2007 CBA Regional Conference - Kenya
Using the Media for Social Purposes
Salim Amin, CEO, Camerapix
I will start with perhaps the best example I have – one that most of you already know – where the power of the media was best demonstrated in a social context – the Ethiopian Famine of 1984. My late father, Mohamed Amin, broke this story after months of trying to obtain permission and access to some of the worst hit famine areas in Northern Ethiopia. The result of his pictures was the single largest act of global charity in the 20th Century and the survival of more than 5 million Ethiopians. That is how our profession can impact society.
In a more current context, I am spearheading an initiative to launch the first 24-hour pan-African News and Current Affairs Channel, A24, with 46 Bureaux around Africa. This Channel will not only highlight the News, from an African perspective, but will heavily focus on Business, Sport, Art, Music, Fashion, Health and the Environment.
Taking a pan-African perspective, A24 can create indices – on economic output, foreign investment, openness, corruption, tourism, disease – so that Africans can compare their efforts and those of our peers. These indices will create a framework for debate and become catalysts for change.
A24 will serve as a development tool because of its editorial integrity, its economic empowerment, its training programme and its use as an educational tool. The A24 projects meets a range of economic and social needs for the Continent. In presenting a comprehensive view of Africa and bringing clarity to social and economic issues, A24 will offer a model of transformative media.
The democratisation of media will help Africans decide what is right, good and proper for them. A24 will be commercial, credible, independent and transparent in its operations and business management. It will provide a balance against the more negative images of the Continent that are currently being portrayed as “real life” for all Africans by the International Media. By presenting the real Africa as a place of good and bad, honesty and corruption, economic vibrancy and poverty, eager entrepreneurs as well as those who still rely on foreign aid, A24 will present to Africans the truth about our world.
A24 will empower Africans with knowledge to help them decide who they want their political and social leaders to be, where they want to invest their hard-earned money and how they want to move forward in their own Continent . This, for me, is the greatest social purpose the media can achieve. Information is power and, for too long, the power has not been in the hands of the people of Africa.