By Cedrick Ngalande
It’s difficult to get correct news about South Africa by simply reading the Western press. I have lived in the US for nearly a decade. Every morning I look through the press to get news on Africa. In those 10 years I have never seen a single news article that correctly and fairly reported on Africa.
Recently during a media panel event at the University of Southern California, I asked a former Los Angeles Times editor why the Western press always quote only white South Africans when reporting on South African affairs. He attributed the problem to laziness. Some journalists are simply too lazy to look for new sources so they just stick with the usual ones, he said.
Perhaps a more realistic answer was given by another member of the panel. This panellist pointed out that, when journalists go abroad, they tend to look for (and believe) people who look more like themselves. Usually these are the people with whom they drink and spend time in those foreign countries … and yes, they are usually white.
In many ways this has been the legacy of Western reporting on Africa. A quick perusal through the media will show that major Western news networks tend to seek out views of white people when they report on issues affecting South Africa. Even local (South African) correspondents for the Western media tend to be selected from among white South Africans. In reporting on Africa, the Western press has imbedded itself in the white section of South Africa. This is the reason news from South Africa tend to be slanted against black people and black governments and usually in favour of white people.
Opinions of the Democratic Alliance, a white opposition party, and the AfriForum, a white civil-rights group, are presented in the media as views of “many” South Africans. On the other hand, views from the black community and government are usually ignored in media. In reporting on issues like Zimbabwe, the media rarely gives an opportunity to the South African government to explain its position.
As much biased against South Africa as most of the Western press is, the South African media is worse. Mostly an extension of the European press, the South African media is perhaps the least diverse press in the whole world. Despite the fact that more than 75% of South Africans are black and less than 10% white, the press is largely white. A press conference in South Africa will look significantly whiter than a press conference in America. Even the so-called “black newspapers” are not controlled and owned by black people. Black journalists are expected to be more pro-Europe or Anglophiles before they can be hired by the press. Letters to the editor that support Europe over Africa are easily printed than vice versa.
Even worse, the South African media is hopelessly out of touch with the majority of the South African population. In the run up to the recent World Cup, this press consistently talked about how the World Cup will be a failure and how South Africans are not going to be enthusiastic about it — they were wrong. In any general election after 1994, this media has predicted that the ruling ANC party will lose a lot of its majority and that a minority white party, the DA party, will win — they have always been wrong. Why do the Western and South African journalists often get the mood of South Africa wrong? Of course the answer is simple; they often ignore the black majority and only seek the opinion of white South Africans.
It is to this background that, recently, the South African government put forward proposals to reform the media in South Africa. Predictably, the reaction from the press has been swift. The South African press is fighting hard to stop the legislation. Fears have been expressed that the government will control the press and possibly imprison journalists who defy it. But to most black Africans, what is surprising and worrying about the reporting on this legislation is what the media chooses not to report about it. This legislation, more than anything else, seeks to diversity the media. Yet the press, in its fight against the legislation, barely mentions the diversity argument.
No society can develop, no democracy flourish, if the majority of the people are denied opportunity to have their views and opinions freely disseminated. The South African press is a window not only to South Africa but the whole of Africa as well. To the extent that the South African government is trying to achieve diversity in the press, all freedom-loving people must support it.
A diverse South African press will be more fair and balanced, and in turn, will influence better reporting on Africa in the Western media.
Cedrick Ngalande is an aerospace engineer and space scientist currently residing in California, US. He holds a PhD in astronautical engineering and was born in Malawi
On the other hand, the fact that the US does very little reporting on Africa at all stood you all in good stead for the World Cup. Absent from US media were all the stories about needing flak jackets and pistols. And more Americans came as tourists to the WC than any other nationality.
@HDS,Orefile, most places in Africa the press is not free to report and the reporters can be killed or deported. The author of this article used one incident of the world cup to make his point and he knows that this is not the case. Just recently a reporter in Angola was gunned down for reporting because he was reporting on the negative aspect of the government. As far as the world cup, this is not the US game because American football is the thing in the US.
Well thought out comment Orefile.
For the author to make a point and base it on certain variables, given that this is an opinion piece, he had to select a case. In this instance being the WC. And admittedly, that event is the single most positively reported story worldwide about Africa. Next to Madiba.
However, any positive news about the World Cup were as a result of an event and things surrounding it.
Did anything change in the townships? No. Did people return to Soweto thereafter? Mostly not.
So far as this media that reports views of the majority, besides tabloids and gossip layered newspapers, please point them out.
Of course no one is a victim. Though nobody is – it also does not eliminate the fact that the scales are still tilted in favour of some, to the detriment of others.
@fergie: I’m an American, I’m well aware of our sports proclivities. Nonetheless, there were more American tourists than any other nationality during the World Cup, and I attribute that in part to the fact that we were not deluged with hysterical stories about crime and danger as the Europeans were. To the extent that we had coverage, it was quite positive, although probably equally dishonest: very fuzzy Rainbow Nation-Mandela-Invictus sort of things, as if South Africa is frozen in 1994.
@fergie – While those books on corrupt african leaders do carry truth unfortunately they only tell half a story on how corrupt africa and its leadership ease. It does not ususally cover the other end of the story about the corrupt western multi-nationals that support and maintain these corrupt african leaders so that these multi-nationals can get their smutty hands on africa’s natural resources. Africa’s problems are created by perplexed by non-africans with the ordinary african bearing the brunt of it all. To add insult to injury the ordinary african gets questioned about their ballot choices while it is obvious that the ordinary african has little control over decisions made about their leadership while the west continues to do this for them. In the end africans are again double double jeopardised by the negative media reports made about them.
Hawu Ngalane you hit it spot-on.What do you say about the Black Editors of those media houses then if the reflection is of such tilted biase? Read a book on ‘Tears from the Black Pulpit’ by Clifford Nhlapho. He xposes the pain inflicted by the Missioneries on Black Pastors and their families.These are hidden part of the black history, aimed at hiding our painful past that influences our current spiritual condition.Thank God that we have visionaries like you.My GCEO says ‘Each generation must solve their own current challenges’.This blog proves that there are fellow south african across the colour-line who are also concerned.I mean even white South Africans saw through this during the World Cup! They put on the colours of the Country and showed the media their allegiance. I am proud to be South Africa, more so now. We must isolate doomsayers as citizens. Stand up together like the colours on a Zebra!!’If the story of hunting was told by the hunted,history will read different.
welakapela…people cant deal with cedric’s lekker article, anglophile is my new word! he is right! the western media uses the following methodology: “RUT” = “Repeat Until True” here are some of the lies….
whities are better at governing countries in africa
blacks are lazy, dumb and dont read
anc rules the country
da official opposition
this is their brief to report on these “planned and fabricated issues!!!
in actual fact the anc does’nt really rule this country it’s big business who rules…”Anglo-everything”
and besides white/european multi-national mining/shipping/farming/etc/etc..we also have massive multi-national media companies who pays the white and the black journalists their salaries
the media is not the mouth piece of the ANC but the ANGLOPHILES tool to control & dumb the masses!!! the brief: keep them dumb, let them not rise up against us: big business who is really dragging the masses through the gutters…the anglophiles are paying government thru commission, who is the buffer zone between business and it’s modern day unconscious, very asleep black & white slaves!
do your research…business rules not politicians….big business has given politicians their job descriptions: “promise everything and deliver nothing to your people” what this means is: when a politician don’t deliver the white or black press will talk about it!
reject and forget the vote! we want our land and resources back from the queen and it’s ANGLOPHILES
@Shosholoza, the other half of the story is that the national prosecutors in most African countries are not independent and can do nothing to African officials for corruption. In the US, a company was found guilty for corrupting some Nigerian officials and they were fine over a billion dollars and the officials in that company went to jail. In Nigeria there nothing done to the Nigerian Officials because the NPA said he could not touch them because of political reasons. In SA, you had a man with seven hundred counts of corruption against him and the charges were dropped and he became president. In SA members of the ANC have gone to jail and when they get out of jail their jobs are waiting for them in the party. All of you talking BS about the west should start looking in the mirror because the African governments are doing zero about corruption.
I think we have sadly missed the points that the author is trying to make outside his view of media control legislation.(1)Outside of South Africa and Africa,reporting on matters relating to South Africa biased i.e fear of world cup crime, white genocide in S.A. These fears by a section of people have been faulsely said to represent the general sentiments in our society.(2)Disproportionate representation relates to media ownership. Yes I agree for Black people to find a voice then they must stand up and create these platforms for self-expression
Having lived in the US myself and astonished by the low quality, sensationalist journalism it more often than not produces, I think the author should rather take issue with the US press through whose lens he is perceiving Africa than the Africans creating (and reporting on) the news. Assuming whatever you read in the US is reliable and without spin would be naive.