INMA concludes its virtual Africa Media Summit

INMA hosted day two of its Africa Media Summit for African media executives.

CAPE TOWN, November 20 (ANA) – The International News Media Association (INMA) on Friday hosted the second day of its virtual Africa Media Summit for African media executives.

The summit was aimed at fighting for the creativity to support great journalism that tells Africa’s complex stories globally.

Today’s session included diverse media voices from South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and Morocco.

African News Agency CEO, Vasantha Angamuthu, addressed the summit on the role the media has in telling the whole African story. She presented on Telling the Whole Story: The Role of African Media in Changing the Narrative and Shaping Africa’s Future.

African stories have always been told in a negative way and often times they are not told by African’s themselves.

“The perception of us is driven by foreign interest,” Angamuthu said.

To challenge the perpetuated story of Africa, ANA’s mission is to power Africa’s growth with content, she said.

ANA tells stories about Africa’s culture, art and lifestyle. It celebrates its diaspora successes, puts tech start-ups and innovation on the front page and retells African stories through an African lense.

Angamuthu also made reference to all the wonderful things that the African continent has to offer such as writing, language, medicine, mining, architecture, cooking, among others.

She said African news media should own their narrative by telling the stories that are not told, and change the world’s perception of Africa by shaping narratives for success.

Katharina Link, Managing Director, Pulse, Ghana presented on how Pulse managed to turn challenges into opportunities and growth during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Link said during the pandemic one of the biggest challenges faced was misinformation in the media. To challenge this, Pulse had a few values in place which were to produce content that is true, insightful, entertaining and educative.

“I think even more than ever, it’s important to be a role model,” said Link referring to the importance of telling stories that are factual and clear especially during a pandemic.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay