The African Renaissance: how Africans are disrupting and redefining journalism

Historically, African voices have been underrepresented and misrepresented in global media. Calls for the decolonization of journalism and the global media landscape more broadly have consistently grown louder over the years. For years, long-running challenges including hostile local governments and unsustainable business models meant that Western outlets were the leading and most trusted sources of news and information about Africa–today, this is changing. Africans are no longer demanding a seat at the table; we’re going a step further in building our own tables.

On a wide range of subjects from Afrobeats to technology companies, global interest in Africa is growing. Across Africa, media outlets are responding to this trend in diverse, innovative ways from blogs, to newsletters, to podcasts and decentralized publishing platforms. In this panel, we take a look at the evolution of the landscape surrounding Africa-focused journalism, we hear from some of the most innovative publishers on the continent; we deepdive into the persistent challenges and the emerging opportunities. We discuss the new narratives emerging across Africa and meet the outlets engineering these new narratives whose insights will be relevant not only to Africans but also the wider world.