Blackbox Africa
Column: Media reality on the African continent stands in stark contrast to everyday life. Impressions from Ghana.
Column The media reality on the black continent contrasts sharply with everyday life. Impressions from Ghana. A word of warning: I am no expert on Africa. I just want to raise the question of what we, the reasonably interested and reasonably educated readers in Switzerland, still learn about Africa. How does the reality of the media contrast with your own impressions if you have had the opportunity to get to know a country on the black continent - in my case Ghana? To put this up for discussion, you probably shouldn't be too much of an expert. I was on the road for just ten days, not only in the capital Accra, but also in the hinterland - as a guest, invited to three panel discussions with Ghanaian journalists. It was all about press freedom. The occasion: 50 years ago, Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence and was the nucleus of the pan-African movement at the time. Today, the country is one of a handful of states on the continent where democracy is functioning reasonably well. The economy is on the up and journalists do not have to fear for their lives if they risk a cheeky lip.
As we all know, Africa's media reality consists mainly of disasters, wars and diseases: Aids, as we all know, is a problem that Africans, not us, are struggling with. Instead, we have to deal with BSE, Sars and bird flu - even if the official statistics speak a completely different language.
What threatens to be forgotten is the everyday life that the vast majority of people in Africa have to cope with: unimaginable poverty, no drinking water supply, no electricity in many places or at least constant power cuts, no sewage system. Millions are crammed into shacks and corrugated iron dwellings in large, faceless cities in a very confined space. Only a few people can be productive under the given circumstances. Countless people, especially women, have to eke out a living as itinerant traders, selling a few pieces of chewing gum, nuts or bananas by the roadside.
It therefore seemed rather far-fetched to me, not to say out of place, to have to discuss press freedom under such conditions. But even here it is worth taking a second look, because the reality of the media and what we have experienced do not seem to fit together at all: According to the Reporters sans frontières ranking, Ghana is one of the top five African countries in terms of press freedom. In a global comparison of 168 countries, it ranks 34th - ahead of France (35th), Italy (40th), Spain (41st) and the USA (53rd).
But what does freedom of the press look like in practice? After all, everyone is allowed to say what they want. But on closer inspection, despite their remarkable diversity, the products of the press are just announcements.
And it seems to be the same behind the scenes: As we are about to start our panel discussion in Tamale, to which the journalists' association has invited media professionals, the governor turns up. The provincial politician turns the event into his own press conference. For an hour, he announces what efforts are being made in the region to celebrate the 50th anniversary. He lures the journalists with carrots ("my partners and friends"), he threatens with the stick ("we know all the troublemakers by name and we will take merciless action against them"), and he orders the cameramen from the local TV station which passages of his speech they should record as if they were his own PR crew.
Shortly before we landed in Ghana, the chairman of a regional journalists' association was murdered. At the time of our departure, nothing was known about the perpetrator or the motive for the crime. We can still hope that the murder was at least not politically motivated - unlike the recent executions of reporters in Russia, which our Western politicians so generously overlook (above all the former German Chancellor Schröder, who, as we all know, considers Putin to be a "flawless democrat" and, on top of that, is paid princely consultancy fees not only by Gazprom but also by Ringier).
It was my first time on the Black Continent, and I became painfully aware of how much we now lack reporters like Ryszard Kapuscinski or Werner Holzer - despite or because of globalization - observers who know their way around, who can communicate and who are not too shy to stay in shabby neighbourhoods to capture everyday life.
Unfortunately, freedom of the press is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for finding out what is going on in the world. We ourselves, the readers, listeners and viewers, may have to dig deeper into our pockets (and reach less often for free products such as 20 Minuten, heute or cash daily) to find out what is really happening in Africa and elsewhere. Otherwise, the bean counters among the media powers-that-be will rationalize away more correspondent posts - on the unfortunately not so erroneous assumption that most of us don't want to know "it" so precisely after all.
Stephan Russ-Mohl heads the European Journalism Observatory at the University of Lugano.
As we all know, Africa's media reality consists mainly of disasters, wars and diseases: Aids, as we all know, is a problem that Africans, not us, are struggling with. Instead, we have to deal with BSE, Sars and bird flu - even if the official statistics speak a completely different language.
What threatens to be forgotten is the everyday life that the vast majority of people in Africa have to cope with: unimaginable poverty, no drinking water supply, no electricity in many places or at least constant power cuts, no sewage system. Millions are crammed into shacks and corrugated iron dwellings in large, faceless cities in a very confined space. Only a few people can be productive under the given circumstances. Countless people, especially women, have to eke out a living as itinerant traders, selling a few pieces of chewing gum, nuts or bananas by the roadside.
It therefore seemed rather far-fetched to me, not to say out of place, to have to discuss press freedom under such conditions. But even here it is worth taking a second look, because the reality of the media and what we have experienced do not seem to fit together at all: According to the Reporters sans frontières ranking, Ghana is one of the top five African countries in terms of press freedom. In a global comparison of 168 countries, it ranks 34th - ahead of France (35th), Italy (40th), Spain (41st) and the USA (53rd).
But what does freedom of the press look like in practice? After all, everyone is allowed to say what they want. But on closer inspection, despite their remarkable diversity, the products of the press are just announcements.
And it seems to be the same behind the scenes: As we are about to start our panel discussion in Tamale, to which the journalists' association has invited media professionals, the governor turns up. The provincial politician turns the event into his own press conference. For an hour, he announces what efforts are being made in the region to celebrate the 50th anniversary. He lures the journalists with carrots ("my partners and friends"), he threatens with the stick ("we know all the troublemakers by name and we will take merciless action against them"), and he orders the cameramen from the local TV station which passages of his speech they should record as if they were his own PR crew.
Shortly before we landed in Ghana, the chairman of a regional journalists' association was murdered. At the time of our departure, nothing was known about the perpetrator or the motive for the crime. We can still hope that the murder was at least not politically motivated - unlike the recent executions of reporters in Russia, which our Western politicians so generously overlook (above all the former German Chancellor Schröder, who, as we all know, considers Putin to be a "flawless democrat" and, on top of that, is paid princely consultancy fees not only by Gazprom but also by Ringier).
It was my first time on the Black Continent, and I became painfully aware of how much we now lack reporters like Ryszard Kapuscinski or Werner Holzer - despite or because of globalization - observers who know their way around, who can communicate and who are not too shy to stay in shabby neighbourhoods to capture everyday life.
Unfortunately, freedom of the press is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for finding out what is going on in the world. We ourselves, the readers, listeners and viewers, may have to dig deeper into our pockets (and reach less often for free products such as 20 Minuten, heute or cash daily) to find out what is really happening in Africa and elsewhere. Otherwise, the bean counters among the media powers-that-be will rationalize away more correspondent posts - on the unfortunately not so erroneous assumption that most of us don't want to know "it" so precisely after all.
Stephan Russ-Mohl heads the European Journalism Observatory at the University of Lugano.
