I wanted to say a little about the launch last week of a new Reuters Africa website and to answer some of the points already raised by bloggers and journalists.
Under the Reuters Trust Principles were committed to covering the world in an even-handed fashion. Africa tends not to make the international headlines outside war and other humanitarian disasters but we know, because weve got people on the ground, that
stories from Africa are as rich and varied as from any other continent.
The Africa site should be seen as part of our efforts to make sure Africa is covered as well as any other continent.
Columbia Journalism Review, lamenting the reduction of U.S. foreign correspondents, makes the point that the launch comes at a time when Africa is assuming far greater strategic importance to the U.S.
Id go further: whether youre talking about global terrorism, oil prices, the emergence of China, or any of the dozens of other current themes, and whether youre based in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, you wont get a full picture if you leave Africa out.
And you cant cover Africa properly without looking at business and finance angles. Business is one of the defining features of the Africa site theres a lot more than youll find elsewhere, a point picked up by Rebecca Mackinnon at Global Voices.
The use of mapping as a navigational tool intrigued many, including Improprieties and well look at what more can be done to develop this. Mapping enthusiasts may be interested in what the Reuters Foundation AlertNet site has done to link news stories and the notion of humanitarian hotspots to interactive mapping.
Amy Gahran at the journalism site Poynter Online thinks weve missed a trick with not making RSS feeds available (shes right, and well look at that as soon as we can). Amy also thinks that, given the bandwidth issues, a mobile version would be good (ditto) but remember this site is not only Africa for Africans but also Africa for the rest of the world.
The aspect that has most interested commentators is the inclusion of related blogs at the country level. Annansi Chronicles welcomes the boost for African voices. And I hope we can live up to Dan Gilmors view that this is big, big news in journalism.
Dan is an advisor to the Global Voices network which powers the blog postings on the site. Were a Global Voices sponsor and Im looking forward to working closely with them and others to make sure the site delivers the very best in terms of the voices of African writers.
David Schlesinger is Reuters Editor-in-Chief
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6 comments so far
This is wonderful. My family has always resorted to African-based websites as a viable news source, and sometimes BBC. CNN and other news sources never covered the information we needed to know and, also as stated in this article, only cover disasters. It’s great to know that there is yet another source we can refer to for specific news from the various African countries we personally have a vested interest in.
- Posted by BKApart from the laudable choice of this continent to highlight, the new Africa website strikes me as a test of how to professional and amateur journalism can cohabitate. It is becoming more common for news sites to offer blogs outside of their control but these pages seem to promote to a greater extent the news value of blogs in an under-reported area precisely why readers are turning to blogs in droves. It may also provide some intriguing lab results on how the public perceives the difference — if it does - and which readers tend to prefer in times of crisis vs. calm.
But there are some usability issues for the site. That there is no search capability at all seems odd, or do I just not see it? And since there is no story prioritization within the countries, country-specific search as well would seem to be a way to approximate order, at personal level at that.
It may just be an old bad habit to ask but I also wonder if the news editing philosophy of the prioritized categories embraces news significant to Africa from non-African datelines (besides the UN). It is fair to say that this site is meant only to provide news from the continent, but it would be curious to say the least that a story about some nation sending troops to Darfur wouldnt make the cut until a) the government of Sudan reacted or b) they got there.
- Posted by John C AbellAfrica for the rest of the world sounds great.
- Posted by plasticHow will be the sound of: the rest of the world for Africa?
We’ve now added a full range of RSS feeds including one per country. All suggestions for improvements greatly appreciated.
- Posted by David SchlesingerDavid,
- Posted by Paschal EzeI must commend you for recognising that there is more to African than civil wars and AIDS. Many glaringly newsworthy things happen in Africa and the mainstream media should give Africa the non-biased attention it deserves.
Paschal Eze
http://blackvertiser.com
I concur with Bk and others above about the lack in availablity of “african-centered” and “african-based” news coverage.
A few years ago, when I was pursuing a college degree focusing regionally on Africa, the most reliable way to get verifiable information regarding current news (as references for position and research papers) was restricted to only a few good sites, namely the BBC and allAfrica.com. The sites are excellent ones in their own right, especially allAfrica.com, which brought coverage from a diverse selection of Africa-based newspapers/newsources.
Given Reuter’s strong journalistic name and reputation, I would expect the addition of the new Reuters’ Africa page to the current ‘coverage community’ to spark greater competition over current-events news coverage of Africa, and thus help to expand the window on the relatively-neglected continent.
- Posted by Motazz soliman