to provide them with tangible contexts to justify the importance of Africa, which is often minimized in the media.  His passion is to encourage children to achieve, serve and develop ethics.  He authored a book that highlights these points and provides guidance on how to bring out the many gifts within our children and helping them become respectful and useful members of society. 
• In line with the push for getting young people involved, Mr. Emmanuel A. Gamor presented the idea of obtaining mentors for young people.  As a young adult of African descent whose family is involved in journalism through their publication “The New Ghanaian” he believes that mentors would serve to encourage young people of African descent to get involved in journalism.  He foresees the effect of mentorship eventually providing us with journalists of the African Diaspora journalists who would produce the accurate stories that we are seeking from the media.
• Ms. Mwalagho asked attendees to consider the following in an effort to bring about change in perception about people of African descent in the media:
• 1.  Talk about corrupt leaders and push for good leadership in Africa
• 2.  Consider ways in which we can develop our own "Africa Town" in the DMV similar to Chinatown that could result in building a strong African community.  Through this venture businesses of people of African descent would flourish and it would provide an avenue in which to provide services for African immigrants (i.e. immigration help, job opportunity resources, healthcare, and the basic necessities of life such as food, housing and clothing) .  This would be the beginning of the kind of unity and collaboration that Ms. Mwalagho dreams would be evident throughout Africa someday.
• Though these are good ideas, as one pointed out, we would have to work harder than say, the Chinese who are one people, because Africa is a big continent made up of many different countries and numerous ethnic groups
• Ms. Eve Ferguson, who works for the National Library of Congress, pointed out the importance of our seeking out information.  For example, gave the example of how the LOC offers lectures that would contribute greatly to the topic being discussed but they have poor attendance.
• We have to take responsibility for doing one thing to bring about change in perception about people of African descent and about Africa in the media and anywhere we see inaccuracies (an attendee gave an example of looking for ways to contact a playwright who described Africa as a beautiful "country" as opposed to "continent"
• We can become members of NABJ and disseminate information to others on how to join NABJ since NABJ’s World Affairs Task Force has great potential for becoming the clearing house for holistic reporting on Africa through the Media Check Africa Initiative.