Shooting the Messenger

When it comes to Africa, the media, as always, is a convenient scapegoat.

It’s awfully easy to blame Africa’s struggle to attract foreign investment on the steady stream of bad news coming out of the African continent. Undeniably, Western opinion of Africa as a risky place to do business is powerfully shaped by magazine images of flies on faces, newspaper stories about 4,000 percent inflation, and Hollywood films about Africa’s darkest times (Last King of Scotland, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, etc.) But the issue is more complicated than that. 

Everyone knows these stories do the continent a grave disservice. And many of our deep dive participants have lamented this so-called “CNN Effect,” or the image problem that 24-hour news channels create for Africa. “The brand of Africa is not a good brand,” said Patrick Muthui, the CEO of Virtual Services at RMB Private Bank in South Africa, at our Lisbon deep dive. “But in it are great stories of success.”

Mr. Muthui’s point is valid. There are many success stories coming out of Africa today, some of which we have experienced first hand throughout the GIO process. But the majority of the world cannot go to Africa to see these successes for themselves. And so they get their information from the media, which, despite all the talk of its demise, remains a powerfully influential force.

Combating the CNN effect is not easy. The stories they report on are real. And they are worthy of reporting. Corruption, genocide, and economic strife are stories of both human interest and global economic consequence. To not report on them would be considered morally irresponsible journalism.

The trick is how you can begin to inject some of the more positive stories into the tightly-packed 24-hour news cycle, or squeeze a few business success stories onto the prized real estate of the Wall Street Journal.

Hubert Danso, vice chairman of the African Investment Advisory Group at NEPAD, spent years shopping positive business stories around to the international media types. He got nothing but lip service. So he finally decided that if he wanted the stories of Africa’s burgeoning economic prowess and entrepreneurial spirit to reach the world, he was going to have to tell those stories himself. Danso is now the managing editor of Africa Investor magazine. It’s as slick as anything you’d pick up on a New York newsstand, has top-notch research, and relentlessly covers business issues in and around the continent. If you want to get the other side of the business climate story in Africa, it’s a must-read.

Other deep dive participants have broached the idea of a news portal that focuses exclusively on positive stories coming out of Africa. While the journalist in me bristles at the notion of such an explicitly agenda-driven news outlet, a closer look at the reasoning behind such a portal allays my concerns.

When you look at why international media focus on the disaster and disarray in Africa, it comes down to a few things. One, it is sensational stuff, no question. But also, it’s readily available. There are mouthpieces that are willing to offer up headline-grabbing quotes. Non-governmental organizations, by their very nature, need to sell the media stories of doom-and-gloom, as part of their fund-raising efforts and justification for their very existence. So the lazy journalist will follow this path of least resistance and tell the stories of starvation and civil strife.

But if there were an easy place to find compelling stories of business success, personal triumph, and economic progress, wouldn’t that also make for interesting journalism? So we’re talking about a media center, staffed with communications professionals, relentlessly scouring the continent for human interest stories, case studies, and trend stories that could be packaged up with quotable experts and fed to international news outlets at a moment’s notice. It’s called public relations, and it works for major corporations. So why not Africa?