THE other day I got a call from a student of media studies at Ryerson University in Toronto. She wanted to know my opinion on how Western media cover Africa. What bias do I see in the way Africa is written and reported about in the Canadian media, for example, she asked.
Does what is reported always accurately portray the situation on the ground? She wanted to know.
Well, I told her, the premise of Western media reporting is still rooted in colonial Africa. That was when the likes of colonial adventurers like John Hannington Speke, David Livingstone, Sir Samuel Baker, and others wrote of their encounters with deep and dark Africa.
The exotic African natives were the sources of hundreds of stories with which to regale the folks back home. Then, Africa was the place where, when you really wanted to show how courageous you were, you made a voyage to, and then you wrote about your trip, how dangerous it was, and how you almost got killed by savage natives and wild game.
Read on: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/709576
