With better media coverage, the United States and the world would realize that there is more to Africa than death, disease, disaster, and despair. Charlayne Hunter-Gault delivered that message in a discussion Friday at the Center for American Progress.
Hunter-Gault, an award winning journalist currently working for NPR, talked about her new book, New News Out of Africa, with Gayle Smith, senior fellow at the Center. Touching on a wide range of African issues, the event focused on the impact of how Africa is treated in the American media.
“We don’t know enough about Africa,” Smith said, because our current media coverage is reactionary and piecemeal, suffering from the “if it bleeds, it leads” syndrome. As a consequence, the American public has become apathetic to the continent. The perception, according to Hunter-Gault, is that if conditions never change than the issues are not a good investment of time, emotions, and money.
The lack of consistent media attention is obscuring important positive developments in Africa. The most interesting stories, for Hunter-Gault, are not Africa’s problems but the hope and heroism throughout the continent in the face of those problems. “Today there is a second wind of change blowing across Africa,” she said. Pointing to tentative but consistent democratic progress and a growing confidence that Africa can be active in improving itself, Hunter-Gault expressed hope that a more positive image of Africa in the media could emerge.
Hunter-Gault emphasized that understanding the day-to-day stories of Africa means abandoning preconceived notions. Reporters covering Africa should “try to portray people in ways that are recognizable” to Africans. To gain the right perspective, she said, “You have to go there to know there.” With that message, Hunter-Gault’s new book hopes to bring the right kind of media coverage to a dynamically growing continent.
