The media and Africa: Where are the eccentrics and wrestlers?

Here’s an interesting view on the damage incorrect, or better yet, incomplete pictures of Africa can do to the continent.

It’s a reprint from Knowledge@Wharton:

Yet [President and CEO of South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., Euvin] Naidoo -- a fourth-generation South African whose organization was recently highlighted by the Clinton Global Initiative -- acknowledged that despite the investment rush, the image of the continent still lags. To dramatize that problem, he showed the audience a standard classroom map of the world and then an actual satellite image, proving that Africa is actually much larger than commonly depicted in the West. In reality, the United States, continental Europe and China could fit inside the African land mass, with some room to spare.

In fact, he noted, public dialogue about Africa has changed little since October 1960, when then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy said: "If we are to create an atmosphere in Africa in which freedom can flourish -- where long-enduring people can hope for a better life for themselves and their children, where men are winning the fight against ignorance and hunger and disease -- then we must embark on a bold and imaginative new program for its development."

"I found it very interesting that a great man almost 50 years ago could be transported in time -- and we face challenges very similar to what was described back then," Naidoo said.

A Robert Kaplan book I read a few year’s back (I think it was Ends of the Earth, but I could be wrong) where he brought up the story of a fight between staffers at the LA Times and its news editors about the problems and supposed superficiality of African coverage in the paper. Bah-humbug, Kaplan noted, the truth needs to be told about Africa just like any other place. He’s right. But when is the last time you saw an actual feature story from Africa? Or at least a news story from outside the following topics (choose one of the above): AIDS, Child Soldiers, War, Witches, Animal poachers, etc. (The LA Times really cultivates animal stories from Africa.)

Coverage of Europe and Asia is often full of feature stories that actually say more about a foreign people and how they live than the elite-focused political or traditionally newsy pieces that make up the bulk of what we refer to as “international coverage.”

I remember hearing the Pulitzer-winning Richard Read from the Oregonian say that when he headed his newspaper’s Japan bureau, the one story that received the most attention and feedback was about an elderly lady whose apartment was full of batteries that she had collected over the years. Granted, the story didn’t say much about the Japanese political situation or its economy. But it brought to life an individual and made her (and the rest of the country) one step closer to readers back in the States. (Or at least in the Willamette valley.)

Of course, foreign-based reporters are already overworked and traveling in Africa can be difficult; this, along with space limitations, guarantee that editors can only expect so much out of these increasingly expensive correspondents. The collective brain-trust must be thinking: Why waste our hard-fought space on an eccentric when we need to tackle the continent’s real problems.

That’s not to say that features from Africa have never been published in metropolitan dailies. Norimitsu Onishi from the New York Times wrote about wrestling in Senegal and about continuing to mine salt in the Sahara. Traditional Times’ African hang-ups: AIDS, teenage brides, war didn’t show up in either story. (Perhaps that’s why he was sent away to Japan?)

Yes, I’ve beaten this drum so many times my hands hurt. However, haven’t we come to a point where ignoring Africa’s other issues is becoming detrimental to the role of a free press. (Elements of Journalism rule eight: Journalists must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.)

I hate to get all cold and realist here, but let’s take a hard look at Africa’s problems as covered through major newspapers. Estimated amount of people suffering from HIV/AIDS in Africa: 22.5 million. Estimated population of Africa: near 900 million. Percentage of Africans suffering from HIV/AIDS: 2.5 percent, or very roughly 5 percent of adult population (ages 15-49, used for most common years of sexual activity). Number of estimated child soldiers in Africa: In 1999 the only number I could find, it was more than 120,000. Estimated amount of children in Africa: 193.5 million (in 2000). Total number of “child” child soldiers in Africa: less than half a percent. (All population figures come from this rockin’ data base.)

That’s not to say that the millions of AIDS patients suffer any less, or the 1.7 million people infected in the past year aren’t worth our support (however that may come about). Nor is it to say that one child soldier is one too many. (And we’ve not even looked at other issues facing the continent.)

In the end, it’s a question of how journalists frame stories. This is not the glass half-full or half-empty debate, but the inability to look beyond conventional wisdom (and the sheer simplicity of following up on press releases) and searching out a juicy story all on your own.

Hey, hard-headed editors: Isn’t it time we broaden the scope of African coverage? Especially when your reporters are writing for readers back home in a country like the United States, a place with more than its fair share of gun violence and car violence; A country where everyone seems to be either morbidly obese or morbidly ill from the rotten meat they’ve ingested. (How many of these stories will be in the newspapers in one-month time?)

A Molotov, with love

Sometimes it’s best to file rants away. Those short, shrill manifestoes of vitriol and spite. What is it they prove, anyway? Is losing a little restraint all that important – even if all you’re doing is getting something off your chest? If that’s what it takes to feel better in these dark times, more power to you. But, just maybe, you should look into another line of work: perhaps grabbing a spray paint can or maybe a tattoo gun.

The question I pose: Do these rants light a fire in our heads and actually force us to reconsider our thoughts and actions? Sure. These tirades must hold some power because without their strength of force we would have canceled those silly comment sections on websites, and newspapers would no longer allow lazy readers to call in and scream their half-baked ideas into answering machines instead of forcing them to write them down. (Who has the time anymore?)

No, dear friends, rants hold a more fundamental meaning – in a Russian Revolution sort of way. The ranter as writer is not looking expectantly to change peoples’ ideas. No, our ranter would merely like people to think exactly like him (or, less often, like her). The hope that the world will mimic someone's thoughts is what marries the scribe and the revolutionary. Think like me and all will be well.

Of course, writers never come out and admit this. They're cowards. They’d rather just sit in the safety of their own home, sullenly pick away at the keyboard and pray somehow their ideas make the jump from paper to real world.

For those few who come from behind the typewriter and admit they’re in the business of changing minds – then, they’re no longer writers. They’re revolutionaries – and it’s best you don’t associate with commies.

The idea of this site is to provide proof that Africa stands for a lot more than the press – sorry folk, the U.S. press – gives it credit for. Africa’s a complicated place, a much more complex game than its highlight reel. When one concentrates on the final push, the bottom line, we’ll only see the extremes.

I pointed this out a few weeks ago: Using a simple search method at the New York Times, the terms “AIDS” + “Africa” brought back 250 stories published in the past year. What I didn’t say was that searching the terms “Africa” + “fun” returned 91 hits. (The greatest ranked section: sports!). In the same vein, searching “Africa” + “pleasure” = 69 hits, most of them in movies.

So, where is the fun?

AFRICOM: A failure to communicate

I’ve covered some of the debate surrounding the U.S. military adventures in East Africa and the Sahel. But I haven’t written much about AFRICOM. That’s partly because it’s just been finalized and policies don't seem to be firmed up.

Born out of a recent reorganization in the Pentagon, AFRICOM will be the first U.S. military command solely responsible for Africa and a few outlying island states. Its basic premise will allow U.S. soldiers to work directly with African militaries and build “local security capacity,” claims Theresa Whelan, Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs. Peace keeping will be a high priority for the training agenda as will maritime security. These trainings will hopefully build local capacity so when security issues arise, African militaries can manage them without relying on the international community.

But there's more. AFRICOM basically follows the leads of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Horn of Africa and a second program in the Sahel, where the U.S. military has expanded its traditional role. Instead of solely providing training, U.S. soldiers will also assist local populations with engineering and humanitarian support, simple development chores like digging wells or providing medical, dental and veterinarian service.

For those in the development field, herein lies a red flag. Where is the line drawn between “military support” and “development assistance”? (Or, where is the line drawn between working with corrupt militaries and their usual prey, the local population?) Well, the Pentagon admits, that lined is purposely blurred. According to this FAQ, AFRICOM’s goals include: “[T]o better enable the Department of Defense and other elements of the U.S. government, to work in concert and with partners to achieve a more stable environment in which 1) political and economic growth can take place and 2) humanitarian and development assistance can be used more effectively.”

Again, there’s more. Rumors persist that the U.S. is looking for a base in Africa to station AFRICOM. Since the end of 2002, around 1,800 U.S. soldiers and civilian employees have worked out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti City, Djibouti, providing security assistance for trouble spots in East Africa and doing some of that aforementioned winning over the hearts and minds. In the Sahel program, soldiers don’t stay long in one country, so a base has not been a necessity.

But…The U.S. government has allegedly asked around for the use of space in a number of African countries. African governments have turned them down – and the South Africans have coordinated a large “no” block in southern tip of the continent. (On the other hand, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf freely admits she supports AFRICOM’s general principal.)

As you can see, one problem concerning AFRICOM is the lack of detail. Yet this dearth of information hasn’t stopped people from speculating like a stock market bonanza.

AFRICOM: the new militarization of Africa.
AFRICOM: the U.S. digging in to protect its oil interests in Africa.
AFRICOM: An expensive development program.

These stories are mostly opinion and analysis pieces. My worry begins when unverified opinionating finds its way into news stories from the mainstream press.

Here is a story from National Public Radio.

“AFRICOM is about oil," says Sandra Barnes, the founding director of the Africa Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

But, she adds, AFRICOM is also about China.

Barnes points out that China is now one of the largest foreign donors to Africa. The continent is awash in Chinese exports and today, China brings in more oil from Angola than it does from Saudi Arabia.

Over the past five years, China has also started to develop oil platforms in the Gulf of Guinea, worrying officials at the Pentagon and the State Department. Many Africa analysts say that's the main reason the U.S. is pursuing AFRICOM.

So, what is it oil or China?

How are we supposed to know? Curious listeners could believe the unverified opinions of the director of the African Studies Center from the University of Pennsylvania. Or, they could? Believe the unverified opinions of the director of the African Studies Center from the University of Pennsylvania.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Let me put this another way. The press has been rightly criticized for allowing the government to frame the debate in the years directly after Sept. 11, 2001. When their assertions were mostly debunked in the Iraq war, government critics felt vindicated – and reporters began chasing them down for quotes. That doesn't address the real problem. Any so-called expert worth tenure has more than enough ability to lead journalists down wild goose chases.

I am not trying to carp on NPR here. Nor am I against placing opinions in news stories. What I don’t like is allowing speculation to fly unverified through the airwaves.

The role of the media is to help readers/listeners understand an issue. To do this, the press has a responsibility to stop the debate from spinning out of control. We’re here to provide context. And with that comes the responsibility to say “how do you know that?”

AIDS in Africa: Context, please

Two issues have stood out above others in my storied career as a press critic. One, I’ve called for more coverage of shark attacks, a wish the fourth estate is currently fulfilling. Second, I’ve called for providing readers more with context – more background information so they can better understand how an issue truly affects others. This is especially important for international stories, where readers may not have everyday understanding of the problems facing, say, Africans.

Here’s an example:

On the Oprah Winfrey show, Bono explains some of the bad news facing the continent: “Currently, 28 million Africans are infected HIV; approximately 1.5 million children.”

In a perfect world, Oprah would then whip out her laptop and pull up this website, and say to Bono: “Well, it says here that more than 922 million people live in Africa. That would be” – tapping on a calculator – “about three percent.”

Oprah would then look solemnly at the camera: “Three percent of Africans have AIDS. It’s a tragedy, a human tragedy. But the way you keep going on, Bono, you’d think that four out of five Africans were lying in huts waiting to die.”

This didn’t happen, of course. Oprah Winfrey is not in the business of fighting with too many guests. She's an entertainer. She is not responsible for vetting much of the information reported on her show.

But what can we say of our news organizations?

A recent New York Times story reported that according to a poll, 42 percent of Americans think that AIDS is the world’s most prolific killer of children under five. However, the disease is only responsible for three percent of the nearly 10 million deaths to children every year.

Also, nearly one in five of those polled felt malaria was the biggest killer. But the mosquito-born illness kills about 8 percent of children under five.

To the story:

The reasons for this misapprehension are varied, but they most likely include health advocates' recent success in focusing politicians and news organizations on the undeniably horrific toll from AIDS and malaria.

''It's based on what's in the news,'' said Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, an organization of health professionals, nonprofit groups and other institutions. ''And it's a vicious cycle. The things that get reported on are the things that people believe are important.''

Health advocates’ recent success focusing news organizations? Apparently, the New York Times takes no responsibility for these misconceptions. In fact, the story is placed under the following headline:

In U.S. Poll, Most Fail a Quiz on Global Causes of Child Deaths

Yet, a simple search of “AIDS + Africa” at nytimes.com yielded more than 250 stories (including one in the Home and Garden section) published within the past year. Conversely, a search for the words "diarrhea" + "Africa" landed only 24 hits. By the looks of it, those health professionals working with AIDS must have done a lot of arm twisting.

Yes, Americans may be ignorant about the cause children’s deaths (I know I am). But I’d like to think as journalists we could start looking for blame elsewhere for our readers’ lack of understanding.

Literature Review: Egypt

What the press is saying about that country with the cool pyramids?
Literature Review is an occasional series investigating how the U.S. press covers an African country or issue.

For the foreign correspondent, Egypt represents a dilemma. Stories in the international press from there fluctuate between the two extremes of dreary and gruesome. And no wonder: Today’s Egypt is a land that seems to be teetering on the brink of civil calamity. For the foreign correspondent worth his or her salt, a dateline in Egypt must be like a right of passage. Since time immemorial these dynamic writers have duly set off and filed stories on the overcrowded slums of Cairo, the general population’s rabid hatred of the West (not to mention Israel), the corrupt, nasty government of Honsi Mubarak, the seething Islamists, journalists (and now bloggers) languishing in prison and more recently, the hotels on the Sinai Peninsula left in charred, smoking ruins. (Let me know if I missed anything.)

There is problem with this line of thought, however. If we are to believe writers, Egypt has forever seemed to be on the verge of some melt down. When wasn’t Cairo overcrowded? When didn’t at least some of the population have second-thoughts about secular government? When did people anywhere adore blatantly corrupt leaders? And that’s why many of these breathless narratives suffer from the problem of low-hanging fruit. Of course, it’s important to document all the viciousness occurring in a country. If you didn’t you’d be remiss – and be sent back home. The mathematics behind these reports, however, feels too simple: oppressive government + struggling democrats + “reform-minded” Islamists = “modern” Egypt.

Underneath these stories, I feel a little weariness creeping into the once-stolid omniscient narrator of newspaper journalism. You know, the quaint tug of the world’s most dangerous nagging question: I flew all the way here for this? I can picture reporters asking themselves: Isn’t there something deeper, more fundamental going on here? Perhaps it’s something I could find if my editor would allow me to skip the next protest and actually sit down and speak with people. (If not, maybe I could at least go snorkeling.)

Working for the clampdown
From the looks of it, maybe it is best we don’t investigate further. Politics is a tough game in Egypt. The papers have done a good job keeping us informed on the comings and goings of the political class. “The regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is in the midst of one of its largest crackdowns against public dissent in a decade,” the Christian Science Monitor reported last week. Judges handed down prison sentences to seven journalists; emergency laws allow the government to allow upwards of 1,000 “activists” from the Muslim Brotherhood to stew in jail; labor activists have been detained for inciting strikes. On top of that, groups of Bedouins, who claim the police do not properly protect them, recently turned their anger on the headquarters of the ruling party’s headquarters and defaced pictures of President Honsi Mubarak, according to the Associated Press.

Put away the fact that Egypt must have a lot of prisons. The implication of all these stories is the well documented fact that Egyptian authorities have no compunction against torture. "It's hard to explain why, except that torture becomes a habit," Aida Seif al-Dawla, a psychologist who runs a rehabilitation center for victims of violence, told the Christian Science Monitor. "But there's no question that police abuse has gone through the roof.”

The San Francisco Chronicle recounted a story about a video posted on the internet taken from a cell phone camera of a 13-year-old boy released after spending seven days in police custody for allegedly stealing tea bags. In the video, the boy was “tattooed with bruises and burn marks, and his torso a patchwork of bandages.” He died a few hours later.

Moving on from the gruesome details of the boy’s torture, the story considers whether the proliferation of cell phones with cameras will put the brakes on police brutality. "Activists that have worked to end torture have told me: 'You've done more in a few days what we were not able to do in 10 years,' " said a 32-year-old Egyptian blogger responsible for posting films of police torture videos.

One major daily considers the long-term prognosis of the Mubarak regime. For those waiting for the 79-year-old man (ranked by Parade Magazine as the world’s 18^th-worse dictator in 2007) to simply ride off into the sunset, don’t be on it. The Washington Post said the ruling coterie is grooming 41-year-old Gamal Mubarak, a former investment banker in London, to succeed his father. The reporter even tagged along to a youth conference (populated by the ruling class) where Gamal – who is known in Egypt as “Jimmy” – gave a barely passable speech. What he lacks in charisma, Jimmy may make up for in business savvy. He has already helped usher in the beginnings of reform to Egypt’s economy. (World Bank president Robert Zoellick recently pointed out that Egypt tops the list of reforming countries at a speech at the National Press Club.)

So, will sophisticated Jimmy throw off the reins once he takes power? Just like father-son leadership changes in Morocco, Jordan and Syria, the apples rarely fall far from the tree. "People always think, 'He uses the Internet and he speaks good English and therefore he won't be like his parents,'” a Middle East expert at George Washington University told the Post. “But it never seems to work out that way.”

Stranger than fiction
The reality underlying every one of these stories is the strange truth that U.S. taxpayers provide a hefty allowance to the Mubarak government. According to the State Dept., U.S. military assistance to Egypt amounts to more than $1.3 billion per year and USAID has ponied up more than $25 billion in development assistance between 1975 and 2002.

The New York Times reports that (at least one) member of the Egyptian opposition complains that Condoleezza Rice now only half-heartedly broaches the subject of human rights violations with the Egyptian government. By referring only to “advocates and analysts,” the story attempts to make the point that in previous years, the Bush administration aggressively campaigned for democracy in countries like Egypt. Apparently it worked. However, the administration now cannot be bothered.

“I think the American government does give Egypt leeway to deal with the domestic opposition so long as Egypt supports the American foreign policy in the region,” Mustapha Kamel el-Sayyid, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo, told the New York Times. That includes helping Israel and the Palestinians find common ground and opposing the spread of Iran’s influence.

In their defense, American officials claim they continue to raise these issues, yet the Egyptians often bristle at Washington’s interference in domestic affairs.

A confederate knows
Journalist maxim # 679: The problem with low-hanging fruit is that it is often better left for the kids. Or the chickens.

In a country as large, complicated and promising as Egypt, there must be a million stories to tell. Make that a billion. But readers aren’t finding those stories. Oh, newspaper editors (and newspaper ombudsman) will stammer and shout: That’s a repressive regime in Egypt! And one of our “allies,” too. The Truth must get out!

I don’t mean to get all Edward W. Said here, but American writers have always represented Egypt as a country of menacing cries, zealous Arabs mixed in with the occasional bout of proper “European” conduct. Don’t believe me; check out this passage from William Loring’s 1884 book A Confederate Soldier in Egypt:

It was my first experience among these transformed Eastern people, and the impression was vivid. Returning to see European dress and vehicles in common use, it seemed at first as though Oriental Cairo touched by the hand of Ismail had lost some of its time-honored splendor. In truth, Cairo showed in former days the glittering ostentation of the favored few, which sadly contrasted with the most squalid and repulsive poverty of the many. There was that sort of wretchedness which made Egypt a pest-house, but the improvement of the people and the forced observance of sanitary precautions in the fourteen years of the reign of Ismail had effaced many sad and sorrowful pictures. In all that time Egypt had never been visited by an epidemic ; formerly the curse was periodical. No man of feeling who knew the past failed to be gladdened by the change ; every such man kindly extended his sympathy to that ruler who had fearlessly wiped out old customs and landmarks in the interest of humanity ; whose reign commenced with heaps of mud houses, and closed with so many finely constructed buildings and other material improvements ; who transformed Egypt into a civilized country, where the stranger was welcomed, and through which he could journey with as much comfort and safety as in any other part of the world.

Today, lefty media groups complain newspapers merely present international events through the frame of the war on terror: “Friend” of U.S. worries about Islamic extremism, yet continues doing harm to its people. Righties would say – well, I honestly don’t know what they’d say. The point is, what will people in, say, 75 years declare when they come across today’s tracts? Like Loring before, we’re projecting the profound worries of our age – human and political rights, freedom from poverty, an overwhelming fear of terror – onto our stories.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Until you’ve asked yourself whether we’ve grown up enough to move off the well trodden path of misunderstanding and misrepresenting countries like Egypt. Like the Cold War before, the War on Terror will someday be short-listed to the dust bin of history. But as journalists, we seem set on rehashing the same mistakes our forefathers made. Let me be clear: We need a new lens to view this old country. Let’s retire the antiquated arithmetic of glittering ostentation + wretchedness = “modern” Egypt.