The voices are growing because Africa needs to be heard, our people are demanding to be heard!
The greatest biases are not committed in what is told but what isn’t. The western media despite its best efforts cannot be entirely accurate nor objective in it’s coverage of Africa issues because of existing misconceptions and sometimes lack of basic understanding about African history and its political dynamics. Africa has always been portrayed as a backward continent and unfortunately African coverage is hardly ever positive. This bias comes from ignorance because there aren’t enough people to tell the stories of an emerging Botswana, peace in the Congo, buddying democracies, Algeria’s efforts to fight terrorism, Wangari Maathai and many other shining lights in Africa. There is a vacuum of African opinions on our economic emergence, the global balance of trade, the genocide in Darfur, the civil war in Somalia and many other issues affecting the continent.The African media has failed Africans by being neither reliable nor credible. This is best highlighted by our media only copies reports and even interviews from external networks such as CNN, BBC & Al Jazeera even when the coverage is on African affairs.
We live in the age of Information. So this means that information is power, it’s the most potent tool on earth and many Africans don’t get it – the little they do is either incomplete, irrelevant or simply inaccurate - so we will never be fully empowered unless we own our information. I would like to challenge Africans sharpen pencils, pick up their cameras and microphones and to tell their own stories and to help create African solutions to African problems. Africans have a bigger role to play in their education and in shaping the globe. Let’s change the perception about the continent!
On this blog we will strive to do our part; to give an African perspective on past and current world affairs, to try and embellish any misconceptions about Africa as might come to our notice.
Speak up Africa and let us be heard!
May 25, 2010
chemoss
1 responses to “African Voices”
felixnyoro
October 1st, 2008 at 11:00
This is true we need a think tank that will showcase the other side of Africa since the Western media has done a lot of damage to the African perspective.We cannot wait but change the tide and show that Africa has another side especially in Agriculture and Tourism.
The western media should be ashamed for lopsided reporting that exposes Africa as a morgue and a place where civilisation is far…………………… actually light years.
The world can learn about democracy from outh Africa whose ruling party ANC recalled the immediate former President…………………A lesson on governance from a people depicted as savage.