How strange that a winning story about tourism is one about a stinking motorcycle rider navigating his way through potholes and delays!
Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 14 August 2009
If you were ever in doubt that, in the field of journalism, bad news is good news, you need not look any further than this year’s CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Awards.
All but three of the winners in the 16 individual categories entered stories about positive developments on the continent. The rest were stories of misery, poverty, war and underdevelopment.
In fact, even the winner in the tourism category was rewarded for putting together a piece about a bad-smelling Ugandan motorcycle rider who ferries people to the villages for a fee.
The judges remarked that, through the journalist’s “fantastic use of language”, he was able to bring audiences along to “experience the delay, the potholes, the know-it-all motorcycle drive with the bad breath as we head to our destination.”
How strange that a winning story about tourism – a non-essential but glamorous and profitable business – in an African country is one about a bad-smelling motorcycle rider navigating his way through potholes and delays.
Other winning entries were also depressing stories of despondency, focusing on, amongst others, the Mungiki criminal gang in Kenya, corruption in Mauritius, Aids and quackery in South Africa, etc.
The winning categories point to one thing: that, if you really want to walk away with that coveted award and price, you stand more chance if your entry is about war, corruption and disease – the topics traditionally associated with Africa.
The only three (out of 16) winning entries that contained positive stories were the arts and culture, economics and business as well as the sport awards.
Whichever way you look at them, the winning entries, when combined, do not paint a fair picture of life in Africa. The CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Awards therefore perpetuates – and in fact promotes – the myth of Africa as a dark continent.
Friday, August 14, 2009
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