The Africa Center, New York, USA unveils Global Media Index 2024

The Africa Center, New York, United States of America (USA), has unveiled its extensive and trail-blazing Global Media Index (GMI) for Africa 2024, which, through the tracking of 20 of the most influential international media organizations, has concluded that “Global media coverage of Africa today displays both limited changes and substantial continuities.”

There is a pervasive view that “many stories about Africa still lazily revolve around the single story of poor leadership, poverty, corruption, disease, and conflict,” and the conclusions of the GMI for Africa 2024, point to the fact that though some changes have taken place, the narratives remain largely unchanged.

The GMI for Africa 2024 was presented to the media on Thursday, September 5, 2024, by Dr. Uzodinma Iweala and Tunde Olatunji, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Associate Director of Policy of the Africa Center respectively.

At the presentation, which was done during a reporting tour organized by the New York Foreign Press Center, the Index assessed and ranked such media organizations as CNN, New York Times, Deutsche Welle, Russia Today, Bloomberg, Le Monde, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, AFP, Reuters, BBC, Washington Post, Financial Times and Al Jazeera.

A collaboration between The Africa Center, and Africa No Filter, a non-profit organization “that works to challenge and change harmful narratives about Africa by amplifying authentic and diverse stories from the continent,” the GMI evaluated over 1000 news articles collected over a six-month period, using diversity of topics, range of sources, number of African countries covered, and depth of coverage as key indicators.  

From sampling the articles of the selected media outlets, the Index further concluded that the coverage of the continent “is still predominantly limited, in terms of focus, to the ‘tried and tested’ negative tropes and topics; remains predominantly male and elite in terms of sources, and therefore how it is defined; and remains very limited in terms of the number of African countries covered.”

Based on the results of the Index, which, overall, ranked The Guardian top of the 20 with a score of 63 and Washington Post least with a score of 47, recommendations were made for media organizations to invest more in media diversity and gender equity and adopt ethical storytelling principles to enhance balanced reporting, depth, and context in African coverage.

Education ministries, cultural exchange organizations, and international media associations were also urged “to prioritize media literacy initiatives and cross-cultural exchange programs” with the aim of empowering “audiences to critically evaluate media coverage of Africa,” and fostering mutual understanding and respect between African and international communities.

Dr. Iweala, an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and medical doctor, Editor-in-Chief, and co-Founder of Ventures Africa magazine and author of Beasts of No Nation, a novel that was adapted into a major motion picture, as part of the briefing on the GMI for Africa 2024,  noted that there is need to expand the scope of the unveiled Index.

He pointed out that scholars from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK, participated in the study, which aims at ensuring that reporting on the continent is guided by the same rigor and attention to detail that have historically characterized the best journalism. 

Dr. Iweala, a graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Fellow of The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, assured that The Africa Center, which has continued to live up to its mandate of “helping to shape a vision of Africa’s future,” will follow up on the GMI for Africa 2024.

The Center, through which, he said, more than 250,000 people have passed since its inception, and which has curated over 300 programs,  also serves, among others, as “a gateway to engagement with contemporary Africa, and as a platform for the exchange of ideas around culture, business, and policy as related to the African continent.”

The New York Foreign Press Center was represented by S. Najla Abdus-Samad, the Media Relations Officer, at the briefing at which Dr. Iweala pointed out that The Center owns and occupies four floors of the imposing building which has the flags of African countries boldly emblazoned on its walls.

A variety of African foods, arts and crafts available at the Center, which hosts exhibitions, seminars and other events, were also evident for all to see, and are available for all Africans and friends of Africa to walk into the building and savor.