Martial

Like The Tigray And Sudan Wars, The Eastern DRC Conflict Is Not African Media’s Proudest Moment The fighting in eastern DR Congo has another new high, and it’s one of the biggest stories in the world today. One thing is missing though; no African media from any of Africa’s leading media markets (Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt), those good people who claim to be champions of “telling the African story from an African perspective” have either invested treasure or risked blood putting journalists on the ground to report what they are see. Without any sense of irony or self-awareness, our big media are running commentaries – even editorials – decrying “biased Western media [or foreign] perspectives” on the war, a jibe at the likes of BBC, Western Wire Agencies, and Al Jazeera are generating most of the copy that the rest of us jump on. Even these foreign media have hardly reported from the “frontline” as it were, relying heavily on accounts from the warring sides, embassies, the UN, or the view from the capital of a country neighbouring DRC. Meanwhile, X (Twitter) Spaces, blogs, and social media are blowing up with self-important rants by people who wouldn’t locate Goma City if you handed them a blank map of DRC. The nearly one-year-long deadly that is tearing Sudan, has only gone without media skin the game. Al Jazeera owned that one. None of the major African media put cameras and journalists’ boots in the furious, and lethal Tigray war (Nov 2020 – Nov 2022). We sat and covered the story of the government in Addis Ababa railing against CNN, BBC, and The New York Times for alleged bias and supporting Tigray insurgents. It wasn’t always this way. While I was Managing Editor at The Monitor in Kampala, we covered the Rwanda war, we covered the so-called “First Congo War”, we covered the war in now South Sudan; with one of the more enduring episodes from the latter being a time when our reporter and photographer stumbled upon a pile of bodies in a pristine forest, with not a single fly in sight despite their having been there for days. The Monitor wasn’t rich. We hitchhiked on lorries carrying charcoal, rickety pick-ups, motorbikes, and bicycles. We foraged for what to eat. The Rwanda War, the First Congo War, and South Sudan weren’t wars we read about from the wires. The wires quoted us. We don’t even have to “tell the whole story”. It’s fine to be embedded with the Kinshasa government forces, with the M23 rebels, or any of the other 100 and more militias in eastern DRC. Telling half a story, from one of the combatants, is still many times than telling nothing. Admittedly, times are hard for legacy media, who are the ones who can invest in these stories. Many are a pale shadow of their glorious past selves. But you talk to young reporters, and they are thrilled at the prospect of covering, and the prospect of the stardom it will bring. Courage and the necessary level of youthful foolishness aren’t what is what is lacking. These reporters blame the takeover of media companies by “bean counters who don’t understand or care for journalism”, the “lack of imagination” by some of the new generation of media leaders, and a “spirit broken by the battle against anti-free-media” corporate and political systems. They are not asking for helicopters to be hired for them, or even airfare. Permission to go and see if they can escape being eaten by Mai Mai militia, bus fare, and some change to buy roast maize and mangoes along the roadside markets as they travel by bus from Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam or Kigali to the border with DRC would be enough. But they aren’t. The bean counters are asking them to justify the return on the pennies. Meanwhile, the next conference is coming, and the PowerPoint on “the dearth of African perspectives” and the “lack of nuance” in Western media coverage of Africa is loading. I know when the rain started beating us. I wonder when it will stop.