The media in US-African relations
by Dr. A. B. Assensoh
"It is very reassuring that the African and US news media are doing their best these days to bring about the needed understanding for a better tomorrow. It is only hoped that the leaders of both ends will ultimately encourage all the efforts being done to consolidate the gains already made" says Dr A.B. Assensoh of Dillard University in New Orleans, USA.There is, of course, a sharp distinction between the news media of Africa and the news media in the United States. The difference, essentially, stems from the fact that while the news media in the United States made up of the various journalistic publications, the radio, television and wire services have the accolade of being free to carry out their earmarked tasks, those of many African nations remain gagged, censored and, on some occasions, utterly imprisoned by their respective governments.
However, since there are two sides to every issue, there exist cogent and, to an extent, even useful reasons for the state of affairs in which the U.S. and African news media find themselves. With this consideration in mind, we proceed to our topic, an analysis of the significant role of the media in US- African relations.
In comparative terms, it is very necessary to point out that in the United States, almost every component of the news media is privately owned, even if such a medium favours a specific ideological persuasion. Con- versely, in Africa, many aspects of what we consider to be within the family of the news media are owned either by the governments in power or the ruling political parties, a situation which unfortunately permits the freedom of the press to be choked and, in the end, left breathless and hopeless.
As a sad commentary on the state of affairs of the news media in Africa, Charles Mitchell, the Nairobi-based Correspondent of the United Press International (UPI), provided American newspapers with valuable statistical information. In an article published in the September 16, 1984 issue of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans (on page C-18), Mitchell, inter alia, wrote about the African news media:
Radio is the main medium on a continent where most people are illiterate and television is a rich man's toy. Africa has about 55 radios and one TV set for every 1,000 people, so the radio station is the No. 1 target in any coup.
The foregoing summary is not being quoted for its accuracy but, instead, for its portrayal of the dangerous situation in which the Africans find themselves in their efforts to be informed on a regular basis. Indeed, in the foregoing statement, the UPI correspondent is informing us that on the African continent, the presence of newspapers does not seriously affect the day-to-day lives of the people.
According to Mitchell, the reason is that "most people are illiterate".
However, it should not be taken for granted that the African news media do not make an impact in their report- age and interpretation of events. After all, if literacy is measured with the yardstick of being able to read and write, then every society on this globe has its share of illiteracy; this is particularly apparent because when on visits the premises of banking institutions and employment centres, it is very easy for one to come across scores of men and women who can neither read their banking statements properly nor append their signatures correctly to documents.
This state of affairs does not necessarily mean that such unfortunate individuals those we may see as the down-trodden - have been left out of all that the newspapers of a country stands for. In the light of what Mitchell has stated about Africa, those people who can neither read nor write may rely on radio and television news to arrive at conclusions regarding public issues.
Returning to the theme of our dis- cussion, the immediate query is whether or not the US and African news media have been fair to US- African relations and, in the end, if one can even term their various roles as being truly significant. Again, refer- ring to some of the items published by African radio stations, as a wide medium for the dissemination of information, Mitchell's article from the Kenyan capital offers an insightful perspective:
Heads of state are insulated, mocked and accused of savage crimes. They are commonly referred to as stooges, puppets and lackeys. (on rebel radio stations). The voice of Namibia likes to refer to President Reagan as the leader of the cowboy regime. Gadaffi is the slave master or madman to Voice of the Libyan People. The Voice of the Sudan Popular Revolution calls President Numeiry the stooge of Imperialism and Radio Halgan (struggle) terms Somali President Siad Barre the lackey fascist puppet of the West.
At this juncture, one may erroneously conclude that, in Africa, the news media have equal freedom to function effectively, just as the US news media do because, as quoted above, they can criticize all sorts of leaders. Yet, what is being described above refers only to radio stations which operate clandestinely against existing governments and their leaders. In terms of criticizing foreign nations and their leaders, Africa's news media are probably well-known. This is particularly so because the non- aligned policies of various African nations have been greatly undermined by economic and ideological interests. For example, a radical African leader whose nation has a socialistic approach to politics, invariably closes his eyes and ears to the inevitable insults heaped on the United States, its leaders and even other Western leaders by that nation's news media.
However, if the leadership of a particular nation in Africa is friendly towards the United States, the editorial policies of the news media, often government-owned or controlled, are similarly very favourable to the US. In a nutshell, therefore, one can conclude that news media policies in African nations are geared towards the interests of those in political power. A typical example occurred in the West African nation of Ghana in 1966!
In pre-1966 Ghana, the news media shared anti-American feelings because the late President Kwame Nkrumah and his ruling colleagues were very radical - even socialistic in economic policies and, as a result, they were viewed as part of the pro-Soviet Bloc nations (as friends of the Warsaw Pact). Editorials in Ghanaian news- papers and on the state radio station, Radio Ghana, were openly anti-American.
But, after February 24, 1966, when the Nkrumah regime was overthrown in a military-cum-police coup d'etat, the new leaders of the ruling National Liberation Council (NLC) suddenly became so pro-America that the editorial policies of the state-owned press shifted in favour of America and other Western nations. Consequently, the Soviet Bloc nations instantly became the enemies of the news media. To understand the anti-US attitude of the deposed Nkrumah regime, one may refer to Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, a book which was so critical of US policies that the Administration of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson cancelled an aid package of over $30 million for Ghana.
Liberia, under the rule of the late President William V.S. Tubman and also, before the emergence of Dr Samuel K. Doe in April 1980 as the military leader, provides a contrast to the Nkrumah regime in its attitude towards the United States. The Liberian news media had been totally pro-America. Then, in April 1980, after the overthrow of the Tolbert regime, the new leaders at the time made up of both radicals and moderates were so anti-America that the nation's news media adopted an anti-American attitude, although only for a short period.
However, things changed after Dr Doe had been able to prune his regime of the so-called radicals. In the end, the American diplomatic mission in Monrovia was also able to cultivate the friendship of the Doe team and, as a result, the attitude of Liberia's news media changed dramatically. These instances are selected examples of how "unstable" the attitudes of various West African news media can be towards various issues.
In other parts of Africa, too, the news media invariably have reflected the particular interests of the leaders concerned. In East Africa, for example, the late President Jomo Kenyatta - who had been the radical Mau Mau liberation movement leader -won independence with his col- leagues for Kenya from the British authorities. But, instead of continuing in the radical tradition, President Kenyatta became so pro-West that his country's news media tilted their stance on national and international issues to show an outright pro-West stature. The Kenyan radio, television and news- paper, including The Nation and The Standard, became pro-American and pro-British.
On the other hand, in such countries as Tanzania and Zambia, with radical and socialist-oriented leaders, the orientation of the news media was quite different. In order to please the ruling authorities in Zambia, The Times of Zambia and the well- developed Zambian News Agency showed clear-cut anti-Western attitudes. The reason for this state of affairs was that The Times was owned by the ruling United National Independent Party led by the radical President Kenneth K. Kaunda.
In Tanzania, too, where President Julius K. Nyerere led a socialist form of administration and commenced his African Socialism programme with much zeal, the local news media took a radical stance, often displeasing Western leaders. Surely, other nations in the region, including those in southern Africa, acted according to their individual ideological interests.
Interestingly, in pre-1970 North Africa, the Republic of Egypt led the way in terms of ideological alliances. Since the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser was a known socialist at the head of a socialist-oriented govern- ment, the mass media in his country showed a pro-Eastern European stance. For example, the influential Al Ahram newspaper, edited for many years by Nasser's good friend, Mohammed Heikal, took a radical and socialistic posture in its editorial contents. It was only after the death of Nasser and the subsequent arrival on the political scene of the late President Anwar Sadat and, now, President Hosni Mubarak that a dramatic change was seen in the media scene in the UAR. As a result, what we see in that North African nation is pro-Western news media.
In retrospect, one may lament the fact that most of the pre-1970 African leaders did not do much to encourage healthy relations with the United States. This was particularly so because of the seemingly erroneous fear on the part of the countless number of Africans and their leaders that all forms of official aid to African coun- tries from American sources, including the provision of Peace Corps Volunteers, were tainted with intelligence gatherings. Accordingly, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other known intelligence agencies were suspected of collaboration with former colonial powers to reintroduce a new form of colonialism, what came to be styled as neo-colonialism.
Again, retrospectively, one is disappointed by the fact that before the 1970s, there seemed to be such high-level ignorance among the African public of African issues which was reinforced by adverse reports about Africa on the part of the US mass media. In the end, Africa-US relations were greatly undermined. In most instances, such prominent newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post, among many others, and the radio-cum-television stations, including CBS, NBC and ABC, showed outright biases in reporting events about Africa. On some occasions, radical diplomats from some of the radical African nations wrote rejoinders to these adverse reports about their individual nations.
Happily, in the 1980s, the trend has been towards an improvement in US- African relations, for various reasons. Even at that, one can guess that the attitudes of the US media are dictated by the mood of the government in power. For example, if the leadership views a particular regime in Africa to be too radical and, therefore, communistic in nature, the media instantly join in the chorus.
Idi Amin's rule in Uganda was a typical example. The issue was not about the legitimacy of his rule, but basically about the methods employed by some Western nations in "recruiting" him to unseat the regime headed by Dr Milton Obtote, who was considered too socialist for the acceptance of Western nations.
At this point, however, one can rejoice over the fact that the American news media seem to have become more enlightened to the point that they now do not report only disastrous and embarrassing issues in Africa. Encouragingly, various programmes of radio and television stations now deem it necessary to send their reporters to various African countries to investigate issues; on some occasions, too, they attract visiting African leaders and professionals to interview them about crucial events. Last year in the summer, for example, the CBS' "60 minutes" programme sent a reporter to Ghana to interview the new leader there, Flt-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.
Since the world exists on an interdependent basis, it is very reassuring that the African and US news media are doing their best these days to bring about the needed understanding for a better tomorrow. It is only hoped that the leaders at both ends will ultimately encourage all the efforts being done by media specialists and professionals to consolidate the gains already made.
However, in the game of politics anything is possible, especially so various leaders in Africa and, al the United States have come to that it is always safe to have permanent interests, but not permanent friends and is only hoped that the seemingly cordial relations existing between Africa and the United States continue to enjoy the tacit support of the news media in both areas.
Preferably, this type of objective reporting should not mean obvious human rights violations if both ends are to be overlooked. Instead, the news media of Africa and America should continue to be watchdogs of all aspects of human endeavour so that in the end, observers will look at the results with admiration.
