Mail & Guardian, a South African weekly newspaper, on Tuesday launched a new digital news platform aimed at telling the true African story. Launched in Nairobi, Kenya, the new platform, Mail & Guardian Africa, is set to be the leading commercially successful contemporary voice on African issues. “Mail & Guardian Africa has taken the bold step to report about Africa using an evidence-based, non-dogmatic and analytical approach and exploring the new opportunities that technology, social media and crowd-sourcing tools offer,” Mail and Guardian Africa editor Charles Onyango-Obbo, a leading pan-African journalist is quoted as saying. “The publication will focus on delivering quality African news and information via mobile to mainly 30-40 year-old audiences with a college education in both Africa and outside the continent,” Onyango-Obbo said. He said Mail & Guardian Africa will offer a non-paternalistic, intelligent, and enlightened view of developments on the continent without feeling duty-bound to report about the “Africa Rising” narrative, or to be stuck in cynicism and a refusal to see progress either. Chris Roper, Mail & Guardian editor-in-chief, describes M&G Africa as “a very necessary addition to the journalism landscape of the continent, and one that knits together the many voices of Africa into a coherent, thoughtful tapestry, rather than the more usual competing narratives imposed on the continent by interest groups.” The M&G Media appointed Anastacia Martin as its managing director. “We are excited that, finally, our dream and Vision to provide Africa with a platform to access impeccable journalism delivered in a creative, engaging and trend-setting way has come to fruition,” Martin said.
