If you don't mind me asking where are you from it looks like we have the same name and last name,, i also wanna ask for you phone number,,,or can you please send me a private email,,,to bassdrammeh2hotmail.com

  Hi there!
Thanks for the forward.That was great! Long time ,I hope you
are fine.

Regards Basss.

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On 10/11/06, Ylva Hernlund wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 07:59:22 -0700
> From: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Africa: "New News"
>
>
> Africa: "New News"
>
> AfricaFocus Bulletin
> Oct 11, 2006 (061011)
> (Reposted from sources cited below)
>
> Editor's Note
>
> "I am constantly confounded as to why American media don't find
> Africa an exciting place to report from and about. I think there's
> a perception that audience interest is limited. That's certainly
> not been true in my experience. ... I don't have a problem with
> reporting death, disease, disaster and despair, because all of the
> above exist. But that is not all there is to Africa." - Charlayne
> Hunter-Gault
>
> This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from an interview with
> Charlayne Hunter-Gault by AllAfrica.com, reflecting on her new book
> "New News from Africa." The full interview is available at
> http://allafrica.com/stories/200610060824.html
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> 'New News' from Africa - Looking Beyond Death, Disease, Disaster
> and Despair
>
> Interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault
>
>
> [Excerpts: full interview available at
> http://allafrica.com/stories/200610060824.html Reposted with
> permission from allAfrica.com]
>
> October 6, 2006
>
> Washington, DC
>
> Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the best-known and most
> award-winning journalists in the United States, has focused her
> recent career on covering Africa. After nearly two decades as a
> correspondent for the Newshour on public television, she moved to
> Johannesburg, South Africa, working successively as Africa
> correspondent for National Public Radio and CNN bureau chief,
> before leaving CNN last year to pursue independent projects. This
> month, her interview with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
> appears in Essence magazine. She talked with AllAfrica about her
> latest book, New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's
> Renaissance.
>
> AA: Your interest in Africa dates from childhood?
>
> Hunter-Gault: My initial interest in the continent goes back to my
> childhood in the segregated [U.S.] south where, on weekends, the
> big activity was to go to what we called "the show." It was the
> little segregated movie theater in my town of Covington, Georgia,
> and it was always either "westerns" or Tarzan movies which somehow
> captured my imagination. At that time, there wasn't a lot of
> discussion about Africa, either in my household or in the
> community. I was so struck by the adventures of Tarzan that I used
> to play in my backyard, where there were lots of trees and vines
> hanging, and I called myself "Nyoka, Queen of the Jungle."
>
> So something in my primal memory must have been stirred by all of
> that - although in retrospect those Tarzan movies were so racist.
> They make me sad, because the victim was always some hapless
> African or the villain was some African terrible guy, and the white
> Tarzan was always the hero. But that didn't really register much.
>
> In later years, I encountered the poem, "What is Africa to me,
> scarlet sky or copper sea?" [by Countee Cullen] It is a beautiful
> poem. But when I was in college, I began to see Africa as more than
> a poem, as more than a Tarzan movie, more than adventure. Robert F.
> Kennedy came to my university at a time when the south was
> resisting the law of the land requiring desegregation. I think that
> he and his brother, President John Kennedy, were concerned about
> the black vote [in the United States] and also viewed Africa as a
> potential bulwark against communism.
>
> Speaking at the University of Georgia, Robert Kennedy said that the
> graduation of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes would be a major
> milestone in the fight against communism. I was shocked. There I
> was sitting in a room of hostile white people, and they said, "What
> was that he said?" But it was indicative that Africa was emerging
> on the international scene and making its making its way ever more
> deeply into the consciousness of African Americans like myself.
>
> AA: Why do you think that coverage of Africa in major U.S. media is
> so limited?
>
> Hunter-Gault: I am constantly confounded as to why American media
> don't find Africa an exciting place to report from and about. I
> think there's a perception that audience interest is limited.
> That's certainly not been true in my experience. I lecture on
> college campuses, before businesses and corporations and other
> venues around the country. And I always find receptivity to the
> 'new news' that I bring from Africa. Interest - and ignorance to be
> sure - because people aren't getting the information they need to
> understand Africa.
>
> Reporting is dominated by the four 'd's I talk about in the book -
> death, disease, disaster and despair.
>
> AA: Has coverage changed during the three decades you've been
> paying attention to Africa and working as a professional
> journalist?
>
> Hunter-Gault: I don't think so! There are moments when journalists
> descend on the continent - when Mozambique floods and a baby is
> born in the tree, etc. I don't have a problem with that. I don't
> have a problem with reporting death, disease, disaster and despair,
> because all of the above exist.
>
> But that is not all there is to Africa. And when you have crises to
> which the international community should respond, increasingly
> there is a reluctance to do so because, after all of this negative
> reporting, there is a feeling: What's the point? If all you hear
> about year after year is hunger, drought, disease and conflict,
> people conclude that Africa's problems are intractable and that
> nothing in Africa ever changes.
>
> The "new news" that needs to be shared includes the fact that in
> 1998 there were 14 wars being fought on the continent. Today there
> are three, because Burundi's last guerilla movement has now signed
> on to the peace process. And in Congo, the first contested election
> in 40 years was held in relative peace. That's "new news," even
> though many people still focus on the unrest that continues in some
> parts of the country.
>
> AA: You've reported from Africa for both NPR and CNN. Were you
> frustrated by what you were able to do?
>
> Hunter-Gault: The whole time I was at NPR, and subsequently at CNN,
> I got the stories on the air that I went after and thought were
> important to do, sometimes to the frustration of editors. My
> stories were often longer than they wanted them to be, and I kept
> pushing the envelope. But I walked away from CNN quite proud about
> what I had been able to do.
>
> I think a lot of journalists self-censor, because they don't think
> there is going to be receptivity to their Africa reporting. That
> self-censorship becomes a self-defeating and self-fulfilling
> prophecy. Journalists who are invested in trying to get news of the
> continent out just have to keep slogging, keep on fighting for
> space. They have to be creative in the way they propose and sell
> stories.
>
> As I say in the book, they have to go there to know there. Let them
> go there and spend a little time there, as opposed to parachuting
> in for a specific thing and leaving. If you go to Niger to cover
> the famine, go next door or go somewhere else in the country where
> there is no famine. Or if you go to Darfur, go to southern Sudan
> and see how they're rebuilding after decades of war. See what is
> the sprit of the people.
>
> We have to understand that the audience is not tuning out on
> Africa. It's the media decision makers who decide that Americans
> aren't interested. After I left the NewsHour, many people in the
> United States thought that I had died! They so rarely saw anything
> I did on CNN domestic, or only episodically or occasionally, and
> those people who watched the NewsHour didn't watch CNN domestic.
>
> Not a lot got on CNN domestic, and yet all over the continents of
> Africa and Europe - and everywhere else that people get CNN
> International - people were watching. But a decision had been made,
> or was made on a regular basis by the domestic side, that there
> wasn't sufficient [audience] interest [in Africa].
>
> Now, I have to say, that's changing a little bit. I have friends
> who still work at CNN and who've been doing great work, people like
> Jeff Koinange. He's getting more things on CNN, and Anderson Cooper
> is becoming more and more interested in the continent.
>
> Some of that has to do with, again, the death, disease, disaster,
> and despair, but the point is: let them get interested.
>
> I've been working with a group called My Sister's Keeper. In fact,
> I reported on them from southern Sudan in December. I went over
> there to follow them because they were going to see if it was
> feasible to build a girls' school. It was an amazing eye-opener.
> Here was a part of the country that was put back into the Stone Age
> by war; there's nothing there, not even anything to make bricks. So
> the task of these women is going to be daunting.
>
> I agreed to have them come over to Martha's Vineyard this summer
> and talk to people about the school, and see if there'd be people
> willing to contribute. They sent out emails to people whose names
> I gave them and others who are working with this project, and the
> response has been amazing. People want to contribute - and they
> don't know anything. So when you give them a little bit of "new
> news," the response is invariably positive.
>
> AA: In your reporting, you strive to make the people you are
> covering come to life for your audience. So do you think it's not
> just a question of finding the stories that are beyond death and
> destruction, war and famine, but it's also what you do when you're
> reporting on those crisis situations?
>
> Hunter-Gault: Yes, it's how you look at things. For a five-part
> series on poverty in Africa for NPR, I went to look at the
> conditions, but in each instance to the extent that it existed, I
> wanted to also see if anybody was doing anything about it.
>
> In Tanzania, for example, where the face of poverty is a woman, you
> go to the rural areas and she's the one who's out there tilling
> what little land is left in the face of drought. She is the one who
> is trying to provide for the family because often the men are off
> in the mines or doing some other migrant work, somewhere way away.
> She's the bread-winner and the one who keeps the family together.
> But she's also the one who gets infected with HIV, when the husband
> comes back from months and months away in the mines and has
> contracted HIV from sex workers. She's having a rough time, and so
> that's the story you tell.
>
> But you also tell the story of the women who are meeting under the
> tree and have availed themselves of one of the Care International
> programs called Village Savings and Loans. These are providing
> loans for women, and some men, but they're mostly women, where
> there are no banks, and where credit just wouldn't be possible. And
> yet the small amounts of money that they've been able to pull
> together and put into a common pot have generated businesses and
> expanded businesses.
>
> One of these women has a vegetable stand. She's selling vegetables
> and dried fish and dead worms and all kinds of things, and she told
> me that her business has expanded five-fold in two years. Now she
> can buy clothes for her children. She can send them to school, she
> can feed them, and she can reinvest the profits to further expand
> her business.
>
> That kind of thing gives the impetus, perhaps, to the international
> community to want to contribute, because in the midst of dire
> poverty all around, here's this little mound of hope and the
> prospect that these women, who are involved in this thing, won't be
> forever poor. ...
>
> AA: What do you recommend to people in newsrooms who want to bring
> more "new news" about Africa into the coverage?
>
> Hunter-Gault: They just have to go there. They have to be willing to go
> there.This is not always glamorous. Everyone wants to come to South
> Africa, because they can stay in nice hotels and run out to the townships
> and get a little bit dirty and then come back and take a nice shower in the
> five-star hotel.
>
> But you have to go beyond that. You have to be willing to do it
> again and again, willing to take chances and be uncomfortable, and
> you also have to be willing to be unpopular.
>
> It's not the job that gets you the anchor position on the news. You
> have to be realistic about it. You have to realize what you're up
> against and be prepared to give it your all to get it there.
>
> It's not unlike the 1960s here [in the United States], when we
> tried to get more people of color into the major media. And when
> cities erupted in flames, everybody in newsrooms was surprised.
> Finally, they realized that the reason they were surprised is
> because nobody who knew those places were there in those newsrooms.
> That's when people of color began to be recruited, to come in and
> cover - first of all - where they lived.
>
> After a while, they wanted to do other things too! They wanted to
> do foreign affairs. They wanted to write editorials. They wanted to
> cover energy, and the environment and politics. They've advanced.
>
> I challenged the National Association of Black Journalists meeting
> a few years ago. I said: you changed the face of American
> journalism. Now you need to concentrate your efforts on the
> international side. Who better to do it?
>
> AA: In the book, you talked about 'coming in right.'
>
> Hunter-Gault: That's part of good coverage anywhere you go. I went
> to Harlem in the early '70s, when the [Black] Panthers were
> reinventing themselves, or at least trying to. They were presenting
> a breakfast program for children, and when I showed them my
> credentials, my New York Times press card, this Panther said, "No
> you can't come in." I said, "Why is that?" And he said, "Because
> you work for 'the Man,' and the Man is not going to allow you to
> tell the truth." The New York Times in those days was referred to
> as the Grey Lady, but I knew what he meant.
>
> I said, "Ok, let's make a deal. You let me come in here and cover
> this one, and if what is in the paper tomorrow is not an accurate
> reflection of what has actually taken place then don't let me come
> the next time." And he said, "Alright, on one condition, that you
> come in right." He didn't have to spell that out for me. I knew
> what he meant. Don't come in here with a lot of preconceived
> notions about who we are and what we are. Come in and see what's
> happening and let the story dictate.
>
> The next time I saw him, he said, "Right on sister," and I said,
> "Power to the people." We got past that.
>
> It's not a bad way of preparing to cover anything, but especially
> those places, and people, and things that have been so
> misrepresented. ...
>
> Sometimes you have to press and press and press and press, but I
> think a lot of times, reporters have formed their opinions about
> something. No amount of facts or explanations is going change that,
> especially if they've been conditioned over the years, maybe by
> wrong information, to see things in a certain way.
>
> Which is why I tried to be very sensitive as I went into Africa,
> even though I came out of an environment where I became sensitized
> very early on to how you can get misrepresented, because I was the
> subject of news myself. [Charlayne Hunter and fellow student
> Hamilton Holmes integrated the University of Georgia in 1961, amid
> violent protests against their admission.] I was able, at
> 19-years-old, to separate the good ones from the not good ones.
>
> I understood that, but still, even with my own background and
> perspective, I was a product of Western education, where there was
> very little information. And it still is the case that there's very
> little information about Africa that is truly informative.
>
> So you go with your bags packed with pages and pages of background
> research and material, but it's all from a particular perspective
> - unless it's allAfrica.com! (I'm not just saying that
> gratuitously. I'm saying it because it's true.) ...
>
> But, there's always something to be learned, especially on a
> continent with 54 countries and over 800 million people:
> multifarious, multifaceted, multi-varied, multiethnic. So you have
> to always be open to new things. You just have to be a good
> journalist.
>
> AA: What about quoting African sources - not just outside experts
> - and getting to know local journalists?
>
> Hunter-Gault: I think it's very important to liaise with African
> journalists. For all of the difficulties that African journalists have faced
> - not the least being oppression by many governments and countries where
> most of the media has been state-controlled - many have shown great courage
> and determination to try to tell the truth.
>
> As I said in the book, local journalists tell you where to get the
> best coffee, and on the way, they give you the run down. As a
> journalist, you check out your sources. But those are the people
> who live there. They find ways of helping you get things you
> wouldn't see, just popping in and popping out.
>
> Having said that, they will be the first to say they need more
> resources and more training, because they haven't had access to a
> lot of it. They talk about needing more courses in economics, so
> that they can figure out where Africa is within a new global and
> globalizing economy. Many of them don't even have computers, but
> they utilize Internet cafes. They work with minimal resources,
> against great odds, and yet they're out there. And they're getting
> better and better at what they do. ...
>
> Journalists want to help build their democracies, and they are
> seeing that constructive, critical reporting is as important to the
> building of democracy as writing stories about how wonderful
> everything is. They understand that part of their responsibility is
> to keep the feet to the fire of governments who have made promises
> to the people.
>
> In Ghana, for example, in the last two elections, journalists
> fanned out across the country and saw to it that the ballots that
> were being counted were being counted properly and accurately. They
> made it impossible to cheat, because they were calling the results
> in, and it was being announced on the radio.
>
> I recently went to Ethiopia, as a board member of the Committee to
> Protect Journalists, to talk to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi about
> those dozen or so journalists who are in prison, charged with
> treason and facing death. I went, hoping to get some of them
> released. We weren't successful in that, but we had a very good
> exchange with the prime minister, and it's clear that there needs
> to be more communication between the government and the media. Not
> so that the media do good stories or so that the government gives
> them scoops, but just so you improve the communication.
>
> Those journalists were accused of working for the opposition,
> because most of what was contained in their news reports were the
> words and positions of the opposition. But what they told us from
> their prison cells, as well as others who weren't in prison and
> came to visit us surreptitiously, was that the government wouldn't
> talk to them, so they only had one side to report. We told this to
> the prime minister, who acknowledged that his government needed to
> do a better job at communicating with the media.
>
> It's also important, not just in Ethiopia, for both sides to be
> responsible. Given the woeful lack of compensation to journalists,
> it's not too surprising that there might be lapses in ethics or
> practice. There has to be a consciousness on the part of
> journalists, as well as on the part of governments, that everybody

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