NBC News Story On Central African Republic Fuels Afro-Pessimism

Cor­re­spon­dent Cyn­thia McFad­den talk­ing with Lester Holt on the set of NBC Night­ly News, March 6, 2019

I stum­bled upon this sto­ry about the chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion in the Cen­tral African Repub­lic (CAR) on TV Newswer, a web­site focused on things that are going on in the media and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions landscape. 

Then I turned to the report­ing that cor­re­spon­dent Cyn­thia McFad­den had pro­duced for NBC News per­tain­ing to her recent trip to the CAR to see what was going on. 

And there is plen­ty of report­ing that McFad­den has done about this on the dif­fer­ent net­works of NBC News. When you add to it the print ver­sions of the sto­ry in affil­i­at­ed media, then we see how far and wide the sto­ry has gone.

What’s the sto­ry­line?  Chaos and inse­cu­ri­ty in the Cen­tral African Republic. 

One of the head­lines pro­duced by McFadden’s team says it all – an African nation in sham­bles.  Noth­ing could be more dev­as­tat­ing than to see and describe a nation that is in sham­bles. The head­line reads as follows. 

“This African nation is now the ‘most dan­ger­ous place in the world for children’

Beset by a rag­ing civ­il war and loom­ing famine, the Cen­tral African Repub­lic is in shambles.” 

An Eye-Open­er about Child Mor­tal­i­ty in the Cen­tral African Republic 

Very true, the CAR is in sham­bles. Civ­il war has tak­en a big toll on the coun­try. Hats off to NBC News for the eye-open­ing look into what is real­ly going on there.

NBC has a duty to report on all the issues tak­ing place in the CAR, includ­ing the extreme star­va­tion of chil­dren and the high lev­els of child mor­tal­i­ty in the coun­try. I did not real­ize the extreme sit­u­a­tion myself except that the coun­try was recov­er­ing fol­low­ing a recent peace agree­ment between rebels and the government.

Also from a jour­nal­is­tic per­spec­tive, it’s a good thing that McFad­den and her team trav­eled to CAR to see first-hand what was tak­ing place in the coun­try and not just talk about it.

The Sto­ry Brings Back Mem­o­ries of 1980’s Famine in Ethiopia

Also when dis­as­ter breaks, we are thank­ful that human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions can go in and help where gov­ern­ments have failed. That is cer­tain­ly a good thing. Plen­ty of orga­ni­za­tions has stepped in to bring aid to dying chil­dren in the CAR. Unit­ed Nations Children’s Emer­gency Fund (UNICEF) cer­tain­ly needs to be praised for its work there.

The pho­tos from the sto­ry bring back mem­o­ries of the star­va­tion of chil­dren in Ethiopia in the 1980s when the coun­try faced famine and a hunger cri­sis fol­low­ing years of drought and con­flict. At the time shock­ing pho­tos of dying chil­dren, with their skele­tal fig­ures, appeared on the cov­ers of Newsweek and Time mag­a­zine, all of which paint­ed pic­tures of a coun­try that was in shambles.

Even while jour­nal­ists have no respon­si­bil­i­ty for what caused the con­flict in the CAR, except to report about it, it could be said that the report­ing adds fuel to the con­tin­ued Afro-pes­simism we’ve become used to. And that per­cep­tion of the CAR, and by exten­sion the African con­ti­nent, as a dead-end and a hope­less place, lingers.

Which is why many will won­der why the sto­ry is even need­ed at this time?

While it is impor­tant to report what’s going on in the CAR — child star­va­tion — the plun­der that has fol­lowed a civ­il war in the coun­try — it must also be said that the CAR is not alone. Will the CAR over­come this? That’s the big question.