Images of Africa:
'Africa and the developing world just doesn't get a fair go when it comes to media coverage'

Aoife Kavanagh (RTÉ), 26/07/07

 

Notes from a talk given by RTÉ TV and radio presenter Aoife Kavanagh's at the Connect-World/Suas seminar, Images of Africa in July. The seminar was intended to promote discussion and debate on how Africa is presented in the media.

 

 

Thanks for the opportunity to speak here today, and to discuss some of the challenges involved in portraying the complex issue of development and the developing world through, in my case, the media of TV and radio.

 

I had planned to begin today with some research that I found on media coverage of the Rwandan genocide back in 1994 which compared the amount of coverage given over to the first week of the genocide by the news magazines Time and Newsweek. The research compared the coverage of that first week with the amount of coverage afforded to the murders of eight western tourists in Uganda around the same time.

 

Needless to say, the tourists got much more space, but if I had presented that research, all it would have done would have been to reinforce what I think we all already know here

 

And that is that, given the scale of suffering, the huge populations we're talking about, the importance from a human rights point of view, Africa and the developing world just doesn't get a fair go when it comes to media coverage.

 

So that’s a given. What I want to discuss is why that might be the case and what, if anything, can be done about it.

 

 

1. The first problem, and as we're talking about images of Africa today - is I think, for a western audience, the sameness of that image.

 

It’s a dilemma that I face almost every time I cover development issues - and its one that struck me the very first time I visited Africa as a reporter for RTE. That time I was doing a piece on, what else but a looming food crisis in Ethiopia.

 

We were in the East of the country, five or six hours away from the nearest town and we came across an extended family, about 30 people, who at least a year before had abandoned their village and had become nomadic, constantly moving in search of food.

 

For me it was a case of coming face to face with extreme poverty for the first time in my life. This family between them had about three plastic sheets to cover their makeshift huts every night, and two battered old pots, one big, one smaller one. And I remember asking my cameraman to get lots of shots of this family, thinking, that to explain, graphically, this level of poverty is something that will make people at home sit up and watch.

 

And so I got home. And sat down to edit. And realised very quickly that there was absolutely nothing extraordinary about that family. And in the comfort of an editing suite in RTE, I realised that I'd seen those images a hundred times before, and so too, probably had the audience.

 

And that’s the core of the challenge. When it comes to development issues, to relaying the destitution of so many people's lives in parts of the developing world, it is often the very same story over and over again, that hasn't really changed very much in 30 years.

 

The image stays the same, and believe me, when it comes to persuading an editor to take a story or a boss to spend thousands sending you in the first place, you won't get very far if all you can do, literally, is offer up the same old story.

 

 

2. So, why not change that - why do we only get bad news from the developing world??

 

This is something I'm quizzed on almost every time I travel. When you get back, you can be guaranteed that some reporter or editor will say, powerful stuff from Darfur, or Afghanistan, or Sierra Leone, but God, its very sad - its hard to watch, is there anything good happening there at all??

 

The answer is, of course yes. When you think about the past decade in Africa, for example, we've seen the end of at least half a dozen civil wars, pretty impressive economic growth and a string of democratic elections. Which is great, but, as a journalist, I really struggle with the notion that I should do happy stories from the developing world, when there is still so much inequality and poverty - literally life and death issues.

 

However, I agree that it is important to present a more rounded view of the developing world, because there is in places progress and change. Why we, that is RTE doesn't often get to those stories is partly, I believe because we don't have somebody based permanently in the developing world. If you report, the way I do, on an in and out basis, then in my opinion you have to prioritise the life and death themes.

 

Would you be happy to sacrifice a report about human rights abuses for a piece on economic growth in Botswana??

 

 

3. I do worry, I have to be honest, about how difficult it is to get Africa, the developing world onto the news agenda. And I worry that it may be becoming more difficult.

 

One of the main reasons for this is that other great global issue of our time and that’s climate change, global warming. The G8 meeting in Germany recently was a good example of this. The agenda at the G8 over the past few years was firmly focused on fighting poverty, but we saw a change in June.

 

And I know from the discussions at news conferences in RTE that suddenly development issues had to share the stage with global warming.

In fact, when you think about it, aid and the developing world would hardly have gotten a look-in if it wasn't for Bob and Bono throwing a bit of a strop at the end of the summit - but they won't be around forever.

 

I also think news outlets, be they TV, radio or print are aware that for the next generation - and I'm only guessing here - climate change is probably THE hot topic, not what’s happening to the poorest billion people in the world.

 

That’s why I believe aid agencies, lobby groups, NGO's will all have to think a lot more about how to get their message across. Think about Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' and the impact that had in terms of raising awareness. I think the same kind of innovation needs to be brought to how Africa is portrayed.

 

By the way Darfur is probably a good example of how an issue can be kept on the news agenda by getting the right people interested in it. George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie - you might shudder at the thought of these kind of 'celebrity issues', but its certainly kept the focus on Darfur in the US - though it remains to be seen what difference that might make.

 

4. Sometimes I wonder if NGO's here know just how much they could influence coverage of development issues, if they get it right.

 

Lets be honest, journalists are often waiting around for somebody to come up with a good idea, a good angle and hand them a story on a quiet day, or otherwise.

 

And from some of the approaches I see, some of the stories I see being pitched, I have to wonder if they truly understand what it takes to get a story onto the news agenda. I think they could be more tuned in to how the media operates and what pushes their buttons.

 

I don't think its enough any more to simply do the story of the Irish nurse working in a health clinic in Niger. The audience has become more sophisticated; they're travelling more, they are open to hearing African voices on African issues; but - I have had direct experience of this - an aid agency telling you that somebody is a good radio or TV performer and speaks perfect English is no good when in the middle of the interview you realise that they're not, and that in fact the audience is losing interest. I have pushed items in the newsroom on the basis of guarantees from aid agencies and have been let down - and that just means that the next time I suggest a guest, they'll be sceptical.

 

The good news though is that I really believe that Irish people are interested in development issues. I know because I see the reaction to the coverage in e-mails sent to the newsroom. If we cover a development issue well, then we will get good feedback, and that’s not the case with all stories. People really do sit up and notice if the coverage is good.