allAfrica.com: Africa: 'Africans Can Now Tell Their Own Story' (Page 1 of 2)

In the global market place of ideas, Africa can no longer be pushed aside nor will its perspective on any issue be ignored. Max Amuchie encountered Amadou Mahtar Ba, president of AllAfrica Global Media, which is involved in changing the misconception.

He was named after his maternal uncle, Dr Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, who as Director-General of UNESCO in the 1980s, championed the cause for a New World Information and Communication Order. The struggle for a new international information order pitched M'Bow against some western countries led by the United States and culminated in the withdrawal of the US from the UN body in 1985.

But today, Amadou Mahtar Ba is also doing something to bridge the information gap in Africa. But he is doing it in way that is not political. Four years ago, he and two of his American friends founded the AllAfrica Global Media Group of which he is president. The popular website on African news, allAfrica.com, is a project of AllAfrica Global Media. It is a site that has become a reference point for anybody seeking information on Africa or the African perspective on any world issue.

THISDAY had encountered Mahtar Ba early last month in Uyo during President Olusegun Obasanjo's visit to Akwa Ibom State. Like other journalists that came for the presidential visit, he was running all over the place, trying to get every aspect of the visit, every move the president made, the responses and reactions of his hosts and the various projects the president visited or commissioned. Thereafter he would rush to the nearest cybercafe to send the pictures to allafrica.com.

A few days later at the American compound in Ikoyi, Lagos, Mahtar Ba was seated with his American Foreign Service wife, Jessica. Their son, Badou, who will be two years old next month, was running all over the house.

He said AllAfrica Global Media was incorporated on February 9, 2000 in Delaware, United States to carry on the online activities of Africa News Service.

"Africa News Service was the first news agency to specialise in reporting African news and affairs and it was created in 1973 in North Carolina. Using the opportunities created by the new International information and communication technology and Internet especially we now created a new company called the AllAfrica Global Media and AllAfrica Global Media has three founders, two Americans and myself. That's how we started All Africa and since then it has been incorporated in South Africa, Mauritius, Senegal, Nigeria.

"I am president of the group which includes allafrica.com, AllAfrica Inc., and Xymbol, which is the technology division. The other co-founders are Reed Kramer and Tamela Hultman, who are chairman and chief strategy and content officer respectively. There are other Africans including a Nigerian, Akwe Amosu, the executive editor/producer," Mahtar Ba said.

One issue that has worried many Africans is the negative portrayal of Africa by the western media. Considering that his uncle fought a titanic battle with the West in his campaign for a new world information order, what is Ba's position on this? He acknowledged M'bow got him interested in communication even though he (Ba) is a marketer and banker by training and not a journalist.But he has different perspective. "The world has changed a lot but then there was so much imbalance in information between the North and the South. Actually in some instances you still have that imbalance because if look at the world today you have some majors and those majors like Reuters, AFP, CNN etc.

"What allAfrica.com is trying to do is simple, anywhere in the world today, we as Africans have the opportunity to state our own side of the story and telling our own side of the story means that somebody who is in Mongolia for example if he wants to know what is happening in Nigeria, he doesn't have to go through AFP or Reuters. But the person should be able to have the opportunity to read what THISDAY, Vanguard, Guardian etc are saying about one particular event in Nigeria. That's what AllAfrica is for. That's why when we go to a country we try to get a diversity of newspapers including government media so that people will for instance know what is the position of the Nigerian government on an issue because if you base on private newspapers alone you will get one side of the issue but if you get the government angle, the story is balanced. So we are addressing this issue of New International Information and Communication Order in a way that is neither political nor ideological.

"If issues are political or ideological they cannot go far. We need a balance of information between the North and the South. People today from across the world access information on Africa but the problem is that they cannot get it when they need it. We say we have an answer to that and that is what we are doing. We have been successful so far; AllAfrica is the largest electronic distributor of media concerning Africa worldwide. Everyday we distribute an average of 900 stories both in French and English throughout the world through several networks and terminals in the same medium where you have stories coming from the Financial Times or the New York Times for instance", he declared.

He said the three of them who founded AllAfrica Global Media agreed that the company should be both non-political and non-ideological in orientation because that's what the way it should be. He asked: "What good does it make to address the situation politically. For example, PANA (Pan African News Agency) was established in 1979 but the idea was mooted in 1963 when the (defunct Organisation of African Unity) OAU was formed in Addis Ababa. So it took 16 years for the idea to come to fruition. And when PANA was created it died very quickly because of its political slant. And now that it has been commercialised and privatised I hope it becomes a viable organisation"

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