Taming the British broadcaster

The BBC and other international main stream media outlets in western global power capitals of Washington, Paris and London are bullies that need collective taming by victims of their skewed programming, Rwanda being the latest example. Like the case in the 70s, the international communication flow is still monopolised by a handful of media houses that form the global mainstream, these are centred in a few western capitals and for decades, their reporting, biased as it might be, has shaped the global agenda from politics to economics and social affairs. There’s simply too much power and influence centred in a few international media houses something that doesn’t reflect today’s multilateral global political and economic order. Yet, sadly, African governments, many that are victims of the vicious reports, have helped these few international media monopolies generate the influence they currently command. An interview that would otherwise be denied a senior regional or national journalist is easily granted a BBC journalist and others have even gone ahead to place national adverts for a few seconds worth several million dollars to allegedly ‘market a country’s image abroad.’ Even after all this, what the likes of the BBC have managed to achieve for African countries is establish misrepresentative media frames that depict them based on the fancies of London, Paris and Washington based editors. But it’s time for new efforts to tame these bullies. In the 70s the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) attempted to respond to this call by sponsoring the establishment of a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). While that attempt failed mainly because of firm opposition from USA, the leading beneficiary of then status-quo, the foundation was a guanine one. For instance, at the time of launching NWICO, the entire developing world had a mere 4 percent of the world’s computers; Africa had less than three newspapers per country, whereas the United States had 1,687 and European countries had an average of 1,400 libraries compared to 18 for African countries, these among other communication inequalities. Today, the situation has much improved especially from the media infrastructure point of view, Africa has more newspapers, deeper internet penetration and digital literacy, mobile phones and African scholars and writers have found space in the global public sphere. But that’s all about it. Africa is more of a bystander in international communication where the real initialing of debates and decision making is still a monopoly of the original gurus. African print and broadcast media have modeled their programming on the stylebooks of the likes of the BBC blindly accepted as ‘professional standards.’ Meanwhile, African journalists work hard to win ‘excellence awards’ from the likes of CNN and when a standout African journalist shines, his peers point out that ‘you deserve to work for the BBC.’ This week, I met Ugandan BBC radio Journalist Allan Kasujja, at Serena Kigali Hotel, I truly envied him for his success, but Africa needs to create its own journalism template. Europe’s Journalism model is a mismatch to Africa’s current needs especially at a time everyone is singing ‘Africa rising.’ Rather than follow the BBC’s lead of ‘man-bite-dog style of journalism’ African media should create more space for success stories that depict that ‘rise. In Rwanda, everyone is busy developing along with a fast growing economy and the media here is focused on more development journalism that fits ‘these new times.’ This is not to say that we should keep silent when we stumble on political scandals, rigged elections or stolen public funds, the African journalism template should strike the delicate balance required while giving more prominence to a positive and developmental African story. So how do we tame the BBC? First, we could ban the BBC for a few months until a solemn apology to both country and the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi (that are yet to recover from the shocking distortion of facts depicted in the now infamous BBC broadcast) is given. Imagine the brouhaha that would emerge if say Rwanda’s national public broadcaster ran a report that for instance disputed the authenticity of the revered queen of England, development aid would probably be suspended. To tame the BBC, Africa should do what China is doing; invest in pan-African media with the aim of competing for a place on the international communication high table. After years of being misrepresented, China chose to invest in its own international media, CCTV-news which is now deconstructing the traditional status-quo. Until Africa gets its own mouth to speak for itself, it will always be victim of misrepresentation and well orchestrated western media propaganda. The writer is a journalist

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Taming the British broadcaster