 Ymlaen o'r ogynnu o fewn o'r speithiwn gwahanol, ac mae gennym yn rhan o'r bwysig os y dylai newydd ymlaen nhw, yn Fyrdd Llywodraeth, os Llywodraeth, roedd yng Nghymru wedi yw cofffyr Ffraganol yn ei Ynodoleth? Ddyn nhw Henry. Yroedd yng nghymru ffrigfa mewn gwirionedd yn allan, nesib i Llywodraeth yn unrhyw am yw mas yno, a wedi'i werthed yn y pan yng Nghymru and Oedlaeth. Yna'r edrych yn y cyfynion, mae'r môl maeth ar unrhyw yma, yn y cwch, yn y ffrindiau, yn y bwrdd nesaf, rym ni'n gofynau, ysgolgydd y bydau i gennym. Felly, roeddwn i'n gweithio, mae'n cael ei wneud ei wneud yn ddweud i'r gweithfyrdd. Yn mwyfio'r gweithfyrdd i'r llygwyf i'r llygwyr, a'r bwysig yn y ddweudio i'r llaw, a'r byd yn y bydd, ac yn ystod, yn ychydig yn ddweudio i'r gweithfyrdd, ...dwy weithio Ieddon yn Rhyddon. Yn hyn o'r Gweithio. Yn hyn o'r Gweithio i mewn i hefyd ac rwy'n ei wath. Ie, dyna. A mi ddim am fawr i'r gael Ieddon a llwyddo i ganydd i Ganydd... ...dwi'n amser llwyddon i'r mynd i gydagem... ...ac fynd i'i gwasanaeth rôl i'r ysbyt... ...y gyfrwyno'r roedd, fel yma. Rwy'n bywch yn Lundaniaeth yn ynwys ar gyfer mwyloedd... ...mwyliad ystod yw'r cyfeirio swellf… I started to develop my skills as a producer, as a journalist, as a columnist, as a TV presenter. I moved on to work for a number of independent production companies making programmes for Channel 4, for Sky, for Sky One, for Channel 5, and it was around that point that I decided, you know what, I've got a calling to go back and give something back. I've learnt all these skills in London working for these great media houses and I want to put something back. I want to enrich the African content that I've seen on the various African platforms that I've been watching whilst I was growing up. So at that point I branched into working with a number of different independent or private African-owned or Africa-focused channels, both in the UK but also in various African countries, namely in Ghana which was my very first experience for both public and private entities, also in Nigeria and in Zimbabwe as well. And I will never, ever forget my very first experience of going to interview and it was actually in London working for one of the channels that I was working for at the time to go and interview the former Ghanaian president and I thought to myself, this is it, this is what I've been waiting for, this is what I've spent all my years studying to get towards this point where I can meet these individuals, tell the story and really start to have an impact in the way that news is being portrayed. After the interview we returned back to the office, back to the studio where we were going to now, look at this footage, only to my horror to discover that I looked more like violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory alongside the impalimpus. I was completely purple, the screen was purple, the image was purple, I was purple, the former president was purple. I'm not going to say, possibly. And so I was mortified, but everybody thought it was quite comical and actually not that relevant that we were putting out something that hadn't completely crossed the T's and dotted the I's. So I can talk countless, I can give you countless experiences but what I can certainly say is that I went there with a real desire, real drive to make a difference but there's definitely a need to pay attention to quality and to detail. I can see that you are being sensitive and delicate about this but let me push you a little further. Please do Henry, please do, I expected it from you. Indeed, indeed. Would you say you felt in your career more fulfilled working for these African-owned and managed outlets, whether in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya or in the UK, more fulfilled working for those with all the technical shortcomings that you've highlighted or working for some of the biomets like the BBC where you have all the resources that Solomon can bring to bear but at the same time you may be a much smaller cog in a huge machine, a huge wheel, well resourced but with a particular agenda? I don't think you can really compare it. I've had some very enlightening experiences working for the independence and I wouldn't change it. I really, really wouldn't change it because I've learnt so much more about our people, I've learnt so much more about the way that we can achieve things and the desire and the passion to make a difference and there are a number of reasons why things are the way that they are and I'm not going to condemn anybody or any organisation for what they've been able to do because I think everybody has started out with the mindset that they're going to make a difference and they're going to make a change and we've seen a lot of channels calm, we've seen a lot of channels go for a number of reasons. Fantastic, thank you very much indeed Savannah. Solomon, what about you? Because you're there as head of BBC Africa. I think the first African to hold this position, is that right? You're right. Thank you. That kind of answers my question, what role does Africa play in your career and development? We'll flesh it out a little bit. On that one, I don't know how much time you want me to spend on down memory lane. Maybe I'll do it in less than three minutes. It goes back to western Kenya where when I was in primary school and thanks to road shows we had the then broadcasters from Voice of Kenya touring my home district. I saw this gentleman, he's still on, it's called Leonard Mambo-Botella. He had headphones on him with a microphone and we couldn't make head or tail as young rural bread people, young boys, what this was about and it turned out that actually what he was doing was to record material for radio. I got fascinated by that picture, it got stuck in my mind that one day when I grow up, as we used to say those days I want to be a policeman, I want to be a teacher. To me, I wanted to be that man. So everything that I did from that onwards was about learning how to talk, learning how to broadcast, imagining myself on radio. And I think that became even more articulated as I began to be aware about my own social political life. When as a youth Kenya was undergoing tremendous political change but you wondered how else can you listen to alternative voice. You couldn't hear it on the only state channel. To hear that you had to tune to international broadcasters such as the BBC Voice of America and then later on Dutchveller. And that challenged me that how come for me to ever hear the voices of the likes of Jaramogi Ogingo Dinge the late, Martin Shikoku the late and others that I had to tune to an international channel and of course via shortwave. And that fascinated me into wanting to go into journalism to bring about change. But as fate would have it, my first bite was at the state broadcaster. So what change was I going to bring really? But we kept working. We did what we could until I moved on to a private TV station called KTN and he saw rest in the town of peace. There's a gentleman called Mohammed Amin who used to work for Reuters. When he died following that hijacking of his plane from Ethiopia and plunged into the Indian Ocean, Reuters decided to launch a fellowship award. And I became the first African to win that award which then took me to the University of Wales Cardiff where I studied postgraduate diploma in broadcasting. And I think that then put me in poor position to attract the likes of the BBC. And my journey into the BBC then began in 1998. Soon after graduating from Wales, I joined BBC Swahili Service as a producer. The BBC is an interesting organisation. When you are in, it gives you opportunity to move around. It gives you opportunity to go to different programmes and services. And I seized that opportunity. That exposure prepared me mentally and of course professionally to aspire to greater responsibility. I moved on to the African productions and the African dailies where I worked on programmes such as Focus on Africa briefly and Network Africa. And then I went to African productions to talk about Africa. We used to invite some of you here to come into the studios where we then begin to harang ourselves about issues affecting Africa and we're going to solve them in 30 minutes. That proved to be outdated. We wanted to be interactive. Then we launched Africa of your saying which then became Africa Live. From there on I went back to Swahili Service as its editor. And it's from that that I became the editor for Africa. But just one thing which I hold dearly to my heart about being the editor of Swahili Service was to commission an investigation into the macabre world of trading in albino parts in Tanzania. And anybody who read or listened to news this week to hear a one-year-old child being attacked, snatched from the mother and the body mutilated for their parts to be turned into charms, to enrich certain people or to help them win an election. Guys, our job is not yet done. Thank you very much indeed for that, Simon. Thank you very much. Barnaby, you've worked for a variety of organisations at BBC and of now Al Jazeera as a roving correspondent. Tell us about the role Africa has played in all of that. Africa has dominated my career. I joined the BBC World Service, Africa Service in 1991. I'd grown up in Kenya so I had an interest and an empathy I suppose with Africa. And I stayed there 15 years at the BBC. It was a very exciting time to be in the African Service, World Service Radio. We were extremely powerful and influential at that time on shortwave radio. It was a different era. Warlords from Liberia and Sierra Leone would ring up every day and ask to be put on air and say that they had taken Coidu or Tubmanberg had fallen and you had to try and make these very, very serious decisions on whether this was true or not. In fact, your decision could turn something into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That was a humbling experience. After a couple of years, I got a little bit restless and I thought I wanted to go and be a reporter in Africa myself. And so I went freelance and I spent several years in Mozambique and Angola at the end of the wars there. And like everything in life, the more challenging something is, the more rewarding it is. I had to learn Portuguese. Let me tell you, surviving on a freelance salary in Luanda and Angola for anyone who's been there is quite an experience. But after that, I got a proper reporter's job with the BBC in Nigeria for three years. Nigeria has been an enormous part of my life ever since. That was 98 to 2001. I'm sure many of you will know it's a very dramatic period, the end of military rule. The beginning of what I sometimes prefer to call civilian rule rather than democracy. Anyway, we can talk about that if you want. A distinction with a difference? Well, an improvement I suppose. Then I was the BBC Southern Africa correspondent for five years after that. But I ended up being sent all over the continent as well. I left in 2006 mainly because the BBC wanted me to come back to London and do something not very interesting for a few years, which is one of the ways in which they work. And I joined this strange new outfit called Al Jazeera English. Really on a whim and on the basis that a lot of people, journalists who I knew and trusted were joining it. And they also kind of said that I could sort of go wherever I wanted to go in the world, which was an amazing privilege. Since then I've mainly been in Europe, but I put my hand up to go back to Africa whenever I can. So for Al Jazeera I've been back to South Africa and Mozambique and spent many weeks in the Central African Republic last year and back in Nigeria. And also last year I took six months off because Nigeria is such a big part of my life now. And I wrote a book about... Am I allowed to plug my book briefly? A book is called Burma Boy. What is Burma Boy about briefly? It's called Another Man's War. It touches on many of the themes from this morning actually. So I hope it's a fairer representation of Africa's contribution in the second world war. But that rounds out me in Africa. Thank you very much. And finally, but not leastly, Omar. Portrait of Omar as a young African man. The role Africa has played in your gestation and development. Not gestation, that's a bit kind of previous. I'm not sure how to answer that question. You don't have to. I'm a Tunisian who was born here and regularly visiting Tunisia. If you want my experience with African media and the role African media has played in my life when my father is the founder of an African media group. So I was born into African media you can say. If you want to discuss Tunisian media, I can tell you that prior to revolution four years ago when I used to ask my uncle, why is he reading the newspaper? He says, well, the only thing that I do read are the obituaries and the classifiers because that's the only thing you can trust. So I remember as a seven-year-old when I was watching TV, the late Habib Bolgiba before the news you could see him swimming in the Mediterranean in front of his palace. I've got lots of stories in terms of African media, which is what people are here to hear and debate. Indeed, the thing is, you say you were born into it, but you didn't have to. I've met your father, he isn't that tyrannical. If you said, dad, I don't want to work with you and one day inherit this eight magazine publishing empire, then you probably would have allowed you to go and chill in Tunis or something. I'll do something differently, but maybe not chill in Tunis, chill somewhere else. But you decided clearly... I was not coerced to join the family business. Right, okay. I don't know if it's African tradition or not, but I was brought up in an environment where people went into work in the family business. So it was always my intention, but my daughter, who's a lot more talented than I am, is not working for the family business, so I was not coerced into it. But I think I'm very happy that I joined the family business. I'm not a journalist by training, like my fellow colleagues here, but I think the industry is fascinating. And as an institution, I think we've got a very important role to play. And daily, the company values and the company culture, which I'm trying to pass on to my colleagues who work for me, is that we've got a responsibility and duty to the African continent to raise the level of debate, to shape the African agenda, to make sure that we're asking the right questions and continuously cultivating a curious mind and asking the right questions. And I will make one plug, actually, because we are currently recruiting for a number of editorial positions. Weren't expecting that, were you? He's got jobs. I'm very serious, actually, and we want young, dynamic people who are passionate about the continent. I hate the word passionate because David Cameron uses it at every opportunity. He's not at all passionate about everything, but people who actually care and want to make a difference are very curious and who love the humanity and strong values that Africa has to give. So if you want to know what Africa has given me, it's human values and the humanity of it all. Fantastic. Now, we've called this section of the day. If it bleeds, it leads. You want to know if when Africans have a greater control of their story, they do things. We do things differently on what impact the arrival of some of the African-owned television stations is having on some of the bigger, more established operators. Omar, from your point of view, you're an African in charge of an African publishing organisation. If it bleeds, does it lead at New African? No. Explain. What would the lead be? What's on the front cover of the current edition? The current edition, which goes to print this weekend, was China Africa. But really, in terms of our own magazine, the whole industry is changing, as you all know, in terms of print media, which is where I derive 80% of my revenues or where the group divides 80% of our revenues. So that's changing. So in terms of our own publication, we want to have more investigative reports, more in-depth reports, more variety, some intellectual essays as well. So that's what we're focusing on today is more in-depth investigative reports. Last month, it was about Nigerian elections. What aspect of that did you focus on? Well, everything. I mean, there was one contributor who's a PhD student, so I wrote about Boko Haram, who spent a long time in north-eastern Nigeria. The election, why these elections were different to previous elections, how things are changing, how things are evolving, some in-depth analysis on the various candidates. So yeah, this month I actually read the cover story of New African, but New African business is a big cover story on the healthcare systems in Africa. So the business behind it, private, public, how does it work, why has a country like Rwanda succeeded, what's now going to happen to the healthcare industry following the Ebola crisis, how the dynamics are going to change, how do African governments get there or devote their budgets to healthcare systems. So at the moment, for example, a country like Rwanda gets 50% of their budget through ODA. Official development assistance. But they dictate where that money goes to. So yeah, so in-depth reports of the economy going into the crux of the subject. And how excited are you by what's happening on the African television scene at the moment with the new operators coming in, particularly in West Africa, more money, some of the people who previously wouldn't have been interested in investing their money, whether it's gained from oil and gas or whatever, into media, into television. How excited are you about that or do you view it as a magazine person as more of a threat than an opportunity? Maybe you haven't teamed up with any of them, for example. No, it's just interesting. No, it's interesting. Why haven't we teamed up with... Or bought a channel? I'm always looking at new opportunities. At the moment, the way I look at it is when you speak to African... I mean, we need to look at the business, ultimately, who's going to finance these things. So when you speak to people, or African people who have ventured in TV, ultimately what do they want? They want numbers because TV gives you numbers and it's ultimately... And they want to affect the narrative. So it's interesting. I don't think it's being done properly yet. I don't know why. Looking for you, Solomon A. I don't know how much it would cost to do this properly, but we've got new entrants in the market and the quality of reporting, the quality of the programmes is improving. And I think the business case is becoming stronger and stronger. Whether TV in 10 years' time will equal numbers and influence, we'll see. I think it will still be very extremely influential. But there will be other ways of reaching and influencing a larger audience. But do we want to get into TV, not necessarily TV, but video content for sure? Tremendous. Oma, thank you. The reason I tapped Solomon on the back in that way is because you said it hasn't been done properly yet. And I say looking for you Solomon, of course, because the BBC surely would view the arrival of new entrants into the market as some have come, more will come, as a threat surely to your dominance certainly of the eyeballs watching from the African continent. I think first of all in terms of our presence in Africa, BBC World Service is big on radio. And that is, it goes back many many years, pre-independence in fact. And that is why to date we can talk about the BBC being the leading international broadcaster on radio in Africa with nearly 88 or 90 million listeners every week. And some of you have visited countries like Liberia or Sierra Leone or Tanzania in East Africa or even Nigeria itself. You've got to simply listen to people and they'll tell you stories about how they interact with the BBC via language services such as BBC service in West Africa, BBC French, Somali service, Swahili service, and of course in the Great Lakes region, Kenya Rwanda or Kirundim. In terms of television, it's only two years ago in 2012 that we felt that we needed, as BBC, to also venture into television why. The images that people in places such as China see, the perceptions they have of Africa, whether it's in China, India or Japan, those perceptions, those attitudes, those images is what they get from television because BBC World Service or the African Service, there's no broadcast with China or whatever it is unless they're tuning in via internet nowadays. But before that, they had to sit on television. Now, as Barnaby would tell you, who was then reporting or telling the African story that was then be beamed into the living rooms in China, Japan and Asia and the Asian countries or in Europe? Who was telling that story and what kind of story was it? And that is why we keep hearing the 4Ds being mentioned every time Africa is covered. There must be death, there must be destruction, there must be disease and disaster. Where are stories about entrepreneurial Africans? Where are stories about what the mantra we hear about Africa rising, which of course we shouldn't swallow bait hook and sinker because we need to interrogate those stories as well. But at least the world needs to see a different side of Africa. There's a lot that's happening in Nigeria, beyond of course Boko Haram, beyond the elections. There's a lot happening in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, despite the current Ebola outbreak, which we cannot underestimate. There's a lot also happening even in Somalia. Some of you who have visited Somalia or if there are any colleagues here from Somalia, they will tell you it's a country that has proved the world wrong in many aspects. They've been able to run an economy without the kind of infrastructure you'd find in a stable country. That story needs to be told. When you see telecommunications thriving in a country like Somalia, to an extent that if you call Somalia, the line is even clearer than if you called a country that has been peaceful for more than 40 years, it tells you something about Somalia. That story has got to be told. So for us going into television, we had that responsibility that the world needs to not just see the Africa they used to see, but also to see the other Africa. And we went a step further. That story has got to be told by African talent. Because we've got journalists who were born, they're bred, and they leave the African story. That the guys who know how to move from one village to another, they know the nuances, the cultural practices of people, they will tell you when you go into an African village and you speak to the elders, if you want to know they've agreed with you, how will you know? It's easy for them to nod their heads and to say, yes, yes, thank you very much, but it may take an African elder to simply pinch my skin to tell me, son, you guys don't know what you're doing. See, it's very important when you tell a story to appreciate the local talent of that area, for they know the story, the people, the environment better than you do. This is not to underestimate the expertise we get when people travel around and they also want to see the world from a different point of view. If I was to go to Japan to report anything from Japan, it is not that I'm going to teach the Japanese how to tell their own story, no. But there may be experiences I'm going to exchange with them and to borrow from them to enrich what we're telling the world. It may take me when I say the African story is going to be told by the African talent to mean that it's going to be exclusively African talent is important for us to mix with expertise from elsewhere. How much impact has the increased attention that Africa is getting from the likes of CCTV, from the increased airtime that we're seeing even on the likes of CNN, we've got three African strands now. Bloomberg has an African outlet. What impact has that had on you on how you see the BBC African content going forward? When a continent gives you 80 million listeners every week or 90, it tells you something, respect them, listen to them, walk with them, laugh with them, cry with them. That's the message Africa is telling BBC. And Africa is also demonstrating that we are not just a continent that is a source of resources where you come, get what you want to get, get off and go away, and you leave the continent to its own faith and devices. No, we are saying that Africa deserves respect. Africa deserves a voice and must be done in a manner that is not patronising. So for the likes of CCTV or CNN or BBC and the ilk, they've discovered there's much more to Africa than just going to cover a story about war disease and death. There's also business in Africa. For example, at the moment, when you look at one of the places where advertisement revenue has been rising year on year, you find it in Africa. When economies in the West and other parts of the world were on a downward trend, when they had stagnated, economies in Africa were thriving. That was reflected through the advertisement and media industry. The only snag at the moment for African media market or African economies is when you look at what's happening now in the television industry with the migration from analogue to digital. I think that's where Africa is massively challenging. To date, only three African countries have been able to move from analogue to digital. One of them did it painlessly that is Mauritius. Tanzania tried Rwanda is trying as well, but the rest of the countries they either have not started or if they have started, that journey has ended up in court or in some kind of muddy waters somewhere. But the opportunities for the likes of the BBC, NCC TV, Al Jazeera and CNN in Africa, the future, the present is bright, the future is even brighter. The challenge now is for African investors. Who in Africa can actually now come up with an instrument or with a kind of organisational company that can rise to a level where Al Jazeera or CNN or BBC are? Yeah, because we haven't yet got that. Savannah and Barnaby, I'm not suggesting you should launch it. I'll come to you in just a moment. Oma, you wanted to come in quickly. I just wanted to add to what Solomon has just said. There was in December a meeting in Dakar, which is la Francophonie which is the equivalent of let's say the Commonwealth and really in terms of future audience and the future market, the future French market so to speak, it's Africa, it's nowhere else and now you are asking about French media groups I know that French media groups are increasingly looking at Africa in terms of the future market because they know that their market is shrinking if anything and they're investing in the future of the continent. We can talk business models later and I'll mention a few but anyway it's hard to mention that. Thank you very much indeed. Savannah you're one of the people that I know who has gone to an African country and tried to work alongside local talent. Tell us more about the experience and whether or not there are opportunities for people here, apart from working for Oma. There are lots of people who say to me all the time I've been trying to get into the BBC and trying to get into CNN, trying to get into Sky it's so difficult, they don't want my talent, maybe I should go to Africa but how do I start? Will the local people resent me? Are they going to pay me properly? Are they going to pay me BBC wages? That kind of thing. What did you find? I found a lot of things when I got there and just to support what Solomon said before because he's absolutely right there is a massive opportunity in Africa for us to improve and to build on what we're already doing. I had the privilege of working alongside Solomon actually for about a year or so I was presenting for World Have Your Sale and World Service Radio before moving on to TV for World News to produce Focus on Africa and there are a number of people there is a big team of talented individuals who are doing their very best to portray the news in the best way that they can and also on the ground so the locals who can actually get in between the cracks and speak to the people that matter who can help to deliver those world stories and so for us to take that to another level with the other channels or whether that's an individual wanting to relocate back it is very much about being prepared to be on the ground to get into the mix to speak to the locals but also to be able to accept that the standards of production are developing they are still working towards becoming the very best that they can be and so working within that arena and understanding it's not always going to be perfect and what about I mean we talked about models you mentioned models earlier and Solomon in fact Bloomberg, everyone's now talking about Bloomberg and this thing called Bloomberg Africa which I think you were a presenter on last year and the model was one where they borrowed the name, is that right I'm not a businessman you see took the franchise, how does that work and how's that going? Absolutely, so essentially after leaving BBC World News at the beginning of last year I then joined Bloomberg to be a presenter on a show for their show sorry for Bloomberg Africa so the way it works is that you've got Bloomberg and then as you quite rightly heard just now a franchise which is the Africa franchise which was bought by a Nigerian individual Is this Rotimi? Quite possibly Rotimi Pedro It's fine it's out there online so I'm not breaking any secrets Rotimi Pedro Well done Henry I'm a Yoruba Secretly a Nigerian So the franchise was bought and then the idea is that they produce content from the African continent but also remotely so from London to populate that bandwidth that they have within the Bloomberg network for Amir So they were doing that and they have been doing that for the last year or so and they have got talent in South Africa as well as Lagos and they're planning on expanding it in Kenya, Nairobi as well as in London so that's how the franchise works and what do you want to ask me What was it like working there? What was it like working there? We were quite fortunate in that we were working from the actual Europe headquarters which is in Finsby Square so we had access to all of the facilities that Bloomberg itself has Quite often with a lot of the other franchises is that they have to set up as a complete entity they've then bought the name for a period which they have to pay for year on year out but then everything that they do they will do it remotely from their location so they have to equally in the same way invest in all the infrastructure the talent etc etc so we were slightly fortunate in that we had access to all of the equipment and facilities and the quality of content certainly has improved so we've seen it move from the kind of quality that I mentioned in the earlier days going back a long time ago to actually trying to develop the programming and having a greater focus on what is relevant to the African audience When it comes, we've talked about if it bleeds it leads the big question is you've got a bomb somewhere in most news outlets where African or non African people are going to go with the bomb it's the most shocking thing but in ordinary time, peacetime what's the agenda, what's the narrative what are you trying to tell people because in some programmes even if there's no bomb they still want blood they still want something that's going to really disturb people as opposed to saying as opposed to leading with something that's going to make them think wow I didn't know that what was the agenda there? I believe the agenda was to give a very balanced approach so still show what's happening because you can't run away from the fact and pretend that all these things are not happening so still portraying that but also trying very much to show the other side of Africa show the lighter side I know even when we were producing folks in Africa for the BBC out of a 30 minute daily programme we still tried to make sure that one package within that in the second half of every programme was focused on something that was positive entertaining and light even though there's a lot of other things going on as well and I do believe that's what Bloomberg Africa have done their very best to try to do but as you heard in the very first session this morning to still focus on Africa's idea this is what I wanted did I hear that? let's talk about this after I don't think it's just Bloomberg Africa I think any private entity that has tried to establish themselves as the voice for Africa they've tried to deliver that African story they've tried to go out there and tell the African story by Africans whether it is Africans or whether informed individuals who can equally tell the story Solomon said it's not about cutting anybody out but it's about telling as best as possible the most truth balanced story and my point I've forgotten now you've made lots of points I've made lots of points but I think as somebody said in the very first session this is what I was going to say is that access to archive information is a nightmare and if it's not archive information it's or footage it's actually having somebody on the ground who can get that information for you in a timely fashion and it's the competition that you're up against to deliver daily news or weekly news and getting a cameraman to the source who's going to deliver that footage back to you in London or wherever so that you can package that and putting it out at the right time that's one of the biggest challenges and that challenge is even exacerbated by social media because as you're about to do that guys are already around with Twitter and Facebook I was going to say I didn't want to talk too long but precisely the way that news is going now social media, Twitter, Facebook that's where people are getting their stories and so there's that much extra competition that they have to come up against to try to get their news out as quickly as possible I'll just butt in I've been talking about these new African channels which are coming up like Arise TVC, the other Nigerian one owned by Bola Tnubu I think That's right Tnubu, we've got a Afrik Van Krathre in Paris in Paris, yeah but I mean I think there's I'm not a businessman but what I can see from Al Jazeir from the BBC is that a 24 hour news channel is a sink you will never make money on it and that's not let me let you into a secret that's not why the British Government funds BBC World, it's not to make money that's not why the Qatari Government funds Al Jazeirah, that's not to make money these are, if you like tools of soft diplomacy I would argue constructive ones but they are ultimately state funded and anyone who's had to sit in a hotel room and watch on a loop CNN or BBC World or Al Jazeirah English I apologize because that's tedious as hell I mean you can watch one of these for an hour but if you're stuck for the second hour it's a dreadful experience and just to feed that beast for 24 hours with quality innovative packaging and links from all over the world and perhaps especially Africa with the logistical difficulties in the more remote parts of Africa there's no way that we're not even close to achieving a money making model there and as we've probably alluded TV is a gradually dying medium anyway. How high the Al Jazeirah agenda would you say this emergent African story is because obviously you go as on when you can but I'm just wondering how hard you have to argue for an African story that isn't bleeding but that may be to do with I don't know, renewable energy from the Sahara powering other parts of Africa. Well, I mean if it bleeds it leads was not invented in relation to Africa that's news there are two countries in Europe that I've been to again and again in the last last year Ukraine I've never been there before I've been there six times the last 12 months it's bleeding and Greece is bleeding money and that's the other place I go to and I'm sorry that is how news works and there's nothing Africa specific in that regard but I suppose you could say that Al Jazeirah with its deep pockets saw an opportunity when it launched in 2006 to tell a more complete African story and one of the reasons why I don't go to Africa as much as I as I used to and it's an entirely appropriate and good reason is that there's a distinct preference for African talent to be on screen and telling that story so for example the Nigerian elections which should have happened two weeks ago and might happen in four weeks time we had four reporters there every single one is an African and you know that's the way in which things are going and that's a good thing Can I add to that because and this is again in the defence of a lot of these private companies and channels entities is that where you cannot get a reporter somewhere to deliver news you are reliant on what's available it's completely different to Raja obviously where you have the luxury of being able to talk endlessly about whatever it is without having to show any pictures apart from with your imagination you have to be able to fill 24 hours with pictures and so quite often a lot of these channels are reliant on packages from the likes of AFP who are sending reporters or they have reporters all over the world who can film what is relevant to them and you have access to those packages which you can then use to populate your channel but they are limited while they're limited to what's available Which is one of the reasons that some channels like Arise have struggled with and they've struggled to lead with an African story because they thought it's the only good footage, the recent footage coming in as Ukraine they'll lead with Ukraine this is part of the problem I think we've talked enough for now I think we need to kind of spread things out and get some interaction I'm going to take questions in batches of three and because I want as many questions as possible I'm going to be a benevolent dictator but with some steel in my glove if you go on for too long so make it count don't repeat anything that's already been said please as a brother to you all So let's have a look clutches of three I want to ban the front area initially because you already have privileges people who've already spoken you are going to be last last be first and first be last I can tell you've already spoken gentlemen there yes in batches of three yes make it count please please tell us who you are and what your question is Hi my name is Ted Ross I'm an MA student here in the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy Speak up My question is around a lot of what we've talked about has been external media houses representation of Africa so we've got panellys from the BBC Al Jazeera what do the panel think about how African countries other African countries are covered by other African media often people in different countries look to the Al Jazeera's or the CNN if you're in East Africa to tell you what's going on in Nigeria and vice versa how much is African media doing about covering other African stories in an accurate way excellent question Ted Ross well used ok next raise your hand properly so I can see it no no ok where gentlemen there yeah ok no hang on have you already spoken you spoke already no you can't speak again ok who else yeah it's ok up there yes woman who hasn't spoken over there yes yeah my name is Maureen and actually when I first heard about this talk and seminar in itself the first thing that came to mind is about representation of like just generally the new generation African generation in in the UK I think one particular person who comes to mind who's really champion for the black and ethnic minority in representation is someone like Lenny Henry he speaks a lot about the fact that we are not on on television and to me that's more striking it's it's it's an option for me to go back to Kenya yes but what is it what is it that I can do to actually be you know an active like creative within the industry here and make a make an impact what can you do ok so you're looking for an answer to that question ok unless of a third somebody from somewhere else raise your hand ok yeah no no no if you've spoken already keep your hand down no seriously because we've got 300 people here lady there lady there it doesn't matter hi there Rachel Hamarder I'm a freelance journalist we've alluded a bit to the issues of state ownership of television what about private ownership for example of individuals who are involved in oil and gas what are the implications and reporting on things like resource issues within Africa tremendous ok external media African media on Africa hmm let's think Solomon African media do they do a better job are they as interested ok I think it depends on the story and it depends on the various media companies in terms of let me speak first of all in terms of newspapers because I think newspapers do a better job maybe it's because of space but I think newspapers do a better job of reflecting on these stories from elsewhere those stories are normally available through wire agencies such as Reuters AFP and you find a story about say Zanzibar Zanzibar doors the history the style the culture of the Zanzibar people and the kind of doors into the houses those vintage houses in Zanzibar I saw that story covered you know extensively by a Nigerian newspaper afforded people in Nigeria an opportunity to learn something different from another part of the continent but in terms of television in terms of radio that's where there's a big challenge television because of number one how easy or difficult it is to get footage about events happening beyond your own boundaries I don't see how a Tanzanian TV station would be able to cover something happening in Botswana if it does not have access to footage from that particular country the issue of cost comes in is it affordable to purchase that kind of footage from any of these agencies and majority of those agencies by the way they are all international the AFPs of this world, AFPs and Reuters the only thing that maybe helps some of these broadcasters in Africa is when they form their own regional groupings through which they can exchange content but there are certain type of bespoke content you want which is not covered by these stations and therefore it's so difficult on TV station to cover events beyond their own boundaries Is there enough interest? Now we are just coming to that Now if you want to see, if you want to now test whether there is interest in a country about what's happening beyond somebody's own environment, look at or listen to radio and radio increasingly is going local if anything vernacular so people are withdrawing into their own little environments let me know first of all what's happening here before I care about what's happening to people in Uganda or in Zimbabwe or in Lesotho but that's the notion I'm challenging that's the notion the likes of BBC Focus on Africa are challenging these Pan-African offers we are making why? We are saying the world is a globalised village whether we like it or not each one of us here comes from maybe an African country your parents your siblings your friends want to know how are you faring on in the UK if something happened here who is going to tell them if your local radio station if your local newspaper if your local TV station does not want to cover anything international that's what I'm saying that before African broadcasters recline into their own small little cocoons and say we are only going to cover of relevance to our people they've got to imagine just how globalised the world has become when events happened in America whether it was the September 11 attacks when things happened in Japan the tsunami in Japan and other big global events that have happened you will find there were Africans there take for example the recent events in Paris Charlie Hebdo riots it is a very interesting story one of the suspects in that attack is a Malian young man from the same country you have a Malian who then rescued people in France and so you can begin to imagine these are two African families in France how do you then not tell that story to an audience not just in Mali but across Africa you wanted to make a brief intervention on that as well African media on African countries I think Solomon's raised all the points but I wanted to say that I wasn't here this morning but I hear that people were worried about the African portrayal in international media but I'm worried actually with the way African portray their news in their own media What's the concern? I find it very divisive I find it where it pays its ways so yes I'm very worried and I think that what we're trying to do occasionally we're not thinking for ourselves so we're trying to replicate what's happening in other media so we use the BBC or Al Jazeera or whatever as a benchmark and say we need to question things the same way as they do on hard talk whilst really what we want to do is we don't necessarily want to try find a politician out what we want to do is we want to raise issues with him we want to see what's behind his thinking what is his agenda but what we're trying to do is we're trying to find him out so we're trying to pretend to ask him tough questions without having thought about it So more of the David Frost instead of the Jeremy Paxman I just think that we need to think what it is that we want to get out of something or someone or a story and then approach it in that particular way we don't need to copy others we need to set our own agenda Before we get to that middle question Rachel's talked about state ownership and private ownership about private interest a bit like HSBC you might say the whole story so you've got a private interest and a daily telegraph How concerned should people be about that? Absolutely the potential is there and I think Nigeria will be a good case because there are some very powerful people who own the new upcoming channels in Nigeria they have political interests in the elections that are coming up and so when I was in Lagos last month people were looking at these new channels very carefully and seeing on which side of the divide they fall and there's absolutely every reason to be skeptical and to assume that they will come under the same interest that a state funded broadcaster will come under the same sort of pressure that a state funded broadcaster will come under when its direct interests are at stake so we should be very skeptical of these private businessmen but if they respect the media and if they allow the editor it'll start to get on with it, wonderful if not call them out on it Savannah I wonder if you might also handle this question given that you have worked for a number of African owned operators in Africa and our friend over there said well yeah that's fine I could go to Kenya but she wants to make a difference here she wants to maybe ply her trade here and Lenny Henry has been talking about diversity here in the UK that's for another conference I think because of course it's a very very big subject that people have been trying to tackle in this country for what 35 years or so Anne-Marie and Louis you know what do you think what specifically are you asking as well Is that question still there raise your hand because I didn't fully get your question either I didn't get your question but I work with a Kenyan business partner and I mean he's full on full on Africa but basically he says that Africa is a state of mind so you can contribute in many ways of having to be based there Is the way you address you see with your head wrap Anyway To our lady my sister I would say for example in BBC Africa what you're trying to do as well is to attract African talent in this country people like you people like you of course going through a competitive process if I've got a sound now properly the thing is not just to broadcast in English but also in the other African languages we broadcast in but sometimes it puzzles me to meet somebody from Somalia who cannot speak Somali language or you meet somebody from East Africa Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and they can't speak a word in Kiswahili and you wonder how could this be yet you've got people in this country white people in this country or Chinese even they speak perfect Kiswahili so what happens to you and East Africa and you come here and you've forgotten your Kiswahili Maybe they never knew it Thank you Is that lady, just raise your hand again because we want to refine your question Okay, I think my question as you mentioned like maybe it is for a different seminar but you have touched on some of the points like basically my main point was how do I make a difference not necessarily a difference but make an impact I want to use my education or something, I go into debt to actually make We can't help with that To be able to get a job out here I don't necessarily want to be able to have to go somewhere else and at times I feel that that's the route that people are giving me And you want to, as a young African woman you want to work in the media here in this country Yes Definitely 100% focus on your craft and doing the very very best you can with that, making sure that whatever you put out is of the highest quality regardless of the funding issue regardless of access to resources make sure that if you are putting out content and you're putting yourself and you want to put your skills into best practice do it in the highest possible quality because it's the only way that we will start to be able to represent ourselves in all contexts and be respected by every other network Do you speak any African languages? This is a man for you Well done Henry should have actually answered even that question because when you look at the press review on BBC at night is one of the regulars on that programme how have you managed to convince the BBC that you're the kind of person, the quality they're looking for By speaking truth to power No, actually By being myself So I'm not being cowed I'm not being crushed by the weight of default man No way, this is who I am and I can go there and challenge whoever I'm on the panel with and speak truth Excellent Okay, we want three more questions People who haven't spoken before and then I'll get to those who have already Okay, lady there Right behind the barrier Hi, I'm Roshan Reid I'm a researcher at the University of Manchester and I just wondered about this issue of there being a lack of people on the ground certainly with western media to report on African issues and it seems to me that in this country certainly they've turned to aid workers to report on the issues which perpetuates this particular kind of narrative and I wondered if the panel had any comments on that Great, okay, next again Hi Who's speaking Oh, yes, yeah Hi, my name's Senna I noticed that we covered print media TV and radio but I wanted to get your opinions on online new media and bloggers and their ability to shift the narrative and develop credible content Do you see them becoming the next news agencies online? Good question, thank you Let's have another one You've got your hand up Hi, my name's Sami I'm from National Prison Radio but I'm also half Turkish and in the last 10 or so years Turkey have been quite involved in East Africa and Somalia and Kenya and other places and I was wondering in the organisations that you work for whether you've seen there's a kind of increased interest in African stories say in the Middle East in China it's obviously a big issue and whether that changes the kind of stuff that you produce and what kind of implications that might have All right, thank you very much We'll start off on that one with you Barnaby so increased interest in the Middle East Yeah, I mean I guess I'm a product of that Al Dazir English set up in 2006 and hired hundreds of journalists from venerable organisations Turkish state TV I think is setting up an English language service I hope I'm not breaking that news too very soon I know some people who have joined it and I think the BBC and CNN and the positive changes we've referred to are a reflection of that as well Can I just say something about the aid agency very quickly I absolutely agree about we talk about the domination of western media of the African continent and clearly that is very much there but throughout my career I've also seen a gradual withdrawal of the western media Does anyone know the last time that the main American networks by which I mean the domestic networks the CBC, NBC ABC Do you know when they last had a resident correspondent on the African continent and by a correspondent with a full bureau and all the rest of it when Mandela was released they felt that was the end of the African story African story done and the result is a dreadful porcity in coverage a dreadful lack of understanding of Africa in the United States that has affected all of us and yes aid agencies you're absolutely right I have a confession to make and it feels like a confession given the tenure of the conversation this morning my wife works for Save the Children she works in the film and photography department and she is very very busy supplying media outlets with pictures with content from troubled parts of Africa because media organisations can't afford or can't be bothered to go there themselves and whilst broadly speaking I would say Save the Children is a good thing and I applaud its desire to save children I don't think it should be setting our news agenda and I think it should be treated with just the same skepticism that I would treat the British government or the Nigerian government or the South African government Thank you very much for that Barnaby It's not a confession It's called declaring interest Yes Are you going to declare an interest to Solomon? No but I think the question about aid agencies is a critical question Guys this is it because when you look at it whenever a disaster occurs or whenever there's a conflict by the very nature of their service they gain access to areas the media cannot and also because of the the way they are primed to respond in an event in an emergency they've got everything in place they've got the template on which to simply swing into action and these guys are in Borough North State North Eastern Nigeria there will be a question about who do we need to deploy which reporter is ready which cameraman is willing to go have they done something we call hostile environment training where you cannot be deployed unless you've done that training to equip you with the skills on how to survive when you are in that kind of aid so while those conversations are still going on and budgets still being done the aid agencies they are already there they have captured the story because even further is to reach those places you sometimes can only access those places using vehicles or means by aid agencies accommodation where are you going to stay where will your crew stay again you find that those tens by MSF by Save the Children by Oxfam again you are at Yamasi to provide you with what? Accomodation which means that you cannot criticize them no no no no no no no no no no no no no no Henry come on look for any journalist worth your salt that is where you draw a line yes you appreciate and you've got to very transparent on there and say we've arrived in this place courtesy of Save the Children however the story is this so you've got to demarcate that very clearly so you know they'll complain if they're not mentioned in the story and they may not want to take you next time you're very right that's a very valid point absolutely let's give a round of applause to him that's a valid point honestly that's what I'm proud of you Omar did you want to say something on Middle East without Sami's question from Turkey talking about the increased interest that Middle Eastern countries have in Africa I think there's a global interest in the continent which can only be a good thing so yeah I mean the media space is getting more interesting and it's making it more viable for media organisations to operate so going back to a previous question but I do know that a number of TV channels and a number of media organisations are still funded by governments for example you mentioned Africa and Gad funded by the Cameroonian and Equatorial Government the tune of about 4 million euros a year do you know what the agenda is and what do they want well they're supposed to be a free channel but he required funding no one was prepared to fund him so those two governments who wanted to contribute to the media landscape and possibly get some good or positive coverage or more coverage actually people aren't necessarily asking for positive coverage they just want coverage so there might be other governments who are prepared to fund people here possibly your news is also studying a Pan-African channel and that's being part funded so I believe by the Congolese Government based in Brazil very interesting stuff Henry, Barnab you'll agree with me on this one and as the lady there said those aid agencies we'll just go back to them they've got a fully-fledged media outfit that's so well resourced and the people who had those media outfits by the way they're professional journalists people who've been working for BBC they're all my colleagues after this you'll find me maybe in action aid in other places we'll see, if we do we'll call you out can I just add one thing because Le Monde the most prestigious French language publication they've recently launched Le Monde d'Afrique which is a website totally dedicated to African coverage and they're putting good journalists to create great African coverage but their finances is Bill and Millindigates Foundation so all these foundations obviously also got an agenda to push Who's money, who's story online bloggers can they shift the agenda that'll send us question what do you say, Savannah? I think that's very forward thinking of you we've talked already on the panel today about how expensive television is becoming and how difficult it is to be able to get the news out when you want to get it out I remember when the US Cils went in to find Bin Laden his reports was on Twitter within seconds after there was notice that there was something going on and nowhere else can you deliver the news that quickly and I think it's a tool that should be used especially in Africa where we're trying to tell the African story where better can we take that responsibility into our hands and start to put the news and the information out there so I think it's a very good point it's definitely the direction in which things are going but with one small corrective I think it was Lynn Dwey said earlier today let's remember there's only 15% of Africa that is online this is a good point as well I have fascinating conversations on Twitter with a Nigerian community with a Kenyan community but they are not the entire audience who watch Al Jazeera or BBC let alone the entire populations of Kenya and Nigeria we've always got to bear in mind that you're speaking to a sport with an elite that's absolutely true so it fulfills its purpose within the arena that it can it's not completely ruling out television and region and we've already heard the reach that radio has across the continent but it certainly has a very very important role to play Thank you Savannah Well, it's a democratisation of media so it can only be a good thing and ultimately what we're looking for we're looking for good journalists good talent, it's a way of getting talent we're continuously scouting for bloggers and good... Well, you'll be bombarded after this session, don't worry Let's get another round of questions Yes, George. Do we have a microphone down here please? I've been thinking about the question I'm about to raise for a very long time it's probably the only question that brought me to this conference I think I'm in a very unique position in the sense that literally all the institutions or from which the five people on the panel their flagship panel one way or the other over the last 15 years have interviewed me and it's been the most horrible experience imaginable You've been horrible Henry, this is serious I am being serious because I've interviewed you I remember, carry on Just a minute please This is not an antique roadshow Let me just be more serious than I mean Please I have been interviewed by you and this is not about you personally I'm talking systemically and it is to do with does it make a difference that it's African practitioners in the institutions that you work in making a difference or not and in reflecting over the last 15 years of my lived experience it's been a nightmare I mean it in that way So the question I'm trying to ask is this What is it that makes you fail to realise that there is no story of African interest about the fact that Robyn Mgabe is 9 to 1 tomorrow which you continue to be preoccupied with What is it that makes you fail to realise the difference between those two Second, what is it that makes you fail to realise that African people are not stupid that there are substantive intellectual ideological political position that result in the choices they make which are very different from the preoccupations of your very programs the very programs you produce about the African continent Have you finished George? Have you finished? You've got another 0.3, okay go on What is it that is only your database that precedes the framing of the ask question when I come into your studio such that it ends up being such a horrible nightmare for me for you Thank you George, thank you I gave you your chance and that's how you've used it Thank you Next question Yes, over there, yes No, who was that? He's already spoken Me Vincent Gasana Just a media representation in Africa, this is an old chestnut it comes up very often and we did mention at the beginning of the discussion new organizations that are coming out but on the whole we are not missing the obvious problem in that most things in Africa a lot of foreign organizations go in to fill a vacuum and in the media specifically there is a vacuum of local media it really doesn't exist in the sense that one would want it to think of journalism and until that happens we can keep going on about representation of Africa because if there were for instance I mean Barnaby talked about what the material that his lady provides if we had decent African media they would be providing this material and then that would inform how Africa is represented so the BBC, Al Jazeera they are filling a vacuum so who should be filling this vacuum in order that this representation and let's have one more question lady behind the gentleman who's already spoken yes I'm sorry my friend, you heard what I said go on I want to ask a question drawing from what Solomon said when Solomon was talking he talked about respect that programs that are done on African should be done with respect you were emphasizing on respect reference, there was a program they did in BBC that was in 2011 about the lower class people in Lagos Highland in Lagos I can't remember the program, I think it was a document I can't remember the name welcome to you welcome to you ladies we are talking about media representation I got to know that BBC didn't show the third episode because the staff from Nigerian High Commission went to tell the BBC to stop showing the program it wasn't a good media it showed all three I watched them all it wasn't a good representation of Nigerian because Nigerians that were born here some of them didn't have a good representation about Nigerian probably people from other nationalities who are residing here some of them didn't want to visit Nigeria because they felt it was a poor country it was a slum area some of us were saying why didn't the BBC show the slum areas and then show the posh areas in Lagos to balance but people said if they show the posh area they won't get money so I want to ask because you've been working in the African program since 2002 what did you do because I know people would have made comments to you, I mean Solomon and even Philip as well what did you people do when talking about African programs I believe you've been made many reforms so you said that was a good media representation Thank you very much Just to defend Solomon we all make mistakes maybe they made a mistake and they admitted it I think Solomon will speak for himself We are journalists in general I think you said that in 2011 I've been talking about the kind of initiatives we've launched to try and tell the African story in a different way with respect, respect does not mean shying away from criticising and respect also does not mean or if you are criticising it does not mean that you simply do it for the sake of doing it and those initiatives we launched from 2012 in June when we launched Focus on Africa TV program to launch BBC Swaley service TV last year we launched the BBC Hausa TV bulletin as well together with the BBC French TV and we are thinking about BBC Somali TV sometime towards the end of this year or next year of course subject to availability of funds as they would normally say it but it's important I'm very glad you've touched on Nigeria and that's why I'm saying and we've been telling colleagues as well within the BBC and anybody who cares to listen there's a bigger story to Nigeria than Boko Haram there's a bigger story to Nigeria than what you saw in 2011 there's a bigger story to Nigeria away from those ethnic conflicts we hear because harders have gone from one village to another and people attacked each other there are bigger stories to Nigeria than meets the eye or your ear and those are the stories we want our team in Nigeria to reflect on to cover to report we have a team of African reporters together with of course our colleagues from what we call the news gathering people like Will Ross but we've got BBC as a service and other African reporters in Nigeria to tell the Nigerian story but what this lady remembers is in 2011 that had prime time three hours on is it BBC 2 or BBC 1? BBC 2 so even if that had nothing to do with your team still that was a mass audience and she feels sorry absolutely once these things happen we are all one BBC there's no distinction amongst the audience whether it came from BBC Africa or BBC this this and that and a very good example is what happened last year in October when BBC 2 showed a documentary called Rwanda's Untold Stories it was shown here only by the BBC 2 but who is paying the price for it is BBC Great Lakes Service which has been suspended from broadcasting into Rwanda because they are part of the BBC so we carry that blame collectively and where mistake was said as Omar said yes mistakes do happen let's face it mistakes do happen George mistakes happen mistakes happen and what makes a difference what makes a difference is when we own up and say a mistake has been has happened here we need to correct it and also for every story we cover for every event for every personality there are two different sides of the coin isn't it there are two different sides to Henry to Solomon to Savannah to Barnaby to Omar and you must reflect those sides of the story so when we get fixated on say Robert and actually do sometimes question this fixation about Uncle Bob even when Uncle Bob is dancing they say he's falling there are things we need to take seriously report both sides of the story and then leave it to the audience to pass their own judgement and nowadays with social media Henry we no longer have the monopoly we used to have as media organisations over coverage of stories tremendous thank you very much Vincent raised a point about the vacuum of local media presence in many African countries and that's the reason why the global channels continue to have so much sway that's essentially the point you are making so there's no point complaining if the local media infrastructure hasn't been built up but isn't telling the story from the ground up any thoughts on that Savannah Barnaby I mean I would say you're right but I would say things are changing and changing in the right direction if people are old enough to remember the dead hand of monopolised dead hand of state African media in the 70s or 80s we've come a long way from there yes we must question the Africa rising dictum but there's truth in there that economies and middle classes are growing across Africa and organisations like the BBC or like Al Jazeera have had to respond to that and improve and deepen their African coverage as a result the pressure's on and ultimately the good quality domestic output from within Africa will rise and I've no doubt will take its place I mean the organisations like the BBC have changed beyond all imagination and I can remember when I joined the BBC in 1991 the foreign language services in Bush House there would be essentially let's not mince it a white British person in charge of each foreign language service who didn't even speak that language it was that absurd Somali the head of the Swahili service could not speak Swahili and the same with Hausa and they were almost like district officers who were there to make sure that things didn't get out of hand insofar as they could not even understand the content of what those times have changed a lot but I suppose I also have to stand up for journalism and what we do you spoke about the Welcome to Lagos series I never saw it but I do remember once having a conversation with a woman in Abuja and it was when Bill Clinton visited in 2000 and he was staying at the Hilton Hotel in Abuja which cost hundreds of dollars and 200 yards away there were huge queues of Nigerians waiting for petrol for hours and it was much worse then and we filmed that and I took the decision that in our 40 which is all we're given on the evening news of Bill Clinton's visit we would show the irony that while he's there because of oil interests Nigerians cannot get petrol at their own pumps she was furious at me she kept this woman cut out of her car and said it was a disgrace why was I showing this on such an important day for Nigeria I should be showing rich Nigerians in the Hilton Hotel she said to show the complexity of the country I disagree with her I made an editorial call and I disagree with her Barnaby, thank you very much we can discuss this at a much greater length later we're over but just want to ask you how confident are you he was confident as Barnaby is that that local African media presence infrastructure is growing is developing you've tracked it over a period of years what do you think now it's definitely changed face over the last 10-15 years and there is massive scope to continue to improve it especially with individuals like yourselves in the room that are talented that are passionate about making a difference even though you don't like hearing that word but passionate about having an impact and really delivering balanced information there's massive scope a large portion of it always will come down to funding and it's access to funding and then offsetting that against the competition and the increased competition that is there and that's not going to go away and also a bit like the lady said at the front before where is the funding coming from and it's almost a case of who pays the piper so you're also looking at a case of you may want to report this but what can be reported what are we able to do with the funding that we have available so there's a lot of different challenges that are there that are not going to go away but there's definitely the scope for all of us as individuals to do the very best we can to put out the very best quality of content Tremendous You've got 10 seconds OK 25 I just wanted to say one thing which is really challenging my mind being in this country as an African journalist when and if you've read newspapers in this country and even listen to radio or watch television if a child goes missing if a child is murdered or anybody it becomes a headline story isn't it it's not about David Cameron it's not about the coalition government it is about that human life and that is something I admire about the media sometimes in this country let's flip the coin and look at how we cover our local media in Africa do things more than 200 girls are taken by a militant group into the forest these are people's daughters and we can't make it a headline story when we have got things happening miles away we've got our African presidents sending condolences and demonstrating the solidarity yet in their own bucket 2000 people are being massacred I've got to have a president's story congratulating another leader but I cannot talk about a one year old being mutilated in Tanzania because that girl or that boy is an albino and then I'm told that you're not covering Africa very well because my African leader was not story number one or when they were story number one you criticised them I refuse I say journalism is about humanity Solomon Mugera Savannah Nightingale Omar Banyedda Barnaby Phillips thank you very much indeed for discussing if it bleeds it leads new money same old story thank you very much indeed