Larry Madowo’s Hard-Hitting Opinion Piece Causes a Stir Online

Kenyan Journalist and BBC Africa Business Editor Larry Madowo.PHOTO/COURTESY

A hard-hitting opinion piece by Kenyan Journalist and BBC Africa Business Editor Larry Madowo criticizing the western media on how they choose to cover Africa has become a subject of discussion in the online community.

In Madowo’s piece titled ““Africa is doing just fine – it’s the coverage by Western media that is behind the times,” he blasted the Western media houses for depicting Africa Africa as a continent plagued with war, famine and other calamities.

He further highlighted some of the positives including having one of the fastest internet connectivity, technology like mobile money transactions, and ban on plastics among other things.

“It is easy to caricature Africa and define it narrowly using its wars, famine, and disease, but that is lazy and misguided. Nobody reduces the whole of Europe to just homelessness, racism, and massive inequality so why should Africa be so easily dismissed?” read part of his article.

He added: “There is an entire generation of African innovators, doers and trailblazers tackling some of the world’s most intractable challenges using homegrown solutions.”

The piece which has since become a subject of discussion has received mixed reactions from netizens with the majority standing with the journalist for taking a bold step in bashing western media in which he works for to highlight Africa’s problems.

A section of other netizens faulted his piece with some arguing that his article was unbalanced and that it is unappropriated of him to generalize Africa’s problems or compare it with the Western countries as Africa is still a growing country.

https://twitter.com/dlknowles/status/1154388400356626432?s=20

https://twitter.com/dlknowles/status/1154393381348528128?s=20

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *