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Entrepreneurial journalism in Africa: opportunities, challenges and risks for media in the digital age. Learnings from a conference held by KAS Media Africa in Accra, Ghana, 16-19 September 2018

Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) (2019), 64 pp.
ISBN 978-0-9870243-5-0
" ... there seems to be an understanding that the media is important and that society needs the media. In October 2018, KAS Media Africa, therefore, gathered the CEOs of media houses, publishers and editors-in-chief from 16 different countries, both from Anglophone and Frenchspeaking Africa, in Accra. In the Ghanaian capital, they heard about different models of how to make one’s media enterprise economically stronger. Questions such as whether Africa needs or accepts a paywall featured. Along with several other key sustainability issues, the critical question of how the media can make itself more independent from government advertising – often a vital cog in the media’s sustainability in most parts of Africa – was also debated. There is no one-size-fits-all model of a good media enterprise, but we do encourage the exchange between people who realise that making an online publication in Cape Town is completely different from defending one’s publication in Bamako, Mali against government interference and terrorist threats. Some media in Africa will not survive the gathering storms, while others will make it through diversification, innovation, an exchange with other players in the African market, and with the passion of their publishers." (Foreword)
Contents
1 Times of despair, times of awakening / Francis Mdlongwa, 7
2 Adapt or die in the era of pervasive change / Gwen Lister, 18
3 Nurturing Africa's next generation of journalists / Abaas Mpindi, 24
4 Measuring quality in journalism: how and what for? / Christoph Spurk, 28
5 Why good journalism costs money / Khadija Patel, 32
6 The dilemma of Africa's media / Roukaya Kasenally, 35
7 Becoming independent of state advertising / Joseph Odindo, 39
8 The challenges of sustainability of Nigeria's media / Dapo Olorunyomi, 43
9 How can media survive in a Facebooking economy? / Carol Annang, 47
10 Experiences from Zimbabwe on paywalls / Nigel Mugamu, 50
11 Media in the Sahel / Alexis Kalambry, 53
12 Niger journalists' work covering terrorism / Moussa Aksar, 56
13 A story of fundraising in a time of political and media capture / Styli Charalambous, 59
14 The challenges of managing one’s own radio station / Mike Daka, 62