How reporting about Africa has been changing since 1994 was the topic of a two-day conference organized by KAS Media Africa in conjunction with the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre.
Speakers and participants from 10 different countries discussed the Rwandan Genocide and how it has changed the way Western and African media report about the continent and its crises. Amongst the speakers were renowned British author Michela Wrong, former crisis reporter Sheila Kawamara-Mishambi from Uganda, veteran Kenyan journalist Catherine Gicheru, filmmaker Salim Amin and South African publicist Amina Frense.
“I think there is a necessity to cover crises, to understand what the big news is and taking less care about animals and clichés” summarized Jean-Philippe Remy, Africa Correspondent of Paris-based Le Monde. And Christoph Plate, former Africa Correspondent and today’s director of KAS Media Africa said: “There is not only a European narrative and an African narrative, but there is a narrative of common sense”.
