Region’s journalism pioneers are celebrated in a new book

If book titles and covers sell books – which often they do – then Pioneers, Rebels, and a Few Villains: 150 Years of Journalism in Eastern Africa (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung) edited by Charles Onyango-Obbo will sell. The title alone is catchy. It promises the reader a journey back into the history of news reporting in Eastern Africa.

The country coverage – 20 countries – is another promise that is hard to ignore. Then there are the more than 100 picture illustrations of the journalists discussed in the book on the front and back cover pages.

To simplify the story of the cover page: it is catchy; it is difficult to ignore this book.

However, there is no doubt that to write about 150 years of journalistic practice in Eastern Africa is a huge task. Definitely, it can’t be comprehensively done in a book of 310 pages.

Who does one choose to write about and who does one omit? What media genre does one cover and which one might receive only an honourable mention? Can the writer do justice to the entire region really? What archival sources would one rely on in a region where archives tend to be destroyed more than preserved?

In a sense, this book promises more than it could deliver, without doubt, but it does deliver enough content to whet the appetite of both a general and specialized reader. The editor hopes that this book will open “the door to more great stories about African journalism.”

Rebels

Well, before the reader gets down to the 13 chapters of Pioneers, Rebels, and a few Villains, there is the Introduction by Onyango-Obbo with the fancy title, ‘Of Madmen and Madwomen.” Here Onyango-Obbo offers a sweeping view of some of the events, personalities and places that have influenced and produced great stories for the region – which is really a summary of the chapters.

What did the military coups in Eastern Africa – Zanzibar and Uganda – for instance, do to journalists and journalism in the region? How did the long running civil wars in Sudan and Ethiopia, and even Uganda affect the way journalists practiced and how news was reported in the region? Why have women remained on the margins of the mainstream media? What has been the impact of digital media on the gathering/production, dissemination and consumption of news etc?

Morris Kiruga’s chapter ‘Henry Stanley’s Heirs’ is an apt way of talking about journalism in the region. Kiruga goes back into history to show how ‘foreign correspondents defined Africa. Kiruga goes back to that old tale in history books – the meeting between Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone in 1871. Livingstone the explorer had seemingly 'disappeared' in the African bush. Stanley, a journalist and explorer too, met him along the shores of Lake Tanganyika, as historians record, and had a scoop for his employers, the New York Herald. It is said that when Stanley met Livingstone, he enquired, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" A scoop, such as that one, is every journalist&rs dream.

Africa, Kiruga shows, has always attracted foreign correspondents, some who have struggled to report about it or others who have deliberately reproduced stereotypes of the continent. But some of these correspondents have helped establish newspapers, magazines and other media forms that have outlasted their time here.

In other cases, the work of such journalists has been instrumental in telling the African story "often when the continent’s media could not." The atrocities of African dictators such as Amin, Mobutu; the endless wars and killings in the DRC; the Rwandan war and genocide, are just some of the big stories from Africa/Eastern Africa that foreign journalists have helped break to the rest of the world.

Zarina Patel’s chapter, 'South Asian Journalists in East Africa' records the stories and histories of men and women and their descendants from South Asia who were some of the most important pioneers in journalism in the region. She notes that these men and women did not just participate in the anticolonial struggles but they also set up printing presses that produced some of the earliest publications by Africans.

 South Asians

Today very few Kenyans know that The Standard newspaper was first published in Mombasa as the African Standard, owned by Alibhai Mulla Jevanjee. When he sold the newspaper, it became the East African Standard. Several other newspapers would be launched by a number of South Asians in Kenya, with the Nation, which was launched in 1960, employing several South Asian journalists.

This chapter travels throughout East Africa, detailing stories of journalists such as Fatma Aloo and Sekina Dewji from Tanzania; Rajat Neogy, Mahmood Mamdani and Jimmy Dean in Uganda. But the stories of the photojournalists, Mohinder Dhillon, Mohammed Amin and Priya Ramrakha occupy a prime place in the story of South Asian journalists in the region. Zarina writes about it briefly, with Oyunga Pala discussing it extensively in his chapter, "Photojournalists of the Golden Age."

Pioneers, Rebels, and a few Villains covers the breadth and length of media institutions, personalities, philosophies and practice in Eastern Africa. Brenda Wambui celebrates women who have broken the glass ceiling. If you find a copy of Parents magazine on the streets of Kenyan towns, thank Eunice Njambi Mathu for her tenacity in a tough world of publishing periodicals. Mathu is one of the many journalists from the region who are remembered in this chapter, which, though, should have been longer than the 13 pages. There are just too many women journalists from Eastern Africa whose stories remain on the margins of the main talk on journalism. Maybe, Brenda Wambui should just expand this chapter into a book.

The rest of Pioneers, Rebels, and a few Villains takes the reader into warzones; has reflections on the media revolution that happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall; debates the consequences of the encounter between journalism and activism; reflects on how digital media has impacted journalism; has an extensive and intensive discussion of the work and effect of cartoonists on public discourse; invites the reader into the world of news anchors and celebrity newscasters; and ends with an invitation to ponder what Covid-19 pandemic has done to media institutions, practitioners and consumers.

Undoubtedly, Pioneers, Rebels, and a few Villains is a product of a lot of archival work. Consequently, it adds significantly to the archive on journalism in Eastern Africa, which in itself is still very thin. But this book also raises serious questions about how we develop a local archive and maintain it. There are just too many journalists from the past – some living, others dead – whose lives and work have hardly been recorded. This volume is a serious provocation to retired (or even active) journalists from Eastern Africa to write their memoirs.

It is a call to media scholars from the region to research and produce more books.

Where are books on media houses in Eastern Africa (except the one on Nation)? Where is the history of political writers, parliamentary reporters, sports writers, arts critics etc from the region? Yet, foreign correspondents who have worked in the region compete with each other to write and publish stories of their time and lives here.

The writer teaches literature and performing arts at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]