For a long time, the media has been viewed by many with skepticism, as a tool for negative social agitation besides being blamed for moral depravity especially among the youth. This narrow perception is blind to the media’s great potential as a communication tool, a unifying agent across nationalities, a catalyst for development and as a parameter for assessing national development. A nation’s degree of media freedom reflects its democratic status while high consumption of media products points to a nation’s economic development.  

Africa and China share some common experiences as victims of negative reports by mostly the international media. Unfortunately, these reports have shaped world perception about us. Africa has been portrayed as a case study in calamities (man-made and natural), where poverty, diseases and social strife dominate and therefore African nations are perceived as perpetually in need of aid. This has left audiences of the international media ignorant of the beauty of Africa, the great opportunities that abound and the commendable development achievements we have made.

China on the other hand, has often been presented as a country in need of democracy and basic human freedoms. Economically, it has been portrayed as an unfair competitor offering cheap counterfeits or substandard goods manufactured through inferior technology.

These images fail to recognize Africa’s wonderful opportunities and potential as a development and trade partner as well as capable of worthwhile inventions. It also deviates from the reality regarding China and the status of her technology and economic strengths, which many African nations today, look forward to for their development.

Media cooperation between Africa and China provides a powerful platform to address media imbalance that has resulted from domination by Western media. This has meant the world agenda is set by a minority leaving the bulk of the world population with little or no input in international debates.

This denies the Developing World, whose media lacks presence in the international arena, opportunity to influence world opinion. It further reduces most populations in the Developing World to mere consumers of Western media products and gradually hinders cultural preservation for most of the Developing World.

Media has a crucial role to play in cultural transmission in any society and therefore current world media divide poses a threat to cultural preservation in the Developing World creating opportunity for cultural domination by the West.

Sino-Africa media cooperation offers opportunity to address media imbalance and ensure preservation of our cultures. It will also ensure ethical and factual coverage of events internationally and help to tell the African and Chinese story from our own perspective and for our own gain. It will enable Africa market itself through China’s various international media outlets as well as change China’s image created by other international media.

China – Africa Media cooperation in Kenya has come a long way. It was enhanced greatly after Xinhua News Agency established its African Regional Bureau in Nairobi on 23rd April 1986. The Bureau was established following an agreement between Xinhua and Kenya’s Department of Information that was signed on 16th February 1983. Since then, KNA and Xinhua have enjoyed good and fruitful cooperation that has grown from strength to strength. KNA, which has a countrywide network, has supplied Xinhua with news from across the country while Xinhua’s international presence ensured that KNA obtained news from around the world.

 At KNA, we have undertaken various initiatives to enhance and diversify our products and to ensure more coverage of grassroots events. This is to allow the local residents tell their story and to stress local opportunities.

The good relations between KNA and Xinhua news agencies have greatly helped to market China in Kenya and vice versa. Other than stories, KNA has benefitted from Xinhua’s superior technology and experience as a public news agency. The Cooperation has focused on four areas: News and Information exchange; Exchange programmes; Technical Support and Capacity building. These are areas that could be explored further to cover the entire continent.

Realization of the full benefit of Sino-African media cooperation requires certain interventions both at the regional, national and media-specific levels. At the regional level Africa must upgrade her media technology to match international media practices and for media products that can compete internationally.

Both China and Africa must re-evaluate and redefine their news values to avoid sensational reporting that only fits commercial-oriented enterprises. This is always at the expense of the larger gains of the media in society - i.e. fostering national development and unity and the propagation of knowledge.

At KNA, we are modernizing our operations to increase efficiency in coverage and increase the quality of our products. Our field offices spread throughout the country have been supplied with digital still cameras and laptops to enable prompt transmission of news accompanied with photographs. We are also equipping our field stations with video cameras to increase video coverage of events.

Many officers have been trained on video camera techniques and we are working on empowering our officers to stream video clips.  Some are already doing so directly to our subscribers. Also, our main focus is Communication for Development with the aim of highlighting local potential, opportunities as well as interventions and innovations the end result being problem-solving.

The Department of Information has also established other outlets besides the KNA to boost public access to information. These include the social media, regional Rural Publications and Information Resource Centres. Those managing such outlets require more skills on content development. I believe through collaboration with China, such gaps could be addressed to make the Resource Centres more effective.

Also, to ensure improved quality of our products, KNA has with support from consultants, developed a KNA Editorial Policy and Housestyle book. This will guide our officers on new approaches to media practice and how to venture into what has for long been viewed as specialized fields of journalism. This will raise the number of news/ feature articles KNA files daily as well as video clips and photographs. This will raise our already growing subscriber base as we diversify our products further and improve quality. The net result will be increased KNA audience.

All these are opportunities that could be used to disseminate information on Kenya that is gathered around the country. News and features on the successful Cooperation between China and Kenya will definitely form part of this content as the latter is currently involved in the implementation of various infrastructural projects around the country.  It is such content that will change the way consumers in other parts of the world view the African continent and China and help enhance China – Africa Cooperation for shared dreams.

By Mr. Olewe Owiti,
Acting Director of Information.