Giant leap for Africans, media

YESTERDAY was a historic day for all of Africa when the African News Agency (ANA) started operating. And in today’s paper we carry two reports from them, including our international page lead on the prospects for a peaceful election in Burkina Faso.

It starts: “ADDIS ABABA, March 1 – The 19 million people of Burkina Faso have a big and powerful voice. Their united voice and street protests recently drove their president of 27 years, Blaise Compaore, out of office and forced the country into an uncertain period of political transition.”

The second piece starts: “Burkina Faso presidential candidate Jean-Baptiste Natama has pledged to reopen the investigation into the assassination of journalist Norbert Zongo, whose death 20 years ago angered the local and international community.”

Tomorrow we use a third piece on sport: “EAST LONDON – Lanky Englishman Chris Wood will be back at next week’s Africa Open at East London Golf Club for the first time in three years hoping to right what he might feel was the injustice of 2011, when he lost in a three-way playoff with Louis Oosthuizen and Spain’s Manuel Quiros.”

We congratulate all those responsible for the formation of ANA. It is a leap forward for Africans and their media.

It is a matter not only of anger that this paper, like so many others, has had to rely on Europeans and others to provide it with news about its own continent; the big, global news agencies were European- and US-dominated until yesterday.

To get news about the Ebola pandemic or even the church building collapse in Nigeria, we have had to rely on all but ourselves. And that is first and foremost a matter of shame. Now at last we Africans can tell our own stories, in our own words. Now Africa can truly write what she likes.