While prospects for American and European journalists look gloomy, the future is rosier for African journos, according to an article posted by the Democracy Resource Centre.
Adelia Saunders, MediaGlobal Correspondent in Paris, quotes Albert Rudatsimburwa, director of Contact FM, Rwanda’s largest private radio station, as saying that the lack of competition from free newspapers and online media in Africa means that “papers, relatively, sell more in East Africa than they do in the western world.”
Saunders goes on to cite Kenya’s newspaper circulation, which she says increased by 45 percent in 2007, “and while advertising revenues fell in North America, they were up over 13 percent in Africa and the Middle East, according to data compiled by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), an NGO with headquarters in Paris.”
Add to this the attention on Africa leveraged by the FIFA World Cup next year, it’s clear that it’s never been a better time to be an African journalist.
Read Adelia Saunders’ full article here.
