Western Media Exposed

By Ogbazgy A. Asmerom

It is refreshing to read Reporting Africa, Cover Story, New African [NA], June 2008, No. 474, and really understand and rethink how the western media has been portraying Africa throughout the years, which was without any shame or objectivity. Unfortunately, it continues to do it repeatedly! I would like to challenge all Dehai readers to buy or check out in your local bookstores, and libraries and read the Cover Story of New African. It has different and appropriate stories about how western media has been distorting the realities of Africa and its history. Those who are attending college, check your university or college libraries. I can guarantee you that you will not regret the time or money you spend in reading the Cover Story!

The editors of NA must be commended for an outstanding job in dealing with and exposing the biased attitude and reporting of western media on Africa. The editors have done their homework very well and have given us a second dose of the racist and irrational reporting of western journalists. Thus, we have about 30 pages of unfiltered and unbiased exposé on the flagrant and one-sided of western media dispatches on Africa.

It is up to every conscious African and those who claim to have some African blood in the genes to stand up and realize how the “Fourth Estate” has been directing the reporting of the economic, political, social, and other aspects of African affairs. All of these biased reporting have been done through the lenses of those who live in western capital cities, and do not have the integrity of reporting balanced stories. Most western journalists, out of sheer arrogance, ignorance, and laziness, have been reporting more on the poverty, instability, diseases, and conflicts of Africa. For most of them, Africa is still the “darkest, wretched, and poorest continent.” Western media reporting about Africa is mainly based on sensationalism and exaggeration. These are the reflections of “yellow journalism.”

The editors of NA wanted every citizen of Africa to know the continent’s history and challenge western reporters and journalists, especially those who write false and biased stories about the motherland. The pseudoscientific and racist attitudes of western journalism must be challenged and rebutted. Africans should not abstain from writing about themselves and recording their own stories. African does not need stooges and subservient children who are boot lickers of western media. These stooges should not be allowed to sell Africa to the highest bidder for some crumbs that may come from the “freedom of speech” table or the call that comes to “learn democracy” by a remote control!

It is time to replace western media, and then use African Broadcasting Corporation, which must have its main interest of seeing Africa develop and sustain itself. By doing so, the welfare and well-being of the whole continent will be uplifted. Africans must be their own masters, redeemers, storytellers, reporters, and journalists who are dedicated to reporting about Africa, without depending on outside influence.