Ifrira Media Kviien Vol. 1 No. I I')H<> 
© Afiican i.ouncil on (jimti|iiiucuti<ill l.'lucation. 
Book Review 
Title: Reporting Africa: A Manual for Reporters in Africa 
Editors: Don Rowlands and Hugh Lewin 
Publishers: Thomson Foundation U.K. and Friedrich Nauman Foundation, 
Zimbabwe 
Date: 1985 
Reviewer: Ikechukwu E. Nwosu. 
The cover title of this book reminds one of Olav Stokke's (ed.) book with 
the same title. But this book is different in several ways. In the first place, it 
is a manual. As edited books, the two books have various contributors. But 
this book by Rowlands and Lewin made a more conscious effort to publish 
writings by African authors. The new "Reporting Africa has more to 
do with the day-to-day problems and practices of the African reporter. It 
is not focused on how Africa is reported or portrayed by the media, but on 
how to report the news in the African context. It is a book for the working 
journalist. Its practical orientation is unquestionable. It is a book "by and 
for African journalists." In this age of global information disparity when 
Africans are beginning to sing a song of self-reliance or self-determination, 
this contribution to Journalism in Africa is a welcome one. 
One lapse that nearly mars the commendable efforts of all contributors 
to this work is the excessive overlapping or repetition of the same ideas by 
different authors in the book. Don Rowlands tries to explain this weakness 
away in an introductory remark when he states: "But none of these authors 
had a chance to see in advance what his or her collegues was writing, there 
are overlaps and some conflicting advice. This is not necessarily a 
drawback: there are many paths to the mountain-top". 
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To a certain extent we would agree with this editor's apologia, but 
greater coordination or collaborative work on the editors and contributors 
would have removed this weakness or at least reduced it to a minimum. A 
meeting of all the contributors to the book would have helped. Tighter, 
critical and cooperative editing by the editors would have also 
assisted the process. Efforts used in discussing the same topics, or issues in 
the overlapping areas would have been used for writing other things that 
are missing in the work. These conflicting overlaps, in addition can confuse 
the beginning reporter or less critical reporter trying to learn from this book 
the secrets of goods news reporting in the African context. 
Then there is this complete absence of a theoretical framework in the 
book. This would, have helped in many ways. Resting the book solidly on 
one of the well-known theoretical perspectives like the sociology of News or 
Newsmaking perspectives,populariseci byscholars likeBernardRoschco and 
Gaye Tuckman would have been an advantage. It would have helped us to 
understand and appreciate more the ideas and recommendations of the 
contributors "to the book - especially if sufficient effort was made to 
contextualise whatever theoretical perspective or model that was adopted. 
True, this is a manual, but a manual is not necessarily a-theoretical, because 
theory and practice are two sides of the same coin. 
However, the point must be made that the above critical points and 
others that can be made do not destroy the utility and admirable 
innovative approach adopted in this book's effort to chart a hitherto 
uncharted "horizon - how best to report the news in Africa as seen by most 
African journalists and experts. 
The book opens with an attempt to define news by the Editor ot Media 
Development,.Michael Traber. He listsc and discusses the well-known 
news values in conventional journalism, and offers alternative news 
criteria or values for today's reporter. His P+E+RI formula for determining 
what is news is quite interesting (P = People, E = Events and RI = Readers 
Interest). 
Francis Kasoma of the University of Zambia focuses on the Basic Skills 
of News Writing in the next chapter. Even though the reader is bored by the 
unnecessary repetition of the news values reviewed by Traber in chapter 
One, aspects of this chapter that focused directly on actual news writing 
styles, are very well done. The abundant African examples he gave, 
exceedingly strengthens his contribution. 
Kasoma's chapter flows in smoothly to Peter Mwaura's chapter on News 
Writing II which deals with the news story. This chapter is also well 
written, but less time would have been spent on the well-known 5Ws and H 
model of news writing. His call for effective communication in the news 
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story whether in radio, newspaper or news ageac) reporting is quu 
order. 
Paul Ansah, Director of the School of Communication Studies, 
. '.'. . sity of Ghana, follows up with a chapter on news sources. He handles 
quite masterly the reporter's environment, contacts, source protection and 
dealing with sources, as well as how to use non-human sources of news like 
reference works. This chapter will certainly benefit from a detailed 
discussion of the problems of access to these sources which the African 
reporter must face. 
T. Nelson William of Liberia examines interviewing as a reportorial 
genre and tool for news gathering. His contribution is a good how-to-do-it 
piece on journalistic interviewing and a good assessment of the problems 
the reporter would face in the African context in trying to use interviewing 
to gather news. Nelson's piece is followed immediately by Edward 
Mamutse's (Zimbabwe) contribution, which examines the importance of 
district or rural coverage. Moving away from the rural areas Francis 
Kasoma,in his second contribution,provides an insight into the problems, 
prospects and techniques for successful reporting of the towns or urban 
areas in Africa. 
Moving into the legalities of news reporting, Tim Nyahunzui of the 
Zimbabwe Institute of Mass Communication and his associate Geoff Feltoe 
of the University of Zimbabwe Faculty of Law analyse systematically the 
various aspects of the law and the court which a reporter must learn how to 
work with. This is, no doubt, one of the most useful contributions in this 
book. Court reporting is still a very underdeveloped area in the African 
news business. This is followed by the chapter on how to report economic 
and financial matters by Ruth Weiss, an area that is even more 
underdeveloped than court reporting. She makes it sound so simple and 
interesting that African reporters who have been shying away from this area 
of news reporting might become interested after reading her contribution. 
Then comes the chapter on feature and magazine writing by Juby Mayet 
which, in the view of this reviewer, does not seem to belong to this book, 
even though it is excellently written and instructive. It seems rather 
presumptious and unfair to try to dismiss features and magazine writing (a 
whole class of journalism by itself) in one chapter of a news reporting 
manual. The chapter on Women Journalism, by Elizabeth Ohene, also 
seems to be an appendage or visitor to the book which is essentially a 
practical reporting manual. For sure it has some message and utility value 
for reporters and reporting: but most other even more directly relevant 
topics or issues to news reporting could have qualified by the same token 
rendering the book impotent as a reporters manual or driving it away from 
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its focus. Her advice on how to handle the women's page,fashionand beauty, 
advice columns and peculiar women journalists problems are quite 
interesting and useful. But they seem more suited in a text book on general 
journalism or newspaper publishing—not a news reporting manual. 
Gerald Siwela's contribution on news writing for radio and television is 
well handled. His point that news is news no matter in which media it finds 
itself is well made and served as a good foundation on which his eventual 
examination of the various peculiarities of radio/television news writing 
rests. This is another very good how-to-do-it piece and we dare say that 
this book would not have been complete without this chapter. Another 
quite useful but rather short chapter on news agency journalism by Paul 
Fauvet follows this electronic news chapter. Drawing from his rich 
experience and the literature on this subject, the author takes the reader 
through an insightful explanation of the vital differences between writing 
for a news agency and other media, the special problems in news agency 
reporting, the'role of the Non-Aligned Pool, PANA; while offering many 
practical examples. 
Reporting Africa ends well with a quite instructive chapter on the use 
of pictures in news reporting by Mohamed Amin of Camerapix Nairobi. This 
is a well-illustrated contribution that carries the useful advice that one 
does not have to be a great photographer to take good news pictures. 
Systematically, easily and in a practical manner, the author lets the reader 
into the secrets of taking good news pictures, effective use of the camera, 
picture research, caption writing, and maintaining good taste in news 
photography. This is a chapter that can stand the test of time anywhere. 
All in all then, this book is a mouthful on journalistic news reporting for 
various mass media in the African context. With fourteen chapters and a 
powerful foreword by the Hon. Dr. N.M. Shamuyarira, the Zimbabwean 
Minister of Information, Posts and Telecommunications, it is a text that is 
highly recommended for all schools of Journalism and Communication 
institutions in and outside Africa.* 
'Reporting Africa is available through the African Council on Communication Education. 
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