Uncovering the News — 03/30/21 – 04/05/21

What’s At Stake: The news media applauds Bas­ket­ball Africa League (BAL) which kicks off its inau­gur­al sea­son on May 16 at Kigali World Are­na, news orga­ni­za­tions exam­ine the actions of the French mil­i­tary that result­ed in civil­ian deaths in the nation of Mali, and media out­lets report clash­es and killings in Sudan. Bas­ket­ball Africa League (BAL)…

Uncovering the News — 03/22/21 – 03/29/21

What’s At Stake: African media applaud the effort of a Niger­ian bil­lion­aire who is giv­ing back to the home­land, Tigray con­flict con­tin­ues to grab the head­lines as Eritrea begins a peace effort by with­draw­ing its troops from Ethiopia, and pres­sure mounts on inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions to return loot­ed African arti­facts where they belong.  Niger­ian Bil­lion­aire Pays It…

Uncovering the News — 03/8/21 — 03/22/21

What’s At Stake:  A lack of cov­er­age by non-African media fol­low­ing the pass­ing of a ris­ing polit­i­cal star in Ivory coast, a clear lack of knowl­edge about African musi­cal his­to­ry at the US Gram­mys, and Tan­za­ni­ans put democ­ra­cy on dis­play, with a peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er to a woman. Ivory Coast Mourns A Ris­ing Polit­i­cal Star March…

Headlines Tag Late Tanzanian Hero John Magufuli with Covid-19 Stigma

The news head­lines fol­low­ing the pass­ing of Tan­zan­ian leader John Magu­fuli paint him in a neg­a­tive light. This is not fair.  Magu­fuli became pres­i­dent in 2015 and won reelec­tion to a sec­ond term fol­low­ing the Octo­ber 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions. Tan­za­nia is often hailed as one of the African continent’s most demo­c­ra­t­ic, polit­i­cal­ly sta­ble, and pros­per­ous African nations.…

With Omicron the Stigmatization of Africa Grows

Just as the Omi­cron vari­ant of COVID-19 or coro­n­avirus began spread­ing, the Unit­ed States and oth­er West­ern gov­ern­ments imposed a trav­el ban on 8 South­ern African nations: South Africa, Botswana, Zim­bab­we, Namib­ia, Lesotho, Eswa­ti­ni, Mozam­bique, and Malawi. South Africa, the region’s largest econ­o­my, and where the vari­ant orig­i­nat­ed, suf­fered the most from the ban.  On Nov.…