now why this picture I want to introduce
you those of you who were born in the
1990s to a man that perhaps you might
not know but everybody else knows him as
Bob Marley and I love that man behind me
I love him in fact it is my one single
regret that I was not born before 1980
because maybe I might have got a chance
to meet him and I love him because his
songs are so powerful not just because
they’re powerful but they spoke for the
first time about us as black people
right
in fact his songs were so powerful that
a lot of people would refer to them as a
poor-man’s newspaper poor people who
didn’t have access to the news got to
learn about what really was going on
from mr. Bob Marley himself and it’s
really poignant that I’m reflecting on
Bob Marley today 37 years after
Zimbabwe’s independence no guesses why
right in 1980 again for the people who
were born after the nine year after the
1990s in 1980 during the independence
celebrations of Zimbabwe Bob Marley got
on stage and sang a song that is now
famous titled
Zimbabwe who remembers that first line
every man has a right to decide his own
destiny you guys remember that line it’s
it’s a classic line and the reason why
this line is so important I shall get
into write but 37 years later we’re
reflecting again on Zimbabwe’s journey
and with an elegance very rare on this
continent
they have just handled a bloodless coup
and a transfer of power from a person
who was there when Bob Marley first sang
this song to the person who is there
today history will judge his actions in
coming days but you know in the 1980s
there was no social media right and
today there is an elegant a Zimbabwean
is today there’s also a lot of humor
going around on social media does
anybody remember this tweet
and the story won’t even be about
Zimbabwe well a 93 year old Mugabe
played by Forest Whitaker his being this
proposed by the army the real story will
be about a journalist Kate Winslet
flying in from London to cover the coup
and falling in love with guide and
extradite ex Rhodesian badass Leonardo
DiCaprio now I found this hilarious but
even more was this right a little better
Don Cheadle as Mugabe Halle Berry Will
Smith you know and I think there was
another one saying how and all of the
people irrespective of the fact that
there are very many languages ISM Bob we
will be speaking in Swahili Mugabe
included so much as there is elegance in
Zimbabwe story this humour has caused me
to ask some questions about why exactly
are people tweeting about Kate Winslet
and Leonardo DiCaprio at this time it’s
because storytelling storytelling is
technical right but they are asking
themselves a fundamental question that
Bob Marley asked in that line about
destiny about identity what is the
storied history of Zimbabwe going to be
when we look back on this moment what is
their identity going to be about and
that’s very interesting to reflect on
that question look and step back and
look at it from that point of view
because I’m a journalist and journalism
like songs even like tweets is about
storytelling
now journalism is also technical the
mores of the profession this dictate
that we go by three things or do three
things
aspire to do three things inform educate
and entertain now here’s a quick
question to the crowd how many of you
think that Kenyan journalism today is
doing that well you can raise your hands
I’ll wait
that’s exactly the amount of people who
I thought would raise their hands and
you know what even as I am a journalist
I agree with you
journalism today is not doing the job
that it’s supposed to be doing right and
I’ll take just one example from our news
bulletins today in the news politician X
said this about politician Y and we have
political analysts from X camp and why
come to analyze Y politician X said this
about politician Y we put them together
and somewhere in the middle is an
objective story but where is the truth
is the truth there I don’t think so in
our news bulletins we consistently see
this race to the bottom of false
equivocation putting one politician or
one character up against another and
somewhere in the middle there should be
some truth but no true introspection no
true investigation to what actually is
the truth and as a race to the bottom
because literally as we get lower and
lower and low in the news bulletin after
business somewhere especially on the
weekends we slide in somehow very
elegantly into gossip
when did gossip become a part of the
news I ask myself every day now why is
this important I go back to the tenets
of journalism inform educate entertain
but more than that the philosophical
rule that I spoke about journalism is
technical every day we tell stories
every day but what are we doing every
day were taking one block and putting it
on top of another on top of another
putting a roof on top and building an
architecture our identity and this is
especially important as Africans to
reflect on because before 1884 there
might as well have not been any Africa
if you read our history books the
curriculum that our children are
learning before 1884 and he has two
examples from my own life of historical
happenings that informed me that will
serve to demonstrate
point the man on the screen is a man
called William Henry Shepherd an
American at the turn of the century at
the turn of the 19th to 20th century in
fact in January 1900 the New York Times
ran a series of articles about what was
then the Congo Free State previously it
had been thought that King Leopold the
Belgian king who had been given that as
his protectorate was doing a really good
job somehow getting ivory and all these
sorts of things while in fact it was
written into the agreements that he made
making sure that the Africans are well
catered for and cared for but what did
they or did the New York Times write
about it wrote about children and young
women whose hands were cut off at the
wrist
in their hundreds because they were in
delivering their daily rations of rubber
to the companies that were serving King
Leopold he talked about entire villages
of the Baku bar being decimated without
a care by a militia that was known as a
force publique
mercenaries who were gathered from
tribes tribal warriors and different
places to come and work for the
companies that were serving the Belgian
elite it talked about that and for the
first time I sat down after reading this
was done in a book called Kings King
Leopold’s ghost which I recommend after
reading this I felt a sense of anger and
injustice why are they doing this to us
what did we ever do to deserve that kind
of treatment way back then for what
reason I was upset incensed and I felt a
sense of injustice that propelled me
into journalism as well but what I
didn’t know was that that story that
hadn’t formed an identity for myself was
also informing a storied history and
identity for Africans one of victimhood
one of sorrow one of loss one of an
inability to change
our circumstances because someone else
was in charge but then last year I
watched a fascinating series by a
Harvard professor called Henry Louis
Gates Jr it’s called
Africa’s ancient civilizations I’d
recommend that you watch it and perhaps
not for the first time but in great
detail I got to learn about Africa’s
true history about civilizations in
Benin that had wide boulevards wider
than you see in Paris lit by lamps way
back in the 1515 century about them
having ornate art that was so good that
a person who discovered it later on
thought and in fact posited in a book
that it might have been either some
civilizations from the West that came
there and conquered the civilization and
gave them that art or aliens it couldn’t
have been us right I learned about the
king of the Bakongo who had an emissary
to the Pope in the 15th century great
civilizations and of course the great
one that a lot of people know about
Mansa Musa the richest man in living
history who because of his riches while
he was on his way to to a pilgrimage to
Mecca because he’d give out so much gold
it through the prices of gold worldwide
the gold market became went into a
tailspin gold prices crashed because of
how much gold he was giving out on his
way to Mecca that’s a history that I
didn’t know that’s an identity that
wasn’t part of my story and what it did
for me is what it made me stand up
taller it made me walk taller and not
look at my situation and my my own
history and my own destiny has one
that’s informed by a sense of injustice
because you know what injustice does OB
of feeling like you’re constantly under
threat even if you’re fighting you’re
fighting from a place of disadvantage
now how does that inform journalism or
my journalism my colleagues and I
started a company called Africans and
our rule and our goal is to show Africa
as it really is the good the bad the
ugly
everything our editorial policy is the
truth now that sounds like an extremely
high moral objective but I don’t see why
we should shy away from doing that
because for so long
parts of the truth who are hidden from
us and what would the truth do to build
an identity for an African tomorrow
that’s us
but I’m not the only one there’s a mob
on Ghana in South Africa anybody who’s
read about the Guptas will likely know
that I’m a bum Ghana an organization
just like ours by set up by
investigative journalists who are angry
enough to do this were the ones who are
responsible for the Gupta leaks in
Nigeria there’s premium times in Ghana
vasanas are mio Anna’s he who exposed 22
judges for corruption not didn’t just
expose them and write about Amy caught
them on camera now there’s examples of
this in Botswana in different parts of
the of the continent of journalists who
are trying to do this and story by story
build an identity through investigative
journalism mind you that’s based on
truth one that will build an identity
for tomorrow that really is a reflection
of what’s going on today it doesn’t
always have to be positive by the way
it’s positive and it’s negative because
that’s what human beings are binary not
the reason that I say that good
journalism must be paid for is because
our organization I’m a bongani Anna’s
and all of the people across Africa
competing with the same same race to the
bottom you know the same politician a
versus politician B with some gossip
thrown in the middle that competition
and I’m not complaining I just want
people to reflect on that because if
you’re not deliberate about the stories
that you allow to be told today what
does it do to your identity tomorrow and
I posit to you that the journalism that
I am speaking of should be paid for the
journalism by the ama bong-gun is of
this world because it there must be a
premium
for people to be able to get the facts
on the truth that they need much as it
is a social good
now I’ve just looked at it through the
lens of investigative reporting and it
might be a bit self-serving for me to
stand here and talk about that because
I’m a beneficiary of it but wait there’s
more there’s a few other organizations
that I want you to think about who are
so important in the crafting of an
identity that have been forgotten
another question how many of you here
and you can raise your hands
watched one of the last time you watched
anything on KBC if it’s within the last
week or month you can put up your hand
one two three four out of a crowd of
about a hundred right KBC Kenya
Broadcasting Corporation if you’re not
Kenyan maybe Tanzanian it’s TBC South
Africa its s ABC and the other BC BC BC
is all over the continent our public
broadcaster’s have been bastardized
because of interference by a political
elite mostly we’re the first five
stories are today the president went and
cut a ribbon somewhere after that he
turned around and spoke to his deputy
and then he turned around once again and
then he went this way and had lunch and
after the break the exciting afternoon
of guess who our president that’s what
has become the storied history of public
broadcaster’s and yet the public
broadcaster that’s just an example in
the news by the way but the public
broadcaster’s role is really essentially
its to deal with our identity the public
broadcaster in your country does that on
a daily basis through programming
through news through culture through
speaking about communities that you
didn’t know about through threading
through the different differences that
we have and speaking truthfully honestly
and neutrally about what it is our
countries are today what they will be
tomorrow and yet in 1997
kenia Broadcasting Corporation lost
millions in fact billions of shillings
about half a billion shillings when the
licences for televisions that we that
they benefited from was scrapped now
because of mismanagement because of that
political interference it is now sliding
further and further and further into
debt and yet it is the one institution
charged with communicating on a daily
basis the story of our identity so
what’s your role in all of this I’m one
I’m thinking you’re asking your role as
a citizen is aside from looking for the
nuggets in good journalism that I spoke
about earlier to support your public
broadcaster by demanding that your
legislators fund funnel funds into those
public broadcaster’s by demanding that
the best possible content about your
country gets onto the public broadcaster
because it deals with a story telling
the everyday storytelling that will
tomorrow build your identity so do you
want an identity that is hunched over
and burdened by the sins of today what
do you want an identity that can
straighten its back and walk tall into
the future because the stories that were
told today the building blocks that we
did today that we cemented today have
built her tomorrow that you can be proud
of when your children can be proud of I
end again with Bob Marley and Bob Marley
again like I said was an inspirational
figure he is an inspiration to me and he
said one thing that I think goes to the
role that I’m speaking of the role that
I’m or the challenge that I’m throwing
to you when you live for yourself you
live in vain when you live for others
you live a game that is the architecture
that identity speaks to the technical
things that we do today as journalists
inform what we are tomorrow and they
must be about other people and your role
the citizen as a person who sits and
watches is to stand up and live for
others by demanding the best out of your
public broadcaster and looking for the
best possible journalism and supporting
it thank you
[Applause]
you those of you who were born in the
1990s to a man that perhaps you might
not know but everybody else knows him as
Bob Marley and I love that man behind me
I love him in fact it is my one single
regret that I was not born before 1980
because maybe I might have got a chance
to meet him and I love him because his
songs are so powerful not just because
they’re powerful but they spoke for the
first time about us as black people
right
in fact his songs were so powerful that
a lot of people would refer to them as a
poor-man’s newspaper poor people who
didn’t have access to the news got to
learn about what really was going on
from mr. Bob Marley himself and it’s
really poignant that I’m reflecting on
Bob Marley today 37 years after
Zimbabwe’s independence no guesses why
right in 1980 again for the people who
were born after the nine year after the
1990s in 1980 during the independence
celebrations of Zimbabwe Bob Marley got
on stage and sang a song that is now
famous titled
Zimbabwe who remembers that first line
every man has a right to decide his own
destiny you guys remember that line it’s
it’s a classic line and the reason why
this line is so important I shall get
into write but 37 years later we’re
reflecting again on Zimbabwe’s journey
and with an elegance very rare on this
continent
they have just handled a bloodless coup
and a transfer of power from a person
who was there when Bob Marley first sang
this song to the person who is there
today history will judge his actions in
coming days but you know in the 1980s
there was no social media right and
today there is an elegant a Zimbabwean
is today there’s also a lot of humor
going around on social media does
anybody remember this tweet
and the story won’t even be about
Zimbabwe well a 93 year old Mugabe
played by Forest Whitaker his being this
proposed by the army the real story will
be about a journalist Kate Winslet
flying in from London to cover the coup
and falling in love with guide and
extradite ex Rhodesian badass Leonardo
DiCaprio now I found this hilarious but
even more was this right a little better
Don Cheadle as Mugabe Halle Berry Will
Smith you know and I think there was
another one saying how and all of the
people irrespective of the fact that
there are very many languages ISM Bob we
will be speaking in Swahili Mugabe
included so much as there is elegance in
Zimbabwe story this humour has caused me
to ask some questions about why exactly
are people tweeting about Kate Winslet
and Leonardo DiCaprio at this time it’s
because storytelling storytelling is
technical right but they are asking
themselves a fundamental question that
Bob Marley asked in that line about
destiny about identity what is the
storied history of Zimbabwe going to be
when we look back on this moment what is
their identity going to be about and
that’s very interesting to reflect on
that question look and step back and
look at it from that point of view
because I’m a journalist and journalism
like songs even like tweets is about
storytelling
now journalism is also technical the
mores of the profession this dictate
that we go by three things or do three
things
aspire to do three things inform educate
and entertain now here’s a quick
question to the crowd how many of you
think that Kenyan journalism today is
doing that well you can raise your hands
I’ll wait
that’s exactly the amount of people who
I thought would raise their hands and
you know what even as I am a journalist
I agree with you
journalism today is not doing the job
that it’s supposed to be doing right and
I’ll take just one example from our news
bulletins today in the news politician X
said this about politician Y and we have
political analysts from X camp and why
come to analyze Y politician X said this
about politician Y we put them together
and somewhere in the middle is an
objective story but where is the truth
is the truth there I don’t think so in
our news bulletins we consistently see
this race to the bottom of false
equivocation putting one politician or
one character up against another and
somewhere in the middle there should be
some truth but no true introspection no
true investigation to what actually is
the truth and as a race to the bottom
because literally as we get lower and
lower and low in the news bulletin after
business somewhere especially on the
weekends we slide in somehow very
elegantly into gossip
when did gossip become a part of the
news I ask myself every day now why is
this important I go back to the tenets
of journalism inform educate entertain
but more than that the philosophical
rule that I spoke about journalism is
technical every day we tell stories
every day but what are we doing every
day were taking one block and putting it
on top of another on top of another
putting a roof on top and building an
architecture our identity and this is
especially important as Africans to
reflect on because before 1884 there
might as well have not been any Africa
if you read our history books the
curriculum that our children are
learning before 1884 and he has two
examples from my own life of historical
happenings that informed me that will
serve to demonstrate
point the man on the screen is a man
called William Henry Shepherd an
American at the turn of the century at
the turn of the 19th to 20th century in
fact in January 1900 the New York Times
ran a series of articles about what was
then the Congo Free State previously it
had been thought that King Leopold the
Belgian king who had been given that as
his protectorate was doing a really good
job somehow getting ivory and all these
sorts of things while in fact it was
written into the agreements that he made
making sure that the Africans are well
catered for and cared for but what did
they or did the New York Times write
about it wrote about children and young
women whose hands were cut off at the
wrist
in their hundreds because they were in
delivering their daily rations of rubber
to the companies that were serving King
Leopold he talked about entire villages
of the Baku bar being decimated without
a care by a militia that was known as a
force publique
mercenaries who were gathered from
tribes tribal warriors and different
places to come and work for the
companies that were serving the Belgian
elite it talked about that and for the
first time I sat down after reading this
was done in a book called Kings King
Leopold’s ghost which I recommend after
reading this I felt a sense of anger and
injustice why are they doing this to us
what did we ever do to deserve that kind
of treatment way back then for what
reason I was upset incensed and I felt a
sense of injustice that propelled me
into journalism as well but what I
didn’t know was that that story that
hadn’t formed an identity for myself was
also informing a storied history and
identity for Africans one of victimhood
one of sorrow one of loss one of an
inability to change
our circumstances because someone else
was in charge but then last year I
watched a fascinating series by a
Harvard professor called Henry Louis
Gates Jr it’s called
Africa’s ancient civilizations I’d
recommend that you watch it and perhaps
not for the first time but in great
detail I got to learn about Africa’s
true history about civilizations in
Benin that had wide boulevards wider
than you see in Paris lit by lamps way
back in the 1515 century about them
having ornate art that was so good that
a person who discovered it later on
thought and in fact posited in a book
that it might have been either some
civilizations from the West that came
there and conquered the civilization and
gave them that art or aliens it couldn’t
have been us right I learned about the
king of the Bakongo who had an emissary
to the Pope in the 15th century great
civilizations and of course the great
one that a lot of people know about
Mansa Musa the richest man in living
history who because of his riches while
he was on his way to to a pilgrimage to
Mecca because he’d give out so much gold
it through the prices of gold worldwide
the gold market became went into a
tailspin gold prices crashed because of
how much gold he was giving out on his
way to Mecca that’s a history that I
didn’t know that’s an identity that
wasn’t part of my story and what it did
for me is what it made me stand up
taller it made me walk taller and not
look at my situation and my my own
history and my own destiny has one
that’s informed by a sense of injustice
because you know what injustice does OB
of feeling like you’re constantly under
threat even if you’re fighting you’re
fighting from a place of disadvantage
now how does that inform journalism or
my journalism my colleagues and I
started a company called Africans and
our rule and our goal is to show Africa
as it really is the good the bad the
ugly
everything our editorial policy is the
truth now that sounds like an extremely
high moral objective but I don’t see why
we should shy away from doing that
because for so long
parts of the truth who are hidden from
us and what would the truth do to build
an identity for an African tomorrow
that’s us
but I’m not the only one there’s a mob
on Ghana in South Africa anybody who’s
read about the Guptas will likely know
that I’m a bum Ghana an organization
just like ours by set up by
investigative journalists who are angry
enough to do this were the ones who are
responsible for the Gupta leaks in
Nigeria there’s premium times in Ghana
vasanas are mio Anna’s he who exposed 22
judges for corruption not didn’t just
expose them and write about Amy caught
them on camera now there’s examples of
this in Botswana in different parts of
the of the continent of journalists who
are trying to do this and story by story
build an identity through investigative
journalism mind you that’s based on
truth one that will build an identity
for tomorrow that really is a reflection
of what’s going on today it doesn’t
always have to be positive by the way
it’s positive and it’s negative because
that’s what human beings are binary not
the reason that I say that good
journalism must be paid for is because
our organization I’m a bongani Anna’s
and all of the people across Africa
competing with the same same race to the
bottom you know the same politician a
versus politician B with some gossip
thrown in the middle that competition
and I’m not complaining I just want
people to reflect on that because if
you’re not deliberate about the stories
that you allow to be told today what
does it do to your identity tomorrow and
I posit to you that the journalism that
I am speaking of should be paid for the
journalism by the ama bong-gun is of
this world because it there must be a
premium
for people to be able to get the facts
on the truth that they need much as it
is a social good
now I’ve just looked at it through the
lens of investigative reporting and it
might be a bit self-serving for me to
stand here and talk about that because
I’m a beneficiary of it but wait there’s
more there’s a few other organizations
that I want you to think about who are
so important in the crafting of an
identity that have been forgotten
another question how many of you here
and you can raise your hands
watched one of the last time you watched
anything on KBC if it’s within the last
week or month you can put up your hand
one two three four out of a crowd of
about a hundred right KBC Kenya
Broadcasting Corporation if you’re not
Kenyan maybe Tanzanian it’s TBC South
Africa its s ABC and the other BC BC BC
is all over the continent our public
broadcaster’s have been bastardized
because of interference by a political
elite mostly we’re the first five
stories are today the president went and
cut a ribbon somewhere after that he
turned around and spoke to his deputy
and then he turned around once again and
then he went this way and had lunch and
after the break the exciting afternoon
of guess who our president that’s what
has become the storied history of public
broadcaster’s and yet the public
broadcaster that’s just an example in
the news by the way but the public
broadcaster’s role is really essentially
its to deal with our identity the public
broadcaster in your country does that on
a daily basis through programming
through news through culture through
speaking about communities that you
didn’t know about through threading
through the different differences that
we have and speaking truthfully honestly
and neutrally about what it is our
countries are today what they will be
tomorrow and yet in 1997
kenia Broadcasting Corporation lost
millions in fact billions of shillings
about half a billion shillings when the
licences for televisions that we that
they benefited from was scrapped now
because of mismanagement because of that
political interference it is now sliding
further and further and further into
debt and yet it is the one institution
charged with communicating on a daily
basis the story of our identity so
what’s your role in all of this I’m one
I’m thinking you’re asking your role as
a citizen is aside from looking for the
nuggets in good journalism that I spoke
about earlier to support your public
broadcaster by demanding that your
legislators fund funnel funds into those
public broadcaster’s by demanding that
the best possible content about your
country gets onto the public broadcaster
because it deals with a story telling
the everyday storytelling that will
tomorrow build your identity so do you
want an identity that is hunched over
and burdened by the sins of today what
do you want an identity that can
straighten its back and walk tall into
the future because the stories that were
told today the building blocks that we
did today that we cemented today have
built her tomorrow that you can be proud
of when your children can be proud of I
end again with Bob Marley and Bob Marley
again like I said was an inspirational
figure he is an inspiration to me and he
said one thing that I think goes to the
role that I’m speaking of the role that
I’m or the challenge that I’m throwing
to you when you live for yourself you
live in vain when you live for others
you live a game that is the architecture
that identity speaks to the technical
things that we do today as journalists
inform what we are tomorrow and they
must be about other people and your role
the citizen as a person who sits and
watches is to stand up and live for
others by demanding the best out of your
public broadcaster and looking for the
best possible journalism and supporting
it thank you
[Applause]
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