Event
Details
The 2024 Africa Journalism and Media Summit aspired to serve as a dynamic and inclusive platform, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing among stakeholders from diverse sectors within Africa's media landscape. The summit, extending over two days, provided both virtual and in-person attendance options to maximize participation and inclusion, ensuring a diverse array of voices and perspectives from across the continent. With a robust lineup of keynote speeches, panel discussions, and interactive workshops, the summit's aim was to reinvent local journalism in Sub-Saharan Africa amid disruptive times. Sessions covered a wide range of topics, including developing new revenue streams, engaging younger audiences, data journalism, audience-first design, automation in the newsroom, video storytelling, collaboration, and the future of news storytelling, among others.
Participants shared diverse perspectives on navigating challenges in local journalism, reflecting the event’s goal of creating a collaborative platform. This engagement was noticeable through active participation in Q&A sessions, as well as post-summit feedback that showed high levels of satisfaction with the collaborative opportunities.
Many delegates expressed that the sessions deepened their understanding of topics such as audience engagement, digital transformation, and revenue strategies. One of the positive, albeit somewhat unexpected, outcomes were the establishment of new partnerships between media organizations and stakeholders. Multiple attendees indicated their intent to collaborate on joint projects.
The presence of international media experts led to inquiries about potential cross-border initiatives. This increased international interest has the potential to bring further expertise to future summits, though it also introduces the need for careful planning to maintain a strong local focus.
Overall, the discussions also revealed that some delegates were struggling with limited resources to implement best practices shared at the summit. While this highlights areas needing support, it also underscores a need to tailor recommendations to be feasible for resource-limited contexts.
