Ghana's Minister of Communications suggested the following ten-point

1. African leaders, governments and citizens, must resolve to work harder to produce more positive news in Africa.
2. Africa must have a positive image of itself
3. Africans must mount an "affirmative reporting" for Africa
4. African governments and the private sector must take decisive advantage of news and film exchange programmes.
5. African government must allocate more funds to the communications sector.
6. There should be communication components in funding for projects in sectors like agriculture, education, health etc.
7. More press attaches/cultural or information officers should be posted to diplomatic missions.
8. Professions in Africa allied to journalism, like public relations and advertising have the onerous role of presenting positive images about Africa.
9. African countries should undertake more international public relations campaigns.
10. African countries and their international friends should provide more education and training to journalists.


If the Western media were willing to spend more time in Africa and make a real effort to understand the people and their needs, they might be able to contribute to projecting a more balanced and accurate view of the continent. African countries might not need to spend money on advertorials in weeklies such as Time and Newsweek to have a positive portrayal of themselves in international media.

Unfortunately, though, as long as bad news sells (and it most certainly will for a long time to come), we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for the Western media to realise that their images are not an accurate portrayal of Africa's reality. As Africans, we need to stop seeing ourselves through the eyes of the Western media and find a way to make them see us as we see ourselves.

Source: http://journ.ru.ac.za/amd/int.htm

Nigerians be weary of the media when dealing with Africa (Tama-re). You will now notice that when we sadly face famine in our outer-regions subtly the western media will actually blame nature itself for the event. They lean away from the notion of EU/US trade barriers, international debt, civil wars with ammunition supplied by the west and middle-east, and environmental pollution from the west creating these harsher global climates. These factors will make any country already billions of dollars in international debt find it hard to help there own. Famine is Man-Made it is not a natural disaster. Mineralogists and environmentalists can predict crop failures month’s even years in advance know that it can always be prevented. Understand the blaming of nature may not sound important but there is reasoning. It disguises the real political and economical story behind events and installs in the African mind a rejection of God. For many will think why is God/Nature doing this? When really it is man doing this and a particular type of man at that. Kuwait and Arabia have harsh environmental climates but they have the financial resources to prevent national famine occurring amongst their poor population. They seriously do not want Africans getting back in line with nature at all. If you understand this day and time you will find it easier to avoid problems in life. Animals are still tied to nature before any major natural disaster they will let you know something is going to happen especially birds they will always leave before the event.

@Ijebuman, you have really enlighten me today, thnx

The 6 out of 10 of the fastest growing economies in the world are in and the only countries people talk about is India and China. Why is it? Why does Africa have so many beautiful cities and we only here about Dubai and Shanghai? Why is everything about Africa negative? Why don't they talk about positive news about technology why? Why don't they show the true history of Africa in western schools? Why don't they talk about the Moors who colonized Spain, Portugal, Italy, and south france? Why did the Europeans cange the image of god to look like them, then they went around the world promoting this god? Why does the media and Hollywood love portraying chocolate people negatively? If you can answer these questions then you can understand this white supremacist system we live in.

Look up the doll experiment: http://abagond./2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/

They do this for a reason, they want to portray chocolate as bad and white as good. Even the definition of black and dark are bad. This is why I used chocolate instead of black. Look at my former post: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-793468.0.html

The main reason is white supremacy and the elite know that if chcoclate people knew their true history then they would be a force to be reckoned with. Also to get them back for slavery. It is mental slavery.

^^^ Please cut the bull. One could argue that majority of the news from China, and India showcases, to some level, the harshness of the government on it's people (in the case of China), and the vast levels of poverty that continue to plague both nations. But that has not stopped both from flourishing in the international world, and moving towards changing those negative aspects.

Stop blaming everyone else and start working on fixing your problems. How many more "EVERYBODY ELSE, especially the WEST, IS TO BLAME" threads do you intend to open before the end of the year so I can copy and paste this response most everywhere as it is becoming all too obvious that this is not the year to open your mind on this.

China and India have many programs about them being the fasteest goriwng and they say alot of good about the country as well as bad. but why is African portrayal ALL bad? CNN will go to Somalia and have an entire show about them, but why not a show about the fast growing telecommunications sector in Nigeria? When will Fox News portray choclate people well? I was watching fox once and they had a video of a choc guy beating up a white guy out of nowhere. What was the point of THIS? WHY? WHITE SUPREMACY!! WHITE GOOD BLACK BAD!!

It is working too. Look at the chocagolate ocmmunity in America. Terrible schools, high unemployment, high crime, so many choc men in jail, 70% of children have no fahters. 1 in 2 chocolate babies are aborted. Do you see this sytem and the way it works? White people don't kill chocolate people anymore, they kill their self. White people don't have to tell them that they are stupid, they are think it. White people don't have to kill their babies, they do it theirself. Do you see the system?

Kobojunkie:

^^^ Please cut the bull. One could argue that majority of the news from China, and India showcases, to some level, the harshness of the government on it's people (in the case of China), and the vast levels of poverty that continue to plague both nations. But that has not stopped both from flourishing in the international world, and moving towards changing those negative aspects.

Stop blaming everyone else and start working on fixing your problems. How many more "EVERYBODY ELSE, especially the WEST, IS TO BLAME" threads do you intend to open before the end of the year so I can copy and paste this response most everywhere as it is becoming all too obvious that this is not the year to open your mind on this.

igbo2011:

China and India have many programs about them being the fasteest goriwng and they say alot of good about the country as well as bad. but why is African portrayal ALL bad? CNN will go to Somalia and have an entire show about them, but why not a show about the fast growing telecommunications sector in Nigeria? When will Fox News portray choclate people well? I was watching fox once and they had a video of a choc guy beating up a white guy out of nowhere.  What was the point of THIS? WHY? WHITE SUPREMACY!! WHITE GOOD BLACK BAD!!

It is working too.  Look at the chocagolate ocmmunity in America.  Terrible schools, high unemployment, high crime, so many choc men in jail, 70% of children have no fahters. 1 in 2 chocolate babies are aborted. Do you see this sytem and the way it works? White people don't kill chocolate people anymore, they kill their self. White people don't have to tell them that they are silly, they are think it. White people don't have to kill their babies, they do it theirself. Do you see the system?

Where do you find this chocolate community in America?
First I am hearing of them

eGuerrilla:

Where do you find this chocolate community in America?
First I am hearing of them

Chocolate people as in black people. I don't like saying black or dark to refer black people anymore so I use chocolate or caramel. So somebody can be very chocolate, chocolate, low chocolate, caramel, and low caramal.
Check this post out: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-793468.0.html

ijebuman:
I think people don't understand the point i was trying to make apart from Pearl2. All i'm asking for is balance, you hardly hear anything positive reported about Africa. The whole continent is tarred with the same brush despite the fact that there a lot of positive things happening in many African countries.
Countries like Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, SA etc are making a lot of progress but no one hears about them. Only the negative is portrayed. The average viewer in a western country has no idea about what Africa is really like apart from what he keeps seeing on TV.
Its so sad that even Africans born outside the continent associate Africa with only poverty and disease. I know Nigerian kids scared of visiting Nigeria because of all the stuff they "hear about Africa"


This is such a sad statement to make, how much foreign "aid" are we talking about here. How many African countries do you think gets foreign aid (which is quite different from loans). If this is the basis for supporting the negative portrayal of Africa then i'm sorry brother, you're playing the "victim". 
You think the paltry sums they throw our way to ease their consciences is because of the sad scenes politicians see on TV. For all the foreign aid sent to Africa there are always conditions attached to it, nothing is free my brother.
Its like here's some aid but you need to remove all restrictions to imports from our country or here's some money but we need to set up a military base in your country.
The amount of aid provided to Israel alone is far more than what the US spends in the whole of Africa. Does the US give money to Israel because the israelis are starving?

As Africans we don't need aid from these countries, what we need is for them to stop interfering in the affairs of the continent
- by allowing fair trade agreements so African raw materials are sold at fair prices not at prices determined in western countries.
- by not encouraging conflicts by selling weapons to both sides of a conflict (e.g Sudan, Congo, Rwanda)
- allowing their multinationals to pollute and degrade our environment
- allowing our corrupt politicians to stash money in their banks and providing them safe havens
- Supporting dictators that end up destroying their countries (e.g Mobutu in Zaire supported by US et al throughout his tyrannical reign, Rwandan Hutu leadership that carried out the Tutsi genocide was supported by France etc)

I could go on, hope you get the gist.
It's hypocritical, because western governments and their multinationals are part of the problems in Africa yet their media will highlight the problems without providing a proper historical analysis of why the problems are happening.

Oh and another thing that is becoming prevalent in western countries is 'donor fatigue'. This is a situation where people are so tired of seeing negative images from Africa that it doesn't prick their consciences anymore.


Well the people i know (myself included) are proud of our Nigerian heritage and we're constantly working to improve things and change perceptions. If you're so ashamed of your country/continent you can do something about it by supporting African charities. You can start by sponsoring an African child at Plan - http://www.plan-uk.org/becomeasponsor/

9 years after you said this and Africa still tows the destructive path.