Roundtable: Connecting Continents: How can African Studies and Journalism benefit from each other?
Abstract
- Abstract
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Just like previous editions, the BIGSAS Journalist Award 2024 honoured high-quality journalism in German-speaking media that deals with topics relating to the African continent beyond stereotypes. The submitted articles were reviewed by a jury consisting of BIGSAS alumni and researchers of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. The journalists who submitted their articles do not necessarily have an academic background or special knowledge in an Africa related field of research, nor are researchers in African studies trained in journalism or methods of public outreach of their research results.
The roundtable on the morning after the BIGSAS Journalist Award ceremony featured the 2024 winners Birte Mensing and Ruona Meyer and aimed to encourage a discussion on how academia and journalism are entangled, can benefit from each other. What kinds of stereotypes need to be tackled? Where do we need more public engagement? Do we need to share more data?
The discussion was led by Dr. Bilian Otundo and Dr. Joschka Philips both members of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence.
Description
- Transcript
- thank you uh good morning everyone we're happy to see you today we were with you yesterday and this is just a beautiful prolongation of what we experienced yesterday the wonderful celebration of our bigas journalist um Award winners for 2024 so just two or three words about uh the big journalist award it started in 2011 and with the initiative of um the broid international Graduate School of African studies which is now housed under the cluster of Excellence multiple um Africa multiple clust of Excellence we are happy to have you here today and the bigas journalist award actually encourages um beautiful wonderful uh author ship about the African continent without the cliche stereotype kind of reporting that we see especially on the media on television and we also listen to on radio and today with us uh we have our winners um you are already familiar with them we have BR mening our uh winner for this year's big journalist [Applause] award um so B has also been living in Kenya and is now back in by ro you did say and she's been working on issues um on the African continent and Beyond and also as a scholar we want to welcome you today to this beautiful and wonderful round table that we have and of course our second place um winner together with Betina Ru we have um our wonderful ruana Maya Who um um who is a Nigerian German also now venturing into scholarship and um um a journalist as our second place winner for this years journalist award welcome thank you yeah welcome also from my side I'm very happy to be here and uh with the two winners on stage and um together with billian um we will sort of guide you through this morning which is basically an opportunity for the various jury members uh to exchange with the journalists um it would be too much to introduce every jur jury member uh individually because you have uh very fascinating biographies so will just uh say the names of the many people that have read your work and look through them uh there is yaka Boro the president president of the jury SE dunu ER dalmans lamin dbia alas vova Cassandra Martis G matna lisong Simon ganga jman yada Jennifer shefla and of course ban utundu um if you when you ask your questions um so there will be a microphone that uh goes through uh through the room uh or and will be handed to you maybe you can uh quickly introduce yourselves uh so that you know we also know uh where you're coming from what you do what you found perhaps interesting with regards to the Articles and we can get into a conversation uh the way that we thought about this is that we have different uh guiding blocks different questions um so we will we will start with an overall introductory question so that you can also get the chance to say a little bit about the article that you wrote but then we'll talk about journalism in and on Africa questions of audiences stereotypes and impact um and then we will turn to questions of your experiences best practices that you would like to share to then finally ask questions about overall the relation between African studies and journalism which is the main topic uh today uh and with that I hand over to billian so we start with our first uh session of uh just introduction about yourselves and what motivated you especially to start writing or addressing this topics that you did for us my God first place winner thank you um so should I just talk okay so yeah I mean I've met most of you now um my name is be and I kind of my my first journalism experience on the African continent was um quite a few years ago After High School I was in Cameroon for a year in Banda and um at the end of the VVS voluntary year that I did there I spent like my last weeks when it was summer holidays at a small radio station and um yeah kind of got got taught and got introduced into radio reporting and um that's kind of where it started then I went back to Germany I studied um I kind of I continued writing um and then went to journalism school and did my last um practical and journalism School in the German TV studio in Nairobi and that's what later brought me back to Nairobi when they had an opening there and that's kind of how how I ended up in Nairobi Now um doing what I really like doing um moving around meeting people meeting people who kind of who who are convinced that what they do is important um who who Inspire and after a lot of encounters I have the feeling kind of that my own my own motivation in doing what I'm doing gets kind of enforced through meeting people who are really who are really committed to what they do and then trying to contribute a little bit to that by getting messages out um to audiences that might otherwise not hear about what the people that I've met are doing so for me um the way I got into journalism is uh through genetics in my case journalism is genetically transmitted my father was a journalist um unfortunately was killed for being a journalist in uh Nigeria um I had tried to be different things Banker in the pre in the communications department and it didn't work out needless to say um I have always been interested in telling stories I think I became forced to tell some type of stories because I was working in South Africa and I was working on business stories but then there are social stories happening and so as an African as a person actually I felt I don't think I want to be doing I don't think I want to be talking about the price of uh corn as a commodity when there are people that don't even have corn to eat and so that's where I willfully decided to focus on um social stories as I call them um the main particular reason why I did this story is as I go on I've started to notice as an immigrant that we need stories that serve not just our European um brothers and sisters but also serve Africans in diaspora as well while taking care of the narrative at home so this particular story all started when I came across somebody being so happy that their child in France was going to be eating a chen which is like senal jof rice in a jar and I was like oh I wish I had that when I was a baby and I discovered that this person was trying to serve a market and was relying heavily on social media so when the time came for us to talk about um using technology to solve sdg goals and what we can learn I remember that there was a German baby food provider who had failed because they by their own admission could not use um social media to Market prop properly and that's where the idea for the story came I knew I could not sit down in Germany and do the story um especially because the German refused to talk to me so I I flew into um senal stayed there for quite some time went to the Farms where the women were talked to the founder as well but one interesting thing was this story would not be possible without the academics that I found we actually already working on this um and I think that that is what leads into why we're here today it was a very another reminder for me um that I wouldn't have had that access to think that way or to introduce these on song academics if I wasn't an academic myself and so the academics made me really think differently especially the one that said um they are socializing Tech and Tech does not have to work for does not have to work he said it this way Tech does not have to work in the language of the Creator it should work in the language of the user and that's exactly what our sagales and folks were doing and so that's why I did that story because I wanted to straddle dasp audiences Africans at home while still speaking to um us Germans and I was I think the Highlight for me was when a school used that story in their lessons that told me that there would be young children who would at least have an idea and so to now also be awarded for it mind blown thank you yeah I think we will um get back to these questions because both of you are also uh you're not only journalists but you're also uh in in a very strong relation you're doing your PhD on on investigative journalism um you as we have heard yesterday are also part of a of a of a program of Pana africanist thought on African politics in London so uh I think we are we are cousins in a way uh that you know we are very similar in the ways in which we work and this is what makes this conversation interesting we'll get back to that but perhaps um uh before uh I would like to know uh what your perception of Journalism on or in Africa is currently and how the field might have changed and this is then also an invitation to all of you to ask your questions uh don't be shy we're a small group here um and um the background is so there was recently for instance there was a call uh for about the media landscape in in Germany and that only 10% of news coverage is on on the global South and Africa obviously taken even even smaller percentage do you feel like things are changing or do you feel like we're at the very beginning of change if we optimistic what what is your your take on the current media landscape in Germany it's interesting because I have the feeling because I haven't been in Germany for the last years I'm kind of on the one hand not really I don't have a good overview of like what a German audience perceives on in media on a daily basis but um I I mean I do meet colleagues other colleagues who are reporting um quite a lot either in Nairobi or also in other reporting trips um and I do think that it's not only about like the amount of reporting but also about like the approach to the reporting and the approach um reporters have and the approach editors have and um I do think that there is a kind of or that there can be a shift in like in the approach because I think over the last decades it has still been very much like the correspondent comes and explains things kind of and um I think there is a shift towards more letting people explain kind of just being the intermediary like at least that's what I try to do and I think there's more people especially like in the younger generation who are who are kind of taking a different approach in reporting but then at the same time what does make it more difficult or complicated is that um especially I newspapers have no money um there's a bit more money in radio and TV but um it is difficult to kind of find funding for reporting trips to um so a lot of funding for reporting trip comes from for example from foundations or scholarships grants that and a lot of them come from the Bill millinder Gates Foundation at some point um and that's a thing that is important to discuss and to have in mind and to see like how do we how do we want this as a society is it okay that it only depends on like private sponsoring or like how how can we how do we want to look at this and yeah I think that's that's an important part in how how the reporting can actually happen and then yeah um so I'm going to take a I'm going to be speaking from the information I've gotten and the experien uh the experiences I've had on juries um over the years so that would be juries um deciding on prizes across Europe um that would also be my experience as a grant manager and also meeting uh grants in Europe that focus on the global South and the answer is this reporting on the global South in Germany especially is actually on the right it's just not in mainstream media it's not done by mainstream Legacy Media which is the media that is appraised that is researched mainly for for the figures we're getting okay so we don't have the full story and I can say this confidently because for example Let me Give an example when I sit on a jury for um European grants about 60% of the applicants are Germans they in teams with colleagues in the global South reporting on stories that cover both Germany and the global South but they are digital outlets for example they are Outlets that operate from exile for example they are not the ones that are subed okay um and I think that's of course where academics can step into make the picture broader so I'm not worried about um from what I see and the bulk of people you see at conferences so I'm a conference rat so to speak for journalism um I'm either in a conference here or there as an attendee or speaking or something and also from what we see there is a focus okay we have the uh first mental health in journalism Summit last month the focus was also there was also the global South you know in there I'm not worried about it what I am worried about though is the fact that these people do not get seen which is why they don't make it into mainstream research or discussions for example and I think that's where we can all step in I think I'm taking from this now I need to do better to talk about um how it's it's opening up the space is opening up but I will say in digital Outlets that is not newspapers in um The News Room the global desks of even mainstream Outlets more reporting is focusing on there more funding is actually going on there compared to two years ago for example so I wouldn't be worried I would instead be worried about you know um why are we not see more why are we not talking about what fails or what succeeds in these types of um of collaborations so there's an increase can we do with more money yes they need more money because it's more expensive as you know um but there's an increase especially in Germany Germany is actually one of the strongest countries where journalists collaborate outside and report on outside stories yeah thank you very much are there uh questions um from the audience um in in this regard or comments yeah I think comments would be interesting also how how do you perceive reporting that like when you just consume regular media like what kind of reporting on the continent reaches your attention and what not um and yeah the way this works is we can hand you the microphone you don't even have to get up should we call on you you know a few names and plus they all read at least 50 articles in in recent times so they have a good overview sorry about that but I think this aspect of like collaboration and Reporting and also I think in the like let's say like 20 30 years ago I wasn't in the field but from what I've heard it was like it was much more like kind of that journalists work with local stringers or fixers who and then the story is but then only credited to the let's say White journalist or the European journalist um and and I think that's changing um like journalists are actually like partnering especially because of Grants um you can apply together and um it's more like an we do the story together and then maybe each write for different media Outlets but like the research is being done together things are being credited for everyone who's participating and I think that's that's an important step because yeah I mean it's it's impossible to do a lot of stories on my own and it's yeah it's like the step towards transparency I have a question okay I'm particularly interested in the journalism that's done by people in Exile um which was mentioned before and other such like nonmainstream sources for an academic who's potentially interested in looking at these what would be some of your tips for finding or uncovering these sources because they're not like you can't do a regular Google search and just find it so what would be some of your um tips or suggestions for accessing such first of all you must do that topic okay I'm going to stalk you um but but I think you should start with mct.org it's media in corporation and transition in Germany I've done some training for them and they are very heavy on exile journalists very heavy on exile um um entities especially those that cover the global South please contact them if you need me to do an introduction I'm also okay to do that but right on their website they have um information they actually offer um shelter as well for some journalists that directly on under threat they provide training for those journalists um how to integrate um and continue reporting um there is also I think the name an Bros um Anna I forget the actual name cuz it's a it's it's not in um German or English but you know they cover um the Balkan States journalists are in Exile right um they actually have an organization of all these journalists in Exile so if you contact Anna as well barus I will send you Anna's um email as well cuz she's always open to that um but with MCT you can't go wrong because they're a German um based entity and so that linkage that relevance of your work with our country Germany in the context of Exile I think mic is your big go to because if I was looking at it as an academic mic your work should be relevant to the country where you are doing your scholarship as well as the theme so start with mict I would say it's really funny because I'm in the board of the international press Association in Nairobi and we're the implementing partner for MCT for the project they do to support especially Sudanese journalists and who are in Exile in Nairobi and um I mean a point is that it is super difficult for them to keep finding new media Outlets because also a lot of like some media Outlets founded themselves new and a fresh while now in nirobi but then others have collapsed and um yeah it's like it's it's a journey to to to find new publishing ways for journalists and XA but it is super interesting to follow up stalker oh I lastly add SRA media.org they have a directory of all media um by continent they purposely do Independent Media and there are some that in Exile so sem m b semra media.org you will see their database there and you should be fine thank you so much for that work well done um I just wanted to ask a question I hope maybe you you covered it already but uh maybe it's something that you can shed more light on uh the aspect of surprise I mean like when you went to the field and you're working on your story what what surprised you what challenged you when you're working on your individual stories because I know there there are challenges that um can be generalized but but we can because we we have you here now we can hear from you what what what challenged you at individual level as you processing the stories that you you produced thank you a good question um let that's a nice question because um I think the thing is that sometimes it's difficult or like you come with a certain idea of a story also because obviously we read and we talk to people before we actually go to the field so we have a kind of idea what we are going to find um um and then you go and you often do find things that are a bit different and then sometimes it is difficult to incorporate the complexities that you encounter because for example in the um renewable energy story um in the aspect that was about um off-grid Solar Solutions for schools for health centers and we had talked to the organization who who who's putting in place um those solar panels and they had referred us to two institutions and then we got to the school and the school was like oh yeah the solar panel hasn't been working for the last four months and then we're like okay um let's see how we can tell the story but then it does tell the story about how important it is to not only put things in place but also to think about maintenance and to think about how can something be sustainable and how can you not just come make sure something is being set up but then leave it to its own life um so kind of sometimes things happen and you're like oh uh okay how am I going to report this but then yeah finding a way of incorporating it and then we went to the Health Center and the the solar cells were very well in use and powering fridges to um cool vaccinations and it was like yeah it's like it was good to see that it's working but it's also good to see that where the limitations are and to not be blind about the limitations and to not ignore them but to to also talk about them to see how a solution can be found in the future I think what surprised me with my story is how the story itself wrote the lead by itself I always go to um reporting just expecting the audience to do the work the story the sources to do the work I'm not there to add myself into it and what surprised me was when we were driving for I think we drove for about 15 hours in total so we're driving for 7 hours and the person who sources the food stuff starts talking Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine I just keep hearing Ukraine and I'm like the oh sorry are we allowed to swear here how I and I don't understand wallof right but I immediately start recording her because how is it that I am sitting I I'm a Nigerian sitting in somewhere on a remote Road Way outside of daa and I'm hearing Ukraine that just showed us how connected we all are come to find out that they were increasing the prices of food stuff because of the war in Ukraine food stuff that was grown right inside there and so that's how the beginning of that story started because I was like I I just recorded everything and then got someone to translate it um another thing that surprised me was the level of Savvy that an illiterate and by illiterate I mean only non non literate in English because when people say the person is not is not lit I'm like yeah just in English your your language they are literate in their own language but it shocked me that the level of data protection they went through now somebody who doesn't know how to read or write in English and doesn't know how to uh write in their local language was actually using disappearing messages to send invoices they made that technology work for them and it's it inspired me so much the level of um wisdom that people do not uh ascribe just because we think okay the technology is in English and then it has no use it's actually used for bookkeeping in Sagal and so that surprised me but at the same time it reminded me that I must I must continue being a wake to my own bias because bias is like um food anybody can start eating it before you know I don't I don't but yeah so that was what surprised me and yeah that was a good question cuz it reminded me oh Rona you might be African but you need to always be careful be careful be careful be ready to learn be ready to be shocked and so that's what shocked me yeah and I think it's this thing of like being ready to learn and being like open and interesting interested in the surprises and not being disturbed by them but rather welcoming them and then trying to see what to do with them next so thank you very much and U um I just want to underline uh uh what really you have done by going a bit again uh the general stereotypes in media about Africa and by bringing out a very positive uh uh news uh from from Africa and uh the your two uh papers really showed me uh how you have been able to to to to show Innovations in Africa H for from Maya I can I was able to see H would sum up in two uh kind of Innovations which came from uh this paper ER one is uh how they use the local product to make the baby uh porridge so this was really for me something uh very interesting and the other thing is how they insert themselves into the national market with the social media and also into the international market and yesterday you were telling me that they are about to industrialize their uh industry so this is uh these U two uh way of telling uh the story I think it shows us uh really uh that Innovations also comes from Africa and it is not always a war even if there is war in Africa this is very important and from uh you as well I was very impressed H by the article and uh you made somewhere some comparison between um Kenya the production and consume the the the the consummation I don't know of green uh energy and you made a comparison with Germany so you see Germany was way behind Kenya it was somehow a kind of message to me that ah Africa can be also a leading figure somewhere where people can take some examples H because they had developed veloping those kind of energies green energies and I found it really uh interesting and uh so I don't know if I have questions but I think I just wanted to praise your your papers there's there's something I would like to say to this because I think um what what we both try in our work is kind of it's not about positive reporting it's about about nuanced reporting it's like will not drop out the like you were talking about how Kenya is ahead of Germany but then we would still mention that um the Kenyan capacity of like Kenya is producing much less in total and like and it's and it's important to to say both like to show that it's ahead but also to show that it's catching up on another sector and I think that's what sometimes is missing this like putting things into context that you can you can be ahead in certain sectors and then there can be other points where you're catching up and that Germany can be the one who is catching up and can be the one who's ahead in other sectors and then Kenya is ahead in some sectors and catching up in other sectors and then senagal is ahead in some sectors and catching up in others and it's like yeah kind of showing that the work people do on a daily basis and as you were saying it's like for me it's also about I mean I've been living in Nairobi for four years but still people can't who who haven't visited can't really fathom although I send photos I tell them like just in my circles I tell them about how I play in Orchestra how I go to concerts how I go to art exhibitions but still many people have a picture that is so strong of like I always say my life in Nairobi is like my life in Berlin and people don't believe me and I think that's like a lot to break kind of this this very cemented picture a lot of people who grew up in Germany who grew up in Europe have in mind and yeah but like kind of one step at a time trying to to balance it out and I mean I would say that some of that blame has to come on us as journalists that are in that are German that are in Germany that are reporting on the continent and this is why I'll give an example um in 2020 when covid started um Lagos was going to start West Africa's first drive-thru Germany had done it already for about a month or two months so I decided to do a compare and contrast I spoke to um and this is where the academic Behavior came in so I had a set of questions and I asked both the organizers had done it in Nigeria for one week Germany had done it for month running so ask them the same questions how long does it take what do you do blah blah blah blah blah and when I finished Nigeria really scored high on speed hygiene actually um but did not score high on privacy like keeping the Privacy they had to use the police for example U and then Germany used unmarked building so compare and contrast and what I did was send the article to the German um doctor had spoken to the association had spoken to Association of medical doctors and also sent it to the ones in Lagos gery came back to me and said thank you so much we learned a lot from Nigeria um we've actually put it in our newsletter that was going to serve the whole region of medical doctors what that taught me was that they already have enough on their plate they are not going to remember to check Lagos if someone like me does not make the time to contribute meaningful useful jism that people can actually use not just reporting anything that nobody can use immediately they acted on it and I think I was talking to you this morning and saying that part of the problem we have have is we take it for granted that Germans don't want to act as Africans I I know that and then we also have the stereotype of Germany and being in the middle because yeah I cannot go against my husband is my family and my family is still being in the middle I've discovered that we need to also remember that sometimes these things happen and change doesn't happen because we have not spoken to the people we think should change we have not provided them with the information and I think that's where we as journalists have our work to do yeah I don't know if if we are taking over your role if we are asking questions to the audience but um um I think in at this point it's also interesting like where do you see yourself coming in and where do you see you see where do you see yourself reaching out to journalists on your topics um because there's I was talking to somebody who works for German development Aid in Nairobi recently and then I was like so what's like the one thing that you think is interesting at the moment and he was like oh we have so many interesting projects and I was like yes I believe you but maybe tell me about one or two now because now we're here for five minutes and I will probably not read the list of 200 projects on your website I could but I will probably do other things and I think this is the thing also that happens a lot with me and people who are in Academia when I'm like yeah what's the one what's the one interesting thing you're working on on at the moment oh it's very difficult to narrow it down like this um and I don't know if I I'm in a position to talk or if there's somebody else I'm going to defend the academics here who is better suited and um I just yeah want to ask you how do you see journalists how do you see yourself generally interact have you interacted with journalists how has it been um what can we do better um and how how can we stop annoying you yeah how can we stop annoying each other maybe no and because I think there's there's like lots lots to learn and lots of possibilities for synergies but sometimes it's difficult to get to the point where the synergies are happening and I think yeah maybe if we can somehow get ideas that would be interesting I can say something now yeah been too quiet for so long but of course we are happy that you're giving us all these details and please feel free to talk as much as you want being journalist you know you are meant to be wory and explain um actually just to respond to what you're saying how can we talk to each other as an academic and when I read journalism and your articles particularly I just want to say you do an extensive um research work and this is what academics basically do so one of our points of convergence definitely is the fact that um the research is extensive detailed and on top of that is not just collaborative uh research where you have um Co journalist writing but you actually go to the field to report what you see and how you experience it when you were talking about the example of Kenya I was thinking U Nairobi changes every time I fly to Nairobi I notice after 4 months things have completely changed and I just wanted to know from your articles how long did you do the research field work and how are you updating your data because I feel like life is just running along and things are changing and you gave the example of the working solar panels and I want to imagine that if they were not working four months ago they probably were working by the time you were publishing the article so I'm just curious how do you keep up with the fast changing trends of development and how do you document this and also on top of that if you actually do followup kind of you know work after this um it's a difficult bit and and I mean journalism I would say but correct me um I would say journalism um it's more like it's an you're looking at a specific point of time so I mean for the green energy piece I I I I knew that I was doing the story so I read um articles and overviews and datas and statistics and stuff and then we had like three or four days where we were moving around and visiting the different people who who are working in the field and then um then you write with the state of things and then especially magazines they take time until they publish but that's how they operate it's like okay it's the state stand of information at the time of the editorial process and even if it's published a month later they might not check every information again and updated it's more like it's an it's a kind of how do you call it like a view into the field at a specific point of time kind of and it's interesting because the the story was republished this year um a month ago in another Magazine and there they were like okay is this is this number still correct is this number still correct um like fact checking but um what for example they did did not update or we did not we did not call everyone who's in the story and we did not ask everyone how are things now to then update it we did not do that um and about generally follow-up stories um it's nice once you get the chance to do a follow-up story at some point and I mean it does work sometimes that you work with someone for a story for a certain media house and then maybe a year later you can come back to them because you're doing a different story but where they also have expertise and you're doing it for a different media house or something and it's always nice to build such relationships because it also it's a relationship of trust that you trust each other um to be they that they trust us to be represented um well in what they do and we can trust them that they will support us with information um but yeah I have the feeling that it's difficult um doing many many different stories all the time to actually keep track of what the people do that we once spoke to um but it would sometimes be great to have more capacity for that to actually keep in touch and follow up more but um yeah I have a totally different approach my friend um and again I will say I think that approach is informed by this background in investigative journalism where when you are well it started as investigative journalism but I think is reinforced by the academic part of research that I get into so as an investigative journalism in Africa if you don't get your facts right you're cooked they you're finished professionally they are going to come for you so you must check double check so that behavior informs every other type of reporting I do with this particular story um it took me I usually do pre- interviews and I do them as if I'm doing the story but to save cost because I don't have money I I will do this virtually so for example when it was when I decided okay I want to focus on these people before I ever flew into Sagal um I had spontaneous WhatsApp interviews with them so I will pick the day you don't know when I'm going to call you and this was like so I will say it took me 6 months because I can call you this month I'll call you 3 weeks later and you w't know the day and I just say okay can you just put on video let me take and take me around your farm I want to see what's going on and I want to see it spontaneously um and that really helps me to make sure they are not telling me Lies when I get on the ground or afterwards so I just I just I I don't I don't disturb them I just be like okay put your phone there and I'm taking notes and um and I'm like okay do you want to go outside and I'm counting things like the number of of workers the number of women who work what they're doing which is like ethnography observation you know I found that that really works for me and then I get him spend I spend at least two weeks I don't like rushing things because also you plan something and the person is like sorry I have to go for a funeral what are you going to do it's AF frea um now this means sometimes I have to subsidize the funding I get but I would rather not do a story than do it wrongly I don't because I cannot live with my conscience basically everybody can say oh but my conscience are nearly every day so I sit down properly and I do the same things I was trying to do get the story and everything what I do after that is I start calling because you you do a story now it won't get published until maybe a few weeks later or maybe a month or so or over a month but I call them all the time and each time I interview somebody I have a I call it a numbers list the data they give me if it has to do with numbers I must make sure I come back and ask them that so if they say oh today I sent six invoices using Whatsapp I'm like okay I need to ask you if you're still sending six invoices with WhatsApp on average by the time it's time to I know that that is not normal behavior I know it takes more time but as I said it comes from and and that's where acade Academia helps us as journalists you guys can really help us because I don't think I would be this meticulous if I hadn't been exposed to research methods so I will ask who needs to be ask questions or whatever and then when it's time when we're nearing production I call them I do keep in touch actually whether I'm publishing or not I do keep in touch which is how I know that they they now have a factory based on the report um they used the report to get some funding they now have a factory I still speak to the lady who was talking about Ukraine I still speak to the father who was interviewed from France like once in a while I say hello and I think that's just me I don't like uh journalism that just interviews and goodbye so the baby Nathan who was making noise in the in in the web version he was really noisy didn't let his father do this interview with me on Whatsapp had his birthday and actually sent it and the father was like oh you remember that I'm like of course you know so for me that's how I engage um with the story I use um digital methods to monitor as I said and I think that's one tip that I've shared with everybody I can try to monitor remotely try to be spontaneous and you know you can actually observe a lot you can do a lot of ethnography um using Whatsapp thank excuse me so as historian I am asking myself what is really the definition or the definitions of Journalism um because um uh for me it would be uh related to the question of the monitoring or I'm not talking about the verocity which you have addressed very extensively but uh what she has tried to to answer I don't know whether it's really the work of a journalist who is producing maybe daily or weekly or monthly to run after late paper to update it with the times and the times uh because uh uh we work also with u papers newspapers so we can see as historian this was published in this day this was published in this day this was published so you can do a chronological analysis and see how things have evolved and so on so this is why I think that uh uh I'm not I'm not quite sure whether I think it is a picture of a situation in a given period in a place and not running after it maybe everything has changed with digital media and everything so this is my my remark I think also a short uh like there's so many different ways of doing journalism and so one of my kind of one of my in sources of income is working for a news agency and news agency is quick quick quick quick quick every day every day um and then there's a difference like with stories that you do with time where you actually spend a lot of time with protagonists it is much easier to keep in touch because you had more space to make connection but if You' like yeah if but you can't keep changing it you can't keep changing the story once it's published is done you can only try before yeah but once it's published it's done um hi thank you for for a really insightful conversation um to answer your question earlier on engagements with journalists as academics and experiences I have a question that relates to the relationship between journalists and the editors or um what the editors Reda what's that in English the editors yeah um there's an example last week in The Economist where a story came out about Ethiopia rraa and the the digital version of the headline was Africa's next War looms but the written version the printed version came out with the title uh the not quite peace deal and it's the same article with very different headlines and it's so fascinating to see how online versions just to attract readership have this clickbait version of of of of of Journalism and it's a real issue that for especially for academics who then trust journalists with our stories and then we see these headlines that completely distort um not the rest of the article but the first impression and then puts us in danger in one way so just about that relationship between journalists and editors and different media um or different Outlets that result in different audiences I guess that they expect right so I think for me the this part of the work I say journalists have to do um if you remember yesterday one of the things I said was the this award is an acknowledgement of the battles we fight that's one of the battles we fight I fight that as an African and as a human being um where you literally have to tell editors you can't put this often people will say it is the search engine optimization meaning that is how the audience goes to search they will say Africa war so they want to put Africa and War in the first 40 characters of the headline now I always have to go I understand that but you will put the lives of the people who who have gone on the record in Jeopardy I think what can work because a lot of journalists do not know their responsibility extends to such they don't even know what SEO is to be honest the only reason I know it is because I studied it at Master's level yeah that's the only reason I'm not going to pretend as if I know everything um I think the owners is on academics to be very clear a lot gets lost when you are not clear about what Behavior you want to change you have to be clear and say please give even give the example this headline usually changes because to be honest it's also in Academia and journalism studies that headlines change okay please make sure the headline does not change in fact if you need to write a statement for that journalist as a caveat if the headline changes anything inflammatory that may jeopardize me you must not name me because you have the right to withdraw your consent to interview I think you guys should also exercise that right if you ask me because to be honest I've seen a lot of harm done so your question is a really serious one and I feel if your life is at risk you have to be clear so that the journalist now makes the decision to either go and interview somebody or to stick to the terms of the interview so that's not to say don't do interviews but you should one example many examples exist in uh platforms of datab bases for academics I would stick to the African ones there's Source heart uh SS C URC there's um quote this woman and quote this woman plus these are databases that have um experts there of course we also have the conversation now what happens when you get on these databases is the academic the expert will tell you what their terms are and you have to stick to it as a journalist so I feel it goes both ways yes we need to talk to our editors but some of our editors are very stubborn and some of our colleagues don't know so it's you who is in the center of it that should try and educate us and say this is the absolute limit the line you must not cross if you cross that line I have it in writing I can go after you I can use it to defend myself too when people try to come for me and I think that's what we should be looking at instead of not talking to journalists talk to journalist but will be clear about what limits there are and even if like it's difficult to make that clear beforehand because you don't know what the headline is going to be and stuff but like print is difficult to change obviously once it's out it's out but online can always be changed and media houses do change the online headlines there especially like probably once a week there's like a Twitter little storm on some media house or the other because they do like clickbait online headlines and they do change it um and often times it's a very weird dynamic I think because in like media houses when online became a thing they started to employ people who knew things about online about the internet but who were notal good or like who who were not experts in journalism or experts on the topic um and somehow to some degree that has continued where it's like they will somebody for social media because they know social media but in the end you have to know journalism and then you can do social media but you can't do social media and then also do a little bit of Journalism on the site kind of if you're in a media house and I think yeah to kind of um what Rona said like there's a point in engaging and writing an email and being like hey I'm like the article is super interesting um and I'm happy that I was part of it but that headline is a nogo or even as a reader where you're like I really enjoyed reading that article it brought me a lot of information but what the hell is that headline I would suggest you change it um it's possible and if if that if no if nothing comes against the editors why should they change it yeah right I mean and so I think yeah it's this um this thing of engaging with media I know it's as a reader we also have other things to do in our lives if you can't do it just tell your if you have a corporate Communications Department that handles these things let them know you know someone has to be able to tell journalists that look this is my line you know instead of just cutting off the connections because as academics your fears are valid yeah we understand but we do need to talk to you guys still so I think you can uh have a policy there are some um organizations some institutions that have a cooperate coms policy and they will tell even though the individual has spoken to us they will tell you will get a followup email that says look this is the and that removes the I don't know if I should talk to you my my organization has not so yeah I think you can lies with your organizations so you can say yes to our interviews s just just a quick follow up to this discussions um for sure you You' explained how you as a you as a journalist can deal with the editors who are naughty or sometimes but there's also the question of you know the story of the Bible like the person who FS your article in many cases they might also have interest in this matter and perhaps that is also the reason why reporting on Africa sometimes has been look looked at as stereotypical because of course people give out money in order that people report about Africa in certain ways how would you deal with that maybe another follow-up question would be also once you've done your articles the way you've done and they are very interesting ideas you brought out about Africa do you also get a chance to speak back to the people you interviewed the community unities you know like they have something and sometimes many of them are not aware of of how helpful it is for them do you also have a chance to share this because I know for sure that once you've published you may publish uh on the econom in The Economist for instance or you publish in the Times International and and this local community have their thing do you come back to them and say look this is what you're doing and this is how we have seen it and this is you know interesting or this is okay um um especially I mean because I write in German it's I find it especially difficult um talking with people writing articles but then I mean I can throw my article in deep and send them like a rough English version but it's it's often difficult to kind of yeah this question of like yeah what's what's the Rel relevance kind of and that's why it's it's nice and interesting to work in actually teams and then have a story run in a Kenyan media house and have a story run in a German media house so that that the information that was gathered is actually available and accessible not only for the German audience that that's an ideal case but it's far from being the the normal yeah um and generally it's like this going going back and having a discussion again it rarely happens because that would mean you need to find Budget again to go back to the same place often we are reporting from places where we where we are not usually um or where we are just for a while like a few weeks um and we might not even get a chance to get back to the place we can talk to them we can send them I I mean it's good practice to send a link or a PDF of the story but it for me it rarely goes far further beyond that in like interacting about the content and then seeing yeah um this is a this is always a person now it's down to the person who's reporting the story I think um for me I will always first of all out source I don't apply for grants that have conditions on countries that should not be reported on increasingly um grants are very clear that we are not going to interfere and they don't interfere which is why I continue to say if you see stereotypes is often editors I would not Grant organizations are too far removed where they influence is when they say only report on such and such countries some us grants will actually tell you do not report on countries that they have sanctions on they will list the names I don't go to those grants I don't because it's censorship but for me that's the only level of censorship you can really see any censorship you see I feel is in the editorial process it's in the production process it's more that nobody is going to come from one big founder and be policing single stories some of these grants cover up to 300 stories in Iran you really think so no it's the editors it's the colleagues it's the reporters ourselves so for me I don't apply for conditional grants I have nothing to do with grants that are conditional that's my own personal decision because I've decided how I want my career to be the second thing I do is when we start designing our story I often try to push for multilingual publication at soft it doesn't matter whether we are collaborating or not the main primary source what language do they speak so with this Sagal Story We published in French we published in German we published in English I personally paid for wall of translation that was sent to the people that were in the village I personally paid somebody to voice a summary in wall off and sent it as a voice note because I know that some of my sources do not they are not literate in English French or wof but they listen now did that take resources not a lot for somebody like me who is privileged but it did it took time it took time but the thing about me is I make the time I'm not I'm not saying everybody's going to do that I don't encourage everybody to do it because it's a personal thing for me you know um I'm not in journalism because okay let's just do the story and go I'm not because I've been like that I come from poverty I know what it is to be a s and nobody cares about you after in quot it's not they are busy they have their lives but you're not thinking like that you're thinking okay this person came to me so I try not to do that so these are the types of examples I I do I look at at translation at source and I think that's also where academics um leave some of us some of the stories um some of the articles I quoted the academics they published in French I don't understand French so I wish they published this in English so now I had to go and ask the academic if they had an English version they did but they didn't put it publicly why won't you do that so if I didn't and ask for example so I think where we can have um some impact is one discourage conditional grants because the more people that don't apply for it the more they stop applying those conditions secondly multilingualism at source thirdly multiformat so most of the time journalism is in print whether it's PDF you are still looking at print maybe we should try audio so that our people can send it by voice notes audio summaries so that's what I do very interesting thank you uh I'm not an academic that's why uh I'm begging you to let me look uh away from uh the relationship between academics and journalist okay so the two gentlemen uh were just faster than I am so sorry answer the question partially um my question is about this relationship we have with uh let's say your audience um in my view there is a kind of uh Mutual impact between journalism and audience so uh journalists report or right because they want to inform Their audience and uh on the other side we have the audience with expectations and journalist that journalists try to meet okay so um does it happen that you go after a story that because you think it's something that your audience would like to read about or hear about or uh does it happen that you try to tell a story in such a way that meets the expectations of your audience so and obviously uh how do you react when uh an editor says I'm not really happy with this story because I think it won't be something that would interest the audience thank you so I don't have a filter when it comes to journalism and so I tell the editor um I used to have a lot of arguments with editors about this so I would tell the editor no then the story will be killed all my all my energy would have gone the story wouldn't be told so I now have a system I blend the needs of the audience in the place let's say Nigeria senagal with the needs of the German audience that I know because I live in Germany I'm a news consumer I follow the trends I know what the audience wants and then I blend it with the expectations of editors only at the level of world HIV day is coming World AIDS day is coming foring so let me do a story about widows HIV widows and let me do it in a way that interrogates German funding into Africa for HIV funny so that I can blend all three now I usually do not go and meet the editor first I've stopped starting with the editors because for me personally it doesn't work that's when we fight they will tell you something you actually go and do the story back it can also change and by that time you've invested all the that so what I do I take both the audiences my audiences and my audience in Germany also includes people Africans in the diaspora so I take what I think will be relevant to them it's as simple as going on Instagram and checking uh Germans in blah blah blah I'm also a member of up to 15 groups of Africans in Europe I just joined all of them I listen I don't post anything I just listen to what they are saying what they sharing so I know what's relevant to them I know the Ed is in The Newsroom somewhere they don't know so I know so I'm like I'm going to tell you what's going to happen at this point so I then go actually do reporting trips and then come back and start teaching the stories and that has worked for me that has totally worked for me at the very most I have to go back again maybe to update maybe to fine tune or whatever but that is what has worked for me because I discovered that when you start with the Ed you are starting with one person you need to start with the audience what they need and then tie it with news worthiness an editor will never say no to a story when they need to fill their Pages for World AIDS day they're not going to say no when they need to fill their Pages for remembrance against slavery so what I started doing was targeting relevant days but starting with the priority of my audiences and I think that's what people should try and do you cannot be centering the editor when the editor is just one person in One Newsroom somewhere you have to start with what the audience wants and walk your way up from there I'm still building my confidence to do that for your first place winner you have the confidence you have the confidence do it this award is contributing to my confidence to in future no um yeah it's it's I think it's a it's a process of uh Prof professional growth and growing into into your career and making experiences with grants with editors and um then trying to find your balance and to find find your voice youro the way you want to tell the story and then find a way of getting it out without it being distorted somewhere on the way but yeah I think that's a it's a process that that continues it does doeses yeah my question is about something that you you've been touching upon throughout this conversation from the very beginning and this is the topic of relationships and power hierarchies you mentioned the relationships with the editors the collaborative research that is on the rise like in Academia so to say and then I was wondering about your relationship and the power hierarchies you have to navigate in the field with your sources like is it something that comes up often is it something you need to take into consideration often you know just the fact that you are someone coming from a different socioeconomic context talking to people how that influences your your work in the field because it's also very relevant for for us and as academics thanks it I would say it is a really big thing the thing is in journalism like I think in Academia there's a bit more of a like context that is also pushing you to reflect your role in journalism it has to come from yourself like nobody will no editor will be here and it's like have you reflected your white privilege lately like that's just not that's just not a reality so you have to like and that's it's a good thing because you can you can make the effort but it's also a bad thing because it depends on how much time you give it like the reflection yeah so it's if you're a very if you're in a very busy week or something you I might not reflect as much on my role as I would want to and it is very difficult and it's something that I don't have like an answer to I think it's extremely difficult to have conversations and to also reflect sometimes it's possible to reflect with the people we we work with in the field um sometimes there's not really space for that um a lot of times in reporting in Kenya also in other places um money is an issue a lot of the times it's like you as somebody who comes or I as somebody who comes from a um kind of settled well of a socioeconomic situation I am coming to somewhere where that's not the case for most people um in in certain stories not in all stories um and then there's the question what what do you bring us what are you leaving us with um and there's no there's no single answer to that how do you usually handle that I'm curious yeah it's super difficult I mean sometimes my my my preferred version of this is like let's have a meal together and I pay for the meal for all of us together who were involved in doing this story together that's a nice thing because then we have food together we can we have time to share um I'm not leaving anyone hungry on that day who might not have eaten or something and who was who came expecting something in other CA in other cases when sometimes people are quite straightforward they already mentioned that on the phone they're like so is there any compensation and then I'm like straightforward there there's no compensation because I can't pay for stories if I start paying for stories all kinds of stories will come up and I don't know anymore is this a story somebody told me because they will get money for it or is this a story that is actually true um and but it's a lot of conversation and negotiation and yeah sometime yeah it's there there's no one solution for me for that yet but if anybody has good suggestions on how to deal with that they are very welcome because it is super difficult yeah and there's a um Patrick Gara is a cartoonist in Kenya and I was at a there's once a year there's the Africa media festival and at the Africa media Festival this year he said he he was hosting a panel about um yeah kind of exactly like different roles in international reporting and then he was talking about story tellers and story takers and that was something that um also made me think again because especially when you're doing news you are taking stories you are not actually giving space for storytelling because news TV one minute you can't actually tell a story you're taking a story to illustrate a news event or something and yeah I think it's important to keep reflecting and to keep exchanging with colleagues and with other people um but yeah it it is definitely a complicated thing and yeah if if anybody has suggestions they are welcome so for me my experience um I draw now normally but then I now I now start to really when I could find the words for it um I'll keep saying this because Academia has really sharpened my journalism um I started finding the words for it POS positionality for example what it was and what I've noticed is when I report I am othered I'm Ed based on my marital status so some people will refer to me with more difference than usual so I stopped wearing my wedding ring because I need you to come to me truly just imagine I'm not married so that you don't come with that difference of Madame you know um the cuz I tested it I wear ring oh madame this way please Madame you know they single you out of the no she's a married withal lettera and I'm like these people were on the Queue before me you know so I'm Ed um I'm Ed as soon as I open my mouth because whatever accent this is it comes out and they immediately say so in Ghana it's like oi which is Foreigner and I'm black like you but I'm o and automatically I know that that's going to affect positionality I'm also othered because I'm an elite journalist I'm a journalist and literally that's what the AC academic definition is a journalist who is formally educated who has some industry Awards or whatever um and so I downplay that actually as much as possible I downplay it you know I tell the colleagues I'm working with please there's no em me anybody here we won't get this story if you keep saying things like this is my boss this is my colleague cuz I'm not your boss I just need to get a true story here so I have to negotiate it clearly and say look do not refer to me as Mrs Maya do not mention my surname even do not call me boss I know it's culturally what you need to do do not call me that you know what I also notice is something that I discovered is called online shocks wherever when you're doing um an online interview with zoom they part Dynamics so how I noticed the P Dynamics is this people would be commenting on my background cuz I have pictures on my background um people comment on things around my house so I started hanging covering it why because at the same time it is proven scientifically that people will not talk to you as a journalist if you have a blood background they don't trust you cuz who else are you hiding there especially investigative journalist who else are you hiding in the background so I've had to learn that when I negotiate the hierarchies that show that okay it looks like this person lives in a nice house I have to speak nice to them I block it you can't see it but at the same time I'm not blurring I also have to prepare myself for online shocks because I know that dominance is asserted by in terms of dressing okay some people will dress up um suggestively some people will even strip themselves on online inter so you need to be ready you really need to be ready um and so for me you won't see me wearing air when I speak to Muslims for example African Muslims I cover my head even online so these are the ways I'm negotiating the hierarchies it's always a work in progress and I don't think I would be this aware if I was not already reflecting on my positionality four years ago when I started uh the PHD you know and all of that um I think it's important to have a journal I think it's important to debrief so my version of debriefing is I have older colleagues that I really trust I go on the field and I'm like look this person asked me for money they were very hungry they looked hungry but I don't pay for stories am I a bad person and then they talk you through they say no one time they told me okay you know what the colleague you're working with that is on the ground on the last day when you are no longer there after you have finished your interview so they've given you the correct thing you've already said you're not paying any money on the last day give the fixer money to give to that person after you have gone because because you have gotten the true story and you have gone but always start from the beginning like I'm not paying you I am not paying you for even for launch I'm not paying you for your transport do you want to talk to me so we get the story out okay yes I I'll talk to you and then they surprisingly get something later they don't have to know it's from you even um so I wouldn't be this aware if I wasn't talking to senior colleagues asking for their wisdom how do you negotiate it I feel guilty you know so I think that those are some of of the things that have helped me and this is what I experience in terms of power dynamics yeah thank you so much I'm I'm very happy that you have completely destroyed our structure um but uh you have destroyed it in such a creative way that we talked about all the points that we wanted to talk about so we talked about audiences we've talked about stereotypes we've talked about best practices um I have another question because it it really does look like that we share very many aspects in in our respective work um and one issue that I oftentimes stumble upon and I mean you do investigative journalism so this might perhaps be less attributed to to your I don't know the the other works that you're doing but the idea of sort of studying down right ethnographically uh often times there there's a tendency in in African study in terms of social class for instance to to get um this idea of getting the voices there's this whole debate about whether the sub Alton can can speak whether sort of you know who gets the voice but there's also the problem of you know that African Elites um or the you know the upper middle class are not uh considered either accessible or not considered the sort of interesting uh uh in terms of how the image of Africa is portrayed and that reproduces a very stereotypical image of Africa so how do you deal with that also in terms of your reporting um how do how would you how how do you change that yeah it's it's a it's a it's it's a challenge um because it's always like kind of what is interesting is that which is different and then when people look at Nairobi what is very different from Germany is the slums but then what what does actually like the like okay 50% maybe of the Nairobi City population live like in informal settlements but then the other 50% don't and they also have a life and they do things and um it's nice when it actually works out to portray kind of different different life realities and I think in the energy story we had I mean there's there's worlds and socioeconomic backgrounds between the people who we met for the story like the the engineer who is doing the geothermal exploration prospects analysis is like Highly Educated high up in uh parastatal Kenyon company and then the lady in the rural area who has a biogas at home which where she puts her cow D and then she has gas for cooking has a very different reality and I think yeah it's kind of this finding like ways or finding things that are relevant to the people that we are talking to that are then relevant to the story kind of um and not only trying to get some certain information out for illustration but to actually find out okay why is it important for her to do what she does or to get her energy the way she gets it or is it important for her at all I'm just trying find that out and then trying to find a way to convey that so for me I think um in general Africa studies has a lot to answer for in this equation why your question is very interesting is because often that's what uh African studies does I've discovered that African studies often covers uh research along Colonial lines so German um German researchers will cover Namibia this is not only African studies it's happening in journalism studies and even journalism funding so Germany funds a lot of Namibia programs the UK fund a lot of Nigerian programs uh colonialism okay um so it's not it's not only African studies but what I've discovered is the African Elite are able to get away with a lot of things because African studies is still heavily focused on History heavily focused on as you say those below meaning the Contemporary problems and the Bringers of the Contemporary problems get out free the FOC we have on tribes of Africa the focus we have on Cinema of Africa why are we not putting it in the Contemporary business elit why are we not studying and the history is important but I want to see the same focus on what is happening now you'll be hard pressed to see studies African studies on Instagram about Instagram about Tik Tok and the African sub subculture just there meanwhile that is where farride people are causing Havoc leaders we have one of them um from France who has now gone back to Mali and he started his movement from Instagram he had to be evicted I forget his name now he was his passport was taken France sees his passport he has gone back to Mali he's with the J now thank you sorry my geography is Rusty but I was in the region right I was in the region right for me one of the people that actually brought him to something similar to research was actually a journalism um NGO called code for Africa and the only reason this guy got any type of actual empirical scrutiny was because they were looking at disinformation spread by social media were they competent enough did they go far enough I personally don't think so because they not the academics so for me my own way how I try to counteract this is focus on contemporary things that are happening Tech in senal while still looking at the cultures the media consumption cultures and patterns of farmers who consume orally who use voice notes who use disappearing messages so I think there's a place to do both the reason why African studies has sort of failed is because it continues to focus along Colonial lines it continues to focus on that tribal sentiment without taking into account that these tribes are moving the tware people we focus on they are very very good at using Tech they are some of the targets for Russian Miss information yes because they're able to move these people are recruited in places like Kenya the coastal cities used for terrorism we are not looking at this from this angle and because of that African elit get away with all sorts of things because we tend to focus on WE research down and so for me I think that's where journalism and African studies can come together African studies can learn from how journalism looks at breaking news contemporary culture but African studies has the benefit of being rich in Corpus rich in history so able to link that history to the present which is something us journalists lack um I'm just excited about what you're talking about right now because to me it already seems like a research project for a PhD that you're doing oh my God so uh this actually makes me now curious which topics are you working on academically so AC academically I'm working on power dynamics between African journalists that research on Western funded collaborations with Western journalists and we see a lot of that power rooted in colonialism so for example I've had to create a new power category because the theory does not cater to it historically that part that part category is called control of cultural norms where one journalist would decide the culture that we should cater to we should fund is for example you can come to me and say oh this investigation is taking so much from me I think I'm going to need a therapist oh yeah sure but the African cannot come and say I need to say Sanga for a spiritual cleansing ceremony because they're going to be like ha what does that even mean you know so for me um that's the first thing I'm focusing on making sure that the theory that exists is fitting into the Contemporary reality another thing I think um I will be working on hopefully is about how immigrants use uh what I call MF fluenc migration focused social media influencers they pay them they even PID them especially Africans they pay them and how do I know this I have three siblings that migrated in 5 years to Canada and as soon as Canada started bringing out um postgraduate work permit policy you could see literally Even in our family our little family uh WhatsApp group chat the siblings moved away and were not posting official news sources they started posting migration influencers these are migration influencers that are paid to share a coupon from anything from far right people politicians to universities nobody's looking at it you know so I feel African studies can start to blend what is happening in media cultures outside of mainstream outside of Cinemas what's happening in the subcultures of social media what's happening in the diaspora communities and how does that link to our history um I think that can be a continuation of the work that exists and yeah I'm Keen to explore let's go for it and Kenya is a very important um please a very important indicator of all the shifts politically geopolitically culture wise media culture wise social media wise so yeah I don't know what your thoughts are on this um yeah it's when you were talking about like the migration influencers a few Twitter accounts came to my mind of Kenyans who live in Germany and who give information on Twitter about how to go to Germany and um yeah it's it's interesting because I mean Germany and Kenya just had this migration agreement which is a bit of a populist farce for both governments they use it in different ways but it doesn't really change reality on the ground but um it has been it has definitely been like a conversation opener and more people are talking about how to migrate to Germany and giving advice or um yeah it's it's definitely an interesting topic to study if anybody needs contacts or a place to stay in Nairobi welcome I think this is another question that perhaps um I would like to ask before we unfortunately already have to close um in terms of data and contact so I think there's a lot that we can share uh millions of things already came to my mind even with with regards to the two of you and I think this audience here but perhaps structurally do you think that there's a way in which um information that academics or journalist are collecting can be can be shared or is that is that something that you have experience on or is it too sensitive uh because they're obviously also extremely important ethical questions when when it comes to data um but this is one of the questions where you know one one could ask especially here in bioid is there something that we can do in order to to enhance each other's work I was talking to uh I forgot her name barara she just left is I was talking to someone yesterday who works in the science communication in the university in byid I think Doris yeah maybe um sorry confusing names um and I was saying that if I was working in the University Communications Department I would like actively look for the contacts of journalists who do Africa reporting and come up with something like a newsletter um with like relevant studies that are going on that are going to be published around this and this time because for us sometimes it is important to know beforehand when something is going to get published so that we can attach our research to a publishing date or um when something like when something is happening like I don't know protests in Kenya or a coup in Mali or I don't know uh whatever um to just be kind of proactive in like telling journalists that we have these experts because it is super diff like there's a million universities in this world and most of them have shitty websites and so many people and it's difficult to actually find out or like sometimes it's difficult to find out who would actually be the good person to talk to then you reach out to the uh scientists or researcher then they're like ah I'm not sure if I can talk then we need to talk back like the process is often a bit slow when you want to talk like to universities or like then you or you reach out to the Press department and then they're like we'll get back and then they never get back like things like that happen on a daily basis and sometimes then we don't have the capacity to follow up so we just go with someone we already know and that will then then then the same voices get quoted again and again because they are available because they are out there because they make an effort um but yeah there are so many more people with academic experience and knowledge whose perspectives could easily uh feature in journalistic stories and research but yeah sometimes it's not that easy and I think like as after now first thing I would do would be sharing a contact list of the jury and US journalists with each other so that this little group of people communication will be easy in the future um and but yeah that's just a very tiny starting point but I think yeah it's a great starting point I think it's a great starting point I have a list of things here cuz we have suffered the next PR so so I think there are many many um avenues for signergy especially because of the prominent place that pyro already has in terms of African studies and the whole cluster uh and the hundreds of fellows so you already have that rich database already um I think you need to have a news agency mindset so for example we've known for ages that the African uh that the American um election was going to happen um proactively your datab base should include sound bites already from the fellows from the uh jury members that research on that and when I say sound B I don't even mean just typed out read voice and just put it up on your on your um database and those of us who are vetted in quot you can come up with whatever vetting system it means maybe they need to Louie needs to um recommend me or you know how already from the price right we now have to log in so you're not data protection you're not just putting this things out we have to login maybe get a token number to download I think the biggest example you can use is UN radio they have stuff that journalist can just go and download but of course you have to register so if you guys look at un radio you see how they run it I think that's the first thing we need we don't just need um the contact numbers because academics are busy people we need proactive um colleagues in Communications or whatever that already prepare a news roster so we get on there and we just take what we need we have we ask for more con uh context you can decide to embargo it so that those of us who who take some quotes it's exclusive to us and the rest of the outsiders can use the of for I'm just saying okay so I think let's think of data as the richness of insight we already have and let's tailor it to what we know is to come so you need to ask each person in the cluster what news events are coming up that are relevant to your that you can speak to and prepare ahead okay I think you can also help us those of us who are halfway into research you know like two of us here you can help us with things like getting ethical approval because I'll be honest I want to do some things have started as um journalistic stories but I feel they need academic treatment but the whole stress of going to get ethical approval I mean I can come to you if the cluster has a means of getting ethical approval for independent researchers then we co-author you know I I discuss with you then we co-author you know if you do that then you will now see this signergy going quickly the last thing I will say is you need to have two short courses running in this cluster that will help with the signages and one is for journalists how to research or how Academia can help your journalistic research yeah because for example I'm not going to sit here and say all the brilliant things I said or the meaningful things I said came from from nowhere or came from journalism no it came from my practice as an academic that's how I know how to debrief how to reflect and if you guys teach us in a short course it can be online it can be a video that we click and we play it can also be onsite okay let me tell you if you to if you gave me that cost four years ago I will pay for it I will pay for it because it has helped me you know what I've learned it shouldn't take me 4 years so if you have a short course you can get a funded too because journalists don't have money if you have a short course bring journalists you know that are interested in sharpening uh in taking academic practices that will help them be better how to verify how to debrief what does peer checking what does member checking look like in journalism you know that will help and then you guys also need us to teach you how to convert your article into a new story because a lot of you when we ask you to summarize you don't know where to start start now when B was saying it I understood because if you ask me to summarize I cannot summarize I want to tell you about everything so I understand but I think there needs to be a course that we will teach ourselves this is how you get a story even when you are doing the ethnography you know for example I can tell you immediately that this is the lead of my story you might not be able to get that but once we talk you know I'm like okay okay okay okay that that's what it means so for me I think we can talk and we can also share resources like I can share about how to use the conversation um because the conversation helps acade academics simplify their stuff into stories I can tell you my experience of how we peit to Colombia journalism review to turn Research into you know so if you bring different people like that into the room and we talk you will make it easier when the next journalist comes or easier for the comes person so these are my ideas I'm sorry for rambling but yeah thanks no this is this is wonderful I think um in in return we might ask a few things from you uh especially how to write better and to to write to audience is in ways that they actually understand what we try to say because uh for me at least in the in the past um I've turned more and more to to journalistic Works um you just write so much better than then our our ways of theorizing things sometimes get in the way of actually depicting situations and conditions so uh yeah I think we can have like a CO co-working space coming up so uh we will we'll try to to build on on this and this engagement perhaps before uh I I will give the the word to billian what what I also found very interesting uh was this decalage like the the the misfit between you were talking about this the two of you about Nairobi changing so quickly and in German audiences the idea of Africa is sort of that the opposite of that so we are really dealing with like a contradiction that is so profound and that we are all I think struggling to sort of undo um but that also has a lot to do with um yeah perhaps society's unreadiness to give up stereotypes um and it will be it will be to engage with ignorance as well so I think what I also would like to sort of rephrase is what you said yesterday that we also as individuals might want to um Target Media houses whenever we see an article that does well or that does not well re represent um African phenomena um and so um I I also would like to to thank you for for all the the the wisdom that you shared with us um and the yeah the the really inspiring work that you're doing and we hope that uh we we can we can build on this together and I yeah we should stalk each other you have our cont so no I actually just wanted to say that uh yoshka has really summarized what uh you have um we've all done here today exchanging ideas and we hope to keep the conversation going and I don't know if anybody um in the crowd wants to say something perhaps um the yes yes cont to your no um uh it's not a contribution to the conversation that has uh taken place it was just uh uh I wanted to say a few thanking words um thank you so much billian and yoska um to um to guide this conversation and you also put a lot of work and effort e in preparation and I think it turned out into a really um Vivid uh um conversation and it was also pleasure from our side to facilitate this event and um to see how all of you have appreciated um uh that this encounter actually took place thank you so much for making the time and uh contributing so much of your experiences ideas and visions and thanks for the jury and we have also appreciated so much that you've been here and uh also very great thank to the team of um culture cure n and help um they are doing a very professional great work here and uh this on a voluntary basis so thank you so much for accommodating us uh again and again and we will probably every time come back here so and please don't run away because uh I got a phone call the food is coming so we can stay here for a while one two hours if you like please don't run away food partly partly I hope okay thank you so [Applause] much yeah I I just want to thank to extend my thanks to all the organizers here here who have supported the the juty for this work organizing the whole things so it has been a learning opportunity for all of us and I think uh people who have come here are really happy with the the work and uh I just want to stress that uh so that thank you very much to all of you natal and your team and thank you [Applause] thank you everyone and enjoy the lunch [Applause]
Origins & context
- Title
- Roundtable: Connecting Continents: How can African Studies and Journalism benefit from each other?
- Language
- English
- Date
- November 14, 2024
Identifiers & sources
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