davidmatzdorf on "The media and Africa: doing bad by doing "good"?"

davidmatzdorf — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:29:14 +0100

I read the article with a growing sense of disappointment. I always look forward to articles that aim to puncture the auto-pilot mentality of lazy journalism and to champion clear and original thinking in place of clichés. As I read on, it became clearer with every paragraph that this was, instead, just another loosely-disguised attempt to have a pop at the "liberal media consensus" - that in itself being just the kind of easy, lazy buzz-phrase that the article set itself up to expose. The underlying assumption throughout the article, despite a token protestation to the contrary, is that "liberal" media are lazy and formulaic, whereas all vigorous attempts to puncture their consensus must, by definition, come from the right - a desperately sloppy assumption. Even the content - the several references to the failure of aid as a tool for development - turned out to be just an excuse to promote a right-wing agenda. On first reading, I thought "too right, aid just keeps developing countries dependent, what we need is liberation, not aid". But that was not what was being said: the hidden intent was that aid should be reduced to "make them stand on their own two feet". Thatcherism revisited. A letdown, the whole article.

The media and Africa: doing bad by doing "good"?, Charlie Beckett

robert.cawston@opendemocracy.net — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:26:03 +0100

One of the high points of my journalistic career was standing next to Jon Snow in Makerere University's (empty) swimming-pool as we broadcast live from an evangelical rally to promote sexual abstention in Kampala. At one point Jon waded into the cheering, swinging crowd and asked a Ugandan youth: "Are you celibate?" "Oh yes!" said the happy young Christian, "I wasn't last week but I am now". An hour earlier Jon had done an interview with Richard & Judy on the same subject, bringing an audience of millions of daytime TV viewers in touch with the surreal and depressing reality of Africa and Aids in the week before the G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005 which attempted to "‘put an end to poverty" in Africa.

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davidmatzdorf on "The media and Africa: doing bad by doing "good"?"

The media and Africa: doing bad by doing "good"?, Charlie Beckett