Isak

On Outsiders, the Arts, and Re-creating Places

Check out my new column today in the Detroit Free Press -- this time looking at the tension in emerging places between its "own" voices and the narratives that "outsiders" put upon them. The column begins:

Every last Saturday of the month, about 40 people gather at the Goethe-Institut in downtown Nairobi to talk about literature. Mostly twenty-something Kenyans, they discussed writing by Judith Hermann and T.S. Eliot at the last gathering, while munching on mandazi and sipping coffee. They also talked about a story submitted for critique by a fellow group-member: a tale about a Rwandan classroom, where elections for class prefect become divided by ethnic tensions.

One woman described this story as “almost NGO fiction” — which incited debate about Kenyan writers who pen poetry about matters like FGM (female genital mutilation) for publication and payment by foreign-based NGOs (non-governmental organizations). When is this selling out? When is this making the most of an opportunity to create space for Kenya’s artistic voices?

Coming from Detroit, a city sensitive to stories told about it, this was interesting. Detroiters will thrill to the “Imported from Detroit” ad campaign and point fingers at “ruin porn” in national media. Like this Kenyan group, Detroiters are painfully trying to balance the stories it has to tell with the stories that “outsiders” expect from it.

Isak Interview #11: Justin Hamm

This interview series features original conversations with folks around the world who are in the thick of literary culture -- the passionate writers, editors, critics, readers, translators, publishers, bloggers, designers, booksellers, poets, performers, journalists, and instructors who are bringing vibrancy and joy to the world of words. More than a rehash of things you have heard familiar names natter on about before, this series will turn its attention beyond the bounds of the usual suspects and the usual issues. This series is committed to a dynamic exploration of ideas, craft, language, literature, and culture with the people who are committing their lives to it. See more interviews here.

 

 

Yesterday I saw this man
in the alfalfa field behind my house
who’d dragged his recliner
and a cooler of cheap beer
out to where the sunset
was at its most magnificent
for no other reason except
to kill with his rifle
whatever he could kill
in comfort utmost

And in an attempt
to resist a snap judgment
I thought again of first impressions
and how in Vasari’s version
Cimabue the painter
couldn’t have guessed
that the dirty shepherd boy
seated like my hunter
in a Tuscan pasture
and sketching sheepshapes on stone
would give the world perspective

 

That's the opening of "Meditations on a Kiss," included in the bracing and beautiful new chapbook Illinois, My Apologies by Justin Hamm (see the complete poem below). I'll be blunt: I loved the book. There is a classical wash infusing this collection of poems, buoyed by melancholy, humor, and haunting landscape. It is a slim book: fifteen poems in all (if you purchase the book, you also get a CD of the poems in audio). The narrative is conjured by reflections glimpsed in shards -- potent and particular images -- which makes the poems' easy cast outward into the expansiveness of myth a dizzying and intoxicating experience.

Justin Hamm grew up in central Illinois, earned his MFA from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and now lives in Missouri, where he offers free writing classes to interested residents in the small town of Mexico. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Nimrod International Journal, The New York Quarterly, Cream City Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, among other publications. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

In our conversation, Justin discussed apologies, what he's learned about landscape from poetry and stories, a particularly under-rated poet, the difficulty of comprehending multi-genre writers, and obsessions. Deliverance also comes up.

Here we go:

Elizabeth Bishop's (Visual) Art

The poet painted, too, and her work is rather interesting. The painting above is called "Olivia," and it is a small watercolor and gouache rendering of a church of weathered wood on Olivia Street in Key West.

William Benton has written a slim book called Exchanging Hats about Elizabeth Bishop's art, as well as this profile in The New York Times Book Review. Here is an excerpt:

Meyer Shapiro, the distinguished art critic, said she “writes poems with a painter’s eye.” From “The Man-Moth” to “The Moose,” the deceptive conventionality of Bishop’s poetry is part of what makes it so original, and even subversive. She was the fascinating outsider at the masked ball in a company of congenial, if often over-bred, bores. She opened and admired their jeweled music boxes and, with the real daring of upward mobility, let herself be mistaken for one of them—by herself even. Hence that half-modest, half-elitist lilt when she protests that her paintings are, “…Not Art—NOT AT ALL.”

Man Booker International Prize: The Finalists, The Drama

Here they are: the finalists for the Man Booker International Prize for "achievement in fiction" -- that is, not achievement for a single book, but "it highlights one writer's overall contribution to fiction on the world stage."

• Wang Anyi
  
• Juan Goytisolo
  
• James Kelman
  
• John le Carré
  
• Amin Maalouf
  
• David Malouf
  
• Dacia Maraini
  
• Rohinton Mistry
  
• Philip Pullman
  
• Marilynne Robinson
  
• Philip Roth
  
• Su Tong
  
• Anne Tyler

Ah, but John le Carré has swiftly withdrawn from the competition. According to a statement released by his literary agency:

I am enormously flattered to be named as a finalist of 2011 Man Booker International Prize. However I do not compete for literary prizes and have therefore asked for my name to be withdrawn.

Says Rick Gekoski, chair of the judges panel:

John le Carré's name will, of course, remain on the list. We are disappointed that he wants to withdraw from further consideration because we are great admirers of his work.

Done and dusted. And really quite amazing. The whole process seems neatly handled, despite headlines screaming about le Carré "igniting controversy" for the prize. I take the author at his word, and don't see any particular damnation of the Man Booker International Prize. Let's move on.

It is a rather fascinating set of finalists, by the way, even setting aside the spy novels of le Carré. I mean, Philip Pullman! Anne Tyler! There is a notable loosening of genre snobbery here, as the work of the science fiction great and the bestselling author of novels located in the Midwest reveals. And then to put them up next to heavyweights like Philip Roth and Marilynne Robinson and Rohinton Mistry -- well, hell. I'm extremely interested to see how this plays out.

As The Literary Saloon points out, despite the award's openness to books translated into English, almost all (seven) the finalists are English originals. Eight of the thirteen are from Europe or the U.S; three finalists each are from the U.K and the U.S., and two are from China. This is actually the first shortlist to have China represented. All three (initially) nominated Americans are winners of the Pulitzer Prize. In all, eight countries are represented. Four of the thirteen finalists are women.

Awarded every two years and worth £6O,OOO, any writer whose work is available in English is eligible (ah, again we see the urgency of translating more of the world's contemporary literature into English). The past winners of the Booker International prize are Albanian novelist and poet Ismail Kadaré, Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, and Canadian writer Alice Munro. This year's winner will be announced at the Sydney Writers' Festival on May 18 and the winner will be celebrated at a ceremony in London on June 28.

Shaun Tan Keeps On Being Awesome

Following closely on his Academy Award for the animated short film that he directed and based on his book The Lost Thing, here comes news that Shaun Tan wins the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world's richest honor for children’s and young adult literature. It is administered by the Swedish Arts Council and was established in 2002 -- the year that Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking books, died.

From the Publisher's Weekly report:

The jury’s citation called Tan, “a masterly visual storyteller, pointing the way ahead to new possibilities for picture books. His pictorial worlds constitute a separate universe where nothing is self-evident and anything is possible. Memories of childhood and adolescence are fixed reference points, but the pictorial narrative is universal and touches everyone, regardless of age. Behind a wealth of minutely detailed pictures, where civilization is criticized and history depicted through symbolism, there is a palpable warmth. People are always present, and Shaun Tan portrays both our searching and our alienation. He combines brilliant, magical narrative skill with deep humanism.”

 I could add more here about why I love the Tan books I've read so far, but no need. That citation pretty much nails it.

Shaun Tan lives and works in Melbourne. He is the author and illustrator of more than twenty books, which have been translated into more than 10 languages, including German, Spanish, Swedish, and Chinese. For his illustrations, he uses lead pencil, Indian ink, colored pencil, painting and various print techniques. In the U.S., the animated version of his Oscar-winning film "The Lost Thing" can be purchased on iTunes.

New Owners for D.C's Politics & Prose

Storied (ha!) Washington D.C. bookshop Politics & Prose has found its buyers. You remember that the hub of ideas, founded by Barbara Meade and Carla Cohen, has thwarted the traditional narrative (double ha!) of indie bookstores by not only continuing to make a profit, but by generating quite a lot of excitement when it went up for sale last year, following the death of Cohen. The new curators of the store are a husband-and-wife team: former Washington Post journalists Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine. While the purchase price is reported to have been about $2 million, "price was not the sole factor in determining the buyer of the store," according to the WaPo. Rather, Graham and Muscatine were chosen because Meade and David Cohen, Carla's widowed husband, "think the couple is uniquely qualified to extend the store’s reputation as a gathering place for ideas and civic discourse."

Graham began working at The Post in 1978, serving as a business reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and Pentagon correspondent. He is the author of two books, including “By His Own Rules,” a biography of Donald Rumsfeld. He is a graduate of Yale and Stanford Business School and comes from a family that made its money in the ice cream cone and plastics industries.

Muscatine, a Rhodes scholar, worked at the Post for 12 years as a reporter and editor before becoming an aide and confidante to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Most recently, she was the State Department’s director of speechwriting. Meade liked the idea of a female owner considering the store had always been run by women.

“We understand that Politics and Prose is much more than a bookstore,” Graham told the store’s staff in a gathering held where novelists, presidents and eggheads alike have signed books. “It is an integral part of the Washington community, a community that Lissa and I have served for much of our careers already as journalists, authors and, in Lissa’s case, a senior government staff member. It is a very special culture here, a culture we want to see survive.”

In a joint statement, Meade and Cohen had this to say:

“Graham and Muscatine have the passion and wisdom to further strengthen Politics & Prose as a community institution that disseminates ideas and stands as a respected and revered public space. We are confident that they have the wherewithal and vision to sustain Politics & Prose for many years.”

After closing for a short transition period, Graham and Muscatine will work full time at the store, under the initial guidance of Meade. I'm curious to see what they'll do with their new and extraordinary opportunity.

Poem: "Signs"

Signs
By Larry Levis

  1.

All night I dreamed of my home,   

of the roads that are so long

and straight they die in the middle—

among the spines of elderly weeds   

on either side, among the dead cats,   

the ants who are all eyes, the suitcase   

thrown open, sprouting failures.

 

   2.

And this evening in the garden   

I find the winter

inside a snail shell, rigid and   

cool, a little stubborn temple,   

its one visitor gone.

 

   3.

If there were messages or signs,

I might hear now a voice tell me   

to walk forever, to ask

the mold for pardon, and one

by one I would hear out my sins,

hear they are not important—that I am   

part of this rain

drumming its long fingers, and   

of the roadside stone refusing   

to blink, and of the coyote

nailed to the fence with its

long grin.

 

And when there are no messages   

the dead lie still—

their hands crossed so strangely   

like knives and forks after supper.

 

   4.

I stay up late listening.

My feet tap the floor,

they begin a tiny dance

which will outlive me.

They turn away from this poem.   

It is almost Spring.

"Signs" appears in The Selected Levis, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Larry Levis (1946-1996) was born in Fresno, California. His first book of poems, Wrecking Crew (1972) won the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum. He published six poetry collections overall (not counting the "selected"); the last of these was published posthumously a year after Levis died of a heart attack at age 49.

Speaking: Geraldine Ferraro

 

"Every time a woman runs, women win. When you throw a pebble into a lake, the ripples move far beyond the point of immediate impact. And those ripples are what you hear constantly...You talk to all of these people who are in positions of power. Women in the Senate. One after the other has come up to me and said, 'The impact of your campaign did make a difference.'

Let me also assure you that when I ran in 1984, if my name were Gerard instead of Geraldine, I would never have gotten the nomination. I mean, I was there because I was a woman. I drew crowds because I was a woman national candidate."

 

-- Geraldine Ferraro, in a 2008 PBS interview. Ferraro was not only the first female candidate on major party presidential ticket; she was also the first Italian-American. The congresswoman and lawyer (one of two in a law class of 179) died Saturday.

 

Image Credit: The Detroit News

Top Five Reasons to Pay for The New York Times

It starts Monday for U.S. readers: after twenty free articles a month, and outside of most linked articles and breaking news, access to The New York Times online will cost $15 a month. (Also, $25 to read on your iPad, and $35 for "all access.") The newspaper spent 14 months planning this transition. I'm hearing a lot of griping about this, so it seems time to make a case for why I, for one, will be putting up and paying up for my digital subscription. I'll even be happy to do it.

Good journalism is expensive.

Add up the cost of reporters and writers. Add up high-quality editors and fact-checkers and copyeditors. And then the cost of logistics: even with substantial budget cuts, the Times has 16 news bureaus in New York state, 11 national bureaus, and 26 foreign bureaus to maintain -- not to mention the costs of translators, correspondents, travel, photographic equipment, database-building, the kind of investigations that take time and commitment, rather than quick headline pivots. Not to mention lawyers and legal resources: the New York Times has a long tradition of courtroom defenses of press freedom, such as the 1971 Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of its paper and The Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers. Or the 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that established the 'actual malice' standard for charges of defamation or libel. More recently, the Times won a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case in federal district court last November, as it pushes the U.S. Treasury Department to name the companies and individuals licensed to conduct business in sanctioned nations, like Iran and North Korea. Oh, and not to mention dealing with its journalists getting kidnapped and assaulted. The list goes on and on. The fact is, if you are a publication that doesn't intend to do a cursory job with reporting, it will cost money ...

Good journalism is worth paying for.

... and it is worth that money. More specifically, as readers, it is worth it for us to pay for good journalism. Now, to be clear, god knows that the Times' has its share of problems, even egregious ones. I have had more than enough head-desk moments -- including with the book review section, which seems to believe that translated literature belongs on its pages about as much as plagiarism does. And the Times seems weirdly out of proportion with coverage of the revolutions and political stand-offs in North Africa and the Middle East right now. And what the hell about that Cleveland, Texas rape article?

The point is, I don't expect my complaints to vanish as I take out my debit card and pitch into the price of its journalism. But a great deal of the paper's work is extraordinary. Think of Sheri Fink's "The Deadly Choices at Memorial." Think of David Barstow's "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand." Think of investigations into the abuse of mentally ill patients in state homes and the White House's illegal wiretapping during the Bush Administration, and toxic ingredients in imported medicine. Think of the on-the-ground coverage of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and drug corruption in Mexico. (All are Pulitzer winners; the paper has won a total of 104 of these prizes so far.) UPDATE: David Kocieniewski's multi-page report, published yesterday, about how and why G.E. paid zero dollars in taxes last year, while collecting a $3.2 billion tax benefit, also deserves notice.

It is not a radical notion that good journalism is worth paying for. This is what people did for the first 145 years of the Times' history. In adapting to the internet, publications started giving away all their information for free, which led to people thinking it should be free (or, in a buzzphrase that grates on me, that the information wants to be free.') I'm all for accessible information -- which is why its important that the Times will make freely available a decent number of articles per month, plus breaking news and articles linked on search engines and social networking. Not to mention the newspapers that are freely available to us at public libraries. But it is eminently reasonable for the Times to hold back the larger wealth of its hard-fought journalism for subscribers. If they don't, they -- and the journalism they produce, that so many other "news" sites poach depend upon for their existence -- will go away. It will. For my part, I care enough about good information in this world to be one of them.

 

You can afford it.

As a freelancer with a variable income who is very serious about getting out of student loan debt as fast as possible, I know that $15/month can add up. Every little bit matters. But -- seriously. Think of what you spend $15/month on. This is the cost of one nice dinner a month. This is three fancy coffee drinks a month. It's 1.5 movie tickets. Three newsstand magazines. A few gallons of fuel. The fact is, yes, you can afford it. Don't hide behind that claim. Either access to the Times' journalism is worth it to you, or it is not. 

 

There are few counterparts to the The New York Times.

This is true for the reasons already mentioned, but also in terms of less visible, but still powerful, behind-the-scenes work; the sources cultivated by the paper's team over years, even decades, is simply not replicable. The kind of training, experience, and expertise of its staff is not paralleled by those who, as Chris Hedges has put it, 'mimic journalism.' The ability to draw out facts from reluctant people, or obtuse bureaucracies, or corrupted organizations, and then to translate that information into clear, thoughtful prose (and images, and graphics), and to do this with overall integrity: well, it's not as common as you might like to think it is.

Nate Silver put it plainly:

Certainly there are some good substitutes: depending on the type of coverage you’re looking for, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or CNN or ESPN.com. Of course, some of these substitutes already charge for digital access, are also having trouble balancing their budgets, or both. But ... there aren’t a lot of substitutes.

A very small number of news outlets account for a very large share of the English-language reporting that is of national or international interest. And with very few exceptions, they are all what we might think of as “traditional” news organizations.

Yup. And another thing: what other publication has a standalone science section, or book review section, that appears alongside its constant domestic and world news coverage? Right.

 

The public good depends upon your participation, not just your consumption.

There's the old saw about journalism as a 'watchdog' on government, and that's true. Just as good government depends upon the participation of citizens, so does good media depend upon the participation -- not just consumption -- of readers (or audiences). This is tied into what I've descriped above as 'good journalism is worth paying for,' and I won't repeat myself. But it is worth underscoring the fact that, like democracy, we can't expect to good journalism to be there for us if we aren't willing to participate ourselves. We can only coast on the work of others for so long. Now, as the Times' own history illustrates, influential news organizations have been known to sit too closely to the sides of political power, and its 'gatekeeper' model is not sufficient -- though necessary -- for the kind of media ecosystem I want to see flourish. But the Times in particular has absolutely been a potent check against corporate fraud and government abuses, at both the highest and local levels, and I am actually afraid of what would happen if it vanished.

There is something called the public good. The common good. Good journalism is fundamental to this. I not only need to be a participant in it; I want to be one.

 

Now, I'm up for healthy discussion about how the Times -- and other journalistic enterprises, whatever the medium -- might venture forward with paid readership. Perhaps the model should be scalable and adaptable. You could pay less per month for access to fewer articles (more than 20, but not 100%), or you pay separately for particular sections (discounted rate for all sections). Maybe more hybrid subscriptions should be available: for now, if you are a home delivery subscriber, you will get free online access to the digital incarnation of the Times, but maybe more adaptations can be imagined.

Or maybe you simply don't feel that subscribing to the Times is worth it, and you'd rather put your support behind a particular magazine or local newspaper that is doing the kind of journalism you admire. I hear that. I understand that.

But what I have no patience for are disputes with the Times experiment that go like this:

"I'll just wait until somebody summarizes their content elsewhere."

"The Times is hopelessly old-fashioned to think that readers should pay for information."

Allow me to irritably parry these arguments.

Putting aside the parasitic implications of the first dispute, aggregation and summariziation are no substitute for actual information. Commentary is not equivalent to facts, or to direct interaction with direct reporting from around the world (and I say this as someone who loves commentary). I'm sure many people will abide by this model of depending upon paraphrase -- as they did in the pre-Internet days too -- but I am decidedly nonplussed about the attitude. It seems like someone who chooses this type of "news" consumption is willingly dooming themselves to a thin feedback loop. I don't trust that, as an individual or communal strategy for informing ourselves.

As for the second dispute, this seems just clueless. First of all, see the journalism is expensive item above. Also, let's admit that models depending on online advertising dollars and classifieds are not able to fill the necessary coffers. More nefarious advertising -- like paid advertisements that appear entirely unmediated as reported news stories -- might bring in money, but are of course despicable. Given this, and given also the undesirable world full of only aggregate content, and it's not too many steps to go before we start realizing that, in fact, having readers pitch in for online content is not only not old-fashioned: it's the future. While it will evolve and improve over time, a world that still cares about good information is a world that will have readers subscribing to online journalism. In a way, then, the Times transition is groundbreaking.

 

Worth noting, before we leave this: this year marks the 160th anniversary of the New York Times' debut. Happy birthday, Gray Lady. And thank you.

Image Credit: Flickr, via user wallyg.

The Day After the Day After

On Sunday evening, Jina and I were winding our way down the roads to Wasanii, for the first gathering of the Women, Action, and the Media events in Nairobi, when it started raining again. We kept up our conversation about crisis reporting as we slogged over muddy banks along the highway construction, pulled our suctioned shoes out of puddles, and, at least in my case, attempted to keep my laptop dry by embracing my backpack in my arms. By the time we claimed a corner on the (covered) porch of Wasanii, and made weak attempts at drying and de-mudding ourselves, I thought it was quite possible that it would be only the two of us talking over Tuskers.

But then Rose came, and then Beatrice, and Robert, and Angelicka, and Wairimu, and everyone who came stayed at least two hours. The next day, at our cafe workshop for advocates that want to better work with media, we quickly became a little crowd squeezed into leather booths circled towards each other. While I'd initially imagined this unfolding more as a series of one-on-one conversations, folks were energized to talk to each other: which is great, because the range of experiences and vantages represented translated into much more meaningful support. That evening, the pattern replicated and expanded: more interesting people both from the media and advocacy worlds, strong panelists, audience members who had questions and disagreements. And then the next day, Tuesday, where we really did have more of a one-on-one workshop session leading up to the evening spot pitch session (where it was fun to see the participants work our advice into their two-minute pitch) and panel; I was surprised to see a large percentage of Tuesday's attendees were brand-new. And they stayed, over tea, coffee, samosas, and mendazi, to trade cards and advice with each other.

In all, there were about 100 attendees spread over five events, coming from Kenya, the U.S., Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Canada, and Germany. Of the evaluations we've received so far, the most commonly cited "takeaways" from the events were:

• I was inspired by meeting intelligent female leaders in both the media and advocacy worlds
• I made new professional contacts
• I feel like I communicated important information to other WAM participants
• I engaged in important conversations about gender and media

The truth is, I had a pretty fabulous time with the eclectic and engaging people who gathered throughout the WAM events. And I'm enormously grateful to the panelists, co-coordinator Jina Moore, Barbara Reich of the Goethe-Insitut Nairobi, and the home team of WAM for making this happen. I have regrets (I forgot my camera for the first two days of the events...poor digital access got downright distracting...we might've better intergrated panelists into other sessions...), but overall, by my own impressions, and the incredible feedback we're getting, it was pretty damn great. See more details about what happened here, participant feedback here, and photos (oh, sorry few) here. See what's happening at WAM in other cities and online this week over here.

And now, back to work.

"They Wanted Journalists to Say 'Wow'"

The initimable Karen Rothmyer -- who, I might boast, is one of our presenters at WAM-Nairobi this coming week -- has an essential piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the intersection of American journalism and NGOs in Africa. In particular, she discusses why NGOs have an interest in inflating problems in Africa, and why journalists consistently and constantly use them as sources. From Rothmyer, I learned about the utter myth that has Kibera constantly cited as "one of the biggest slums in Africa" in media reports ... relying on NGO population estimates that are up to ten times the most recent Kenyan census results. While Africa's poverty rates are falling steadily and faster than expected, and while its economy is one of the world's most rapidly growing, "US journalism continues to portray a continent of unending horrors," Rothmyer writes.

Last June, for example, Time magazine published graphic pictures of a naked woman from Sierra Leone dying in childbirth. Not long after, CNN did a story about two young Kenyan boys whose family is so poor they are forced to work delivering goats to a slaughterhouse for less than a penny per goat. Reinforcing the sense of economic misery, between May and September 2010 the ten most-read US newspapers and magazines carried 245 articles mentioning poverty in Africa, but only five mentioning gross domestic product growth.

Reporters’ attraction to certain kinds of Africa stories has a lot to do with the frames of reference they arrive with. Nineteenth century New York Herald correspondent Henry M. Stanley wrote that he was prepared to find Zanzibar “populated by ignorant blacks, with great thick lips, whose general appearance might be compared to Du Chaillu’s gorillas.” Since the Biafran War, a cause célèbre in the West, helped give rise in the late 1960s to the new field of human rights, Western reporters have closely tracked issues like traditional female circumcision. In the 1980s, a famine in Ethiopia that, in fact, had as much to do with politics as with drought, set a pattern of stories about “starving Africans” that not only hasn’t been abandoned, but continues to grow: according to a 2004 study done by Steven S. Ross, then a Columbia journalism professor, between 1998 and 2002 the number of stories about famine in Africa tripled. In Kenya, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1960s and where I returned to live four years ago, The New York Times description of post-election violence in 2007 as a manifestation of “atavistic” tribalism carried echoes of Stanley and other early Western visitors.

But the main reason for the continued dominance of such negative stereotypes, I have come to believe, may well be the influence of Western-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international aid groups like United Nations agencies. These organizations understandably tend to focus not on what has been accomplished but on convincing people how much remains to be done. As a practical matter, they also need to attract funding. Together, these pressures create incentives to present as gloomy a picture of Africa as possible in order to keep attention and money flowing, and to enlist journalists in disseminating that picture.

Africans themselves readily concede that there continues to be terrible conflict and human suffering on the continent. But what’s lacking, say media observers like Sunny Bindra, a Kenyan management consultant, is context and breadth of coverage so that outsiders can see the continent whole—its potential and successes along with its very real challenges.

Rothmyer's article is adapted from a paper she wrote as part of her Shorenstein fellowship: it is well worth a complete read. Particularly as the African continent gets about as much American media attention in the last four months as it has in the last four years--where echoes of that 'atavistic' tribalism again comes into play in coverage of Libya especially--her argument is critical.