Revolution in West Africa: Senegal, NY Times' Adam Nossiter and Lauren's Post (and how they may all connect)

Adam Nossiter writes from his base in the NY Times West Africa Bureau and if you search for him on the Times' website, it will become evident that, indeed, he is one of the most published news writers in the region charged with a hefty responsibility of conveying "West Africa" to "America."

Unfortunately, I cannot seem to copy these images to the blog (and will see if there are any further technical solutions). However, here are the two photo links (below): the first, comes from Nossiter's September article on a widespread (multiple cities, thousands of people) political revolution to oust Senegalese President Wade who has, unsuccessfully, attempted to change the Senegalese constitution to extend his term beyond its legal limits; the second image comes from a Senegalese teenager's posting about the same revolution. The teenager seems to more effectively, and using one blog page, both cover the vast scope of players (including many youth) in the revolution and provide evidence of this in the photos on her website.

Having lived in Senegal for two years from 2008-2010, I have been receiving since June 2010, first-hand accounts of protests held on the 23rd of each month, from three cities in Senegal, and over ten different neighborhoods. From information from activists, teachers, electricity company employees, musicians, and other professionals, I'd propose that Adam Nossiter has done a public disservice by framing the revolution as a small-scale, musician-led happening.

Certainly, the group of rappers that he featured in his September 2011 article below, continue to play a significant role in supporting the movement (they are called in French, Y'en a Marre) to oust Wade; however, the reports that I am receiving from the region actually point to this expansive scope of professionals and community members (including Y'en a Marre) who have organized massive protests and varied group of protesters, now uniformly referred to as the M23 Movement. The M23 movement, which is named more frequently than Y'en a Marre in Senegalese media (www.seneweb.com), organizes hundreds and sometimes, thousands, in the cities, Dakar, Thies, Bambey, and Kaolack on the 23rd of each month, calling for the President to announce his plans not to run in the February 2012 elections.

This discrepancy, in Nossiter's reportage and images, led me to research commentary on his work before he relocated to the Times West African Bureau. In doing this, I found some more concerning information. Darwin Bondgraham, a Ph.D based in New Orleans and contributer to CounterPunch and Z Magazine, criticizes Nossiter's reporting of post-Katrina New Orleans, as follows: "quite a few of his missives were pretty poorly researched, thought out, and reported."

Bondgraham goes on to provide links to examples of Nosster's reporting as "partially wrong" and "downright omitted." Additionally, News Busters, an organization which "[exposes] and [combats] liberal media bias" included a criticism of Nossiter's coverage of the south's "rejection of Obama" during the last presidential election.

This is quite profound, again, considering that Nossiter is now one of the "number one" sources for you and I to now glean impacting images and read about events from 16 countries in the West African region.

This has also raised a question that relates to the issue Lauren posed about the seemingly repetitively dichotomized system of current U.S. political coverage. Extending that inquiry to world news and specifically, the African continent, the tendency of regional reportage seems to be yet another narrow system of reporting. In this case, it is predictably, disaster (war, famine, dictatorship, unsuccessful political revolution, and, of course, "endemic" poverty) that we hear coming out of Africa. As we rarely hear about Democrats and Republicans' mutual goals to improve society, rarely, do we see or hear about Africa's political, economic and societal innovation and large-scale successes emerging in the region.

If these examples do point to a case of bottom-line story selling, while there may always be attempted media industry gain from dichotomized and unipolar thinking, approaching, photographing and writing about issues, I hope that there are also many idealists in the public and in journalism schools hoping to break out of that mold.

I'm wondering, then, are there courses that help journalists to examine personal experience (where they grew up, how they grew up, what were their communities' various angles on events and issues worldwide, what beliefs do they assume "everyone thinks" when everyone doesn't, what types of news coverage systems became deeply ingrained in their own thought during 7th grade current events classes, what other alternatives exist are there to two-sided political coverage, etc.)? Do editors discuss these issues or receive formal training on this? It seems, if so, we may be able to see and convey more of the world's social, political, cultural and creative variance and similarity, not to mention fresh ideas on old topics and problems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/world/africa/senegal-rappers-emerge-as-political-force.html?ref=adamnossiter

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/19/world/asia/SENEGAL.html

http://www.teendiariesonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/TD_Rugi_M23_3.jpg

http://darwinbondgraham.blogspot.com/2009/04/adam-nossiters-parting-shot.html