Local solutions, global Impact; I am tired of these cycles, we are moving in circles, the change starts with us. That was part of the 'soetry' (mixture of song and poetry) shared as one of the Keynote addresses during the second edition of The East African Storytelling Festival (EAST Fest). Held in Kampala, Uganda, and hosted by the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) and DW Akademie Media Futures Project, hundreds of researchers, media scholars, students, lecturers, and innovators gathered to discuss and exchange ideas on the future of the media in the region.
Graced by local government representatives, Germany's Ambassador to Uganda, and high-rated journalists such as Larry Madowo from CNN and Nancy Kacungira from BBC, the conference set to understand how we can build an informed and thriving community through journalism.
Making her opening remarks while posing the question, is journalism still good enough, Dean of GSMC Prof. Nancy Booker noted the timeliness of the festival's theme and how it challenges storytellers to tell stories about our continent innovatively.
"Ladies and gentlemen, to build informed communities, to be at the cutting edge of influencing local change and to have a global impact, we need to find unique and innovative solutions. Most importantly, we need to offer more collaborative and dynamic experiences in helping communities address global challenges such as climate change at the local level and not leaving anyone behind," she noted. She's also cognisant that journalists are storytellers and NOT experts in the issues the world is grappling with today but also pointed out that media remains the principal source of news information.
Echoing Prof. Booker's sentiments on the festival's theme, the BBC presenter and news anchor begged to ask a few questions as she gave her Keynote address. Drawing from her thoughts on journalists asking the right questions, she asked, "What problem are we solving? Can we be trusted? Can we be impartial? Sometimes we are stuck in traditions of doing because we haven't had time to step back and think about why and what we're doing. That's why I think today is such a great space for us to sit back and reflect on the questions that could help us shape the kind of journalism that we want to see in our local and global community."
In day two, MiC launched its latest report on media innovation in East Africa. Calling on governments, media compliance institutions and media organisations, the report, 'The State of Innovation and Media Viability in East Africa', analysed eight major variables: newsroom structure and resources, media ownership and business models, organisational capacity, innovation culture, journalism culture, financial trends and results, content quality and COVID-19.
While highlighting some of the findings, DWA Program Director Ms Julia Gering, mentioned that the young generation is actively getting involved in the media sector as more media start-ups begin to spring up. She ties this to the reason for EAST Fest existence and MiC's flagship program, Innovators-In-Residence (IiR), that supports such start-ups through their incubation and acceleration process.
“Generally, the findings on age of the media indicate that the East African media sector is considerably young. Save for the print News Media Organisation that are predominantly 11 years and older, about 60% of TV, radio, digital and multimedia platforms have existed for 10 years or less. Young age of media firms may be a disadvantage in terms of lack of experience and high start-up failure rate, but studies have also shown that young media organisations experiment more with new areas and explore possible new business models without the added hurdle of undoing systems entrenched for decades," said Julia.
Day three was a day to celebrate and support media start-ups and media innovators. Residents within the IiR program, took centre stage and showcased how they did it and what pitfalls they bridged on their journey. They also moderated capacity building sessions on mobile journalism and collaborative life writing workshops. Participants were also taken through mental health in journalism, how to overcome the gender gap in media and challenges of community journalism in East Africa.
With sentiments like informative, engaging, eye-opening, skilled, interactive, timely, myth-buster etc, all indications pointed to a successful EAST Festival 2022. Over 500 participants in three days discussing over 50 topics, it was one to remember. The festival closed in the most African way; dance and music celebrating media viability and innovation in East Africa.