How does global media cover Africa?

How do the world’s most influential media outlets tell African stories? Join the Africa No Filter Presents: A conversation about how global media covers Africa webinar on Thursday 11 July at 12:00 GMT to unpack findings from our latest research report, the Global Media Index for Africa.

Moderator Christine Mungai will be in conversation with Professor Wallace Chuma, the report’s lead researcher; independent multimedia journalist, Neha Wadekar, whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Mother Jones, CNN, and TIME; ANF’s advocacy and campaigns lead Abimbola Ogundairo; Nicholas Norbrook, Managing Editor at The Africa Report; and veteran investigative journalist, Beauregard Tromp.

The Global Media Index for Africa assesses and ranks online news stories of CNN, Deutsche Welle, Russia Today, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Le Monde, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, The Economist, New York Times, VOA News, AFP, Reuters, BBC, CGTN, Financial Times, RFI, and The Washington Post. More than 1,000 news articles were collected over a six- month period, and evaluated across four key indicators, making the Global Media Index for Africa the largest manual study of media analysis ever conducted for an African media index.

The indicators used to assess content include diversity of topics covered, sources interviewed and quoted, the number of African countries covered, and the depth of coverage including balance, context, and stereotype avoidance. The Guardian is in first place on the index for its overall coverage of the continent, with a score of 63%, while the Washington Post ranked lowest at position 20 with a score of 47%.

Meanwhile, the general performance across the online news content from all 20 media outlets falls within the category of ‘medium’, suggesting that coverage of Africa in terms of new, more progressive narratives leaves room for improvement. On the positive side most media organisations scored high on the ‘depth of coverage’ indicator which assessed balance, context, stereotypes, and framing; proving that the most well-funded media organisations in the world, who make up this index, are aware of the tenets of a good news story.

The conversation will discuss why global media needs a health check for their coverage of Africa, the dynamics involved in determining what is news, and how it is covered; why global news about Africa needs to reflect diverse voices, topics and sources, and the role of African media in taking back the pen.