By Enock Sithole
Following last edition’s story on the coverage of the African continent by the country’s media, a recently authored paper by Mpêkè-Ntonga Métila Me Nyodi landed in my inbox. Hereunder, I review his interesting thoughts on the subject.
In a bold inquiry into the role of journalism on the African continent, Nyodi’s paper, titled Reforming African Journalism: Towards a Decolonial and Epistemic Journalism, argues that journalism in Africa remains deeply shaped by colonial legacies and Western epistemologies.
These forces, the author suggests, continue to limit the capacity of African media to express indigenous knowledge, champion African agency and serve local publics. The paper calls for a transformative paradigm, one grounded in “epistemic journalism” and decolonial outlooks, to reposition journalism as a vehicle of African knowledge, dignity and renewal.
Nyodi opens by diagnosing what he terms “colonised African journalism”. He notes that many African newsrooms, media institutions and journalistic frameworks remain inherited from colonial-era models or imposed Western norms.
As a result, African journalism frequently replicates external frames of reference, citing Western sources, privileging foreign voices and treating African voices as secondary or derivative. This dependency is not simply structural but epistemic – the very ways in which knowledge is produced, validated and circulated remain governed by non-African vantage points, he argues.
Moreover, this form of journalism contributes to what Nyodi calls the Condition Existentielle des Africains et Descendants Africains (CEADA), an existential condition of alienation, epistemic subordination and narrative dependency for Africans and their descendants.
Journalism that does not challenge these dynamics ends up reinforcing them: by privileging global North narratives or treating African contexts as mere recipients of externally defined information rather than active producers of knowledge.
Towards a decolonial and epistemic journalism
In response to this diagnosis, Nyodi proposes a twin‐axis reform to journalism that is both decolonial, i.e., actively disrupting colonial epistemic dominance, and epistemic, i.e., rooted in African knowledge systems, values and communities. This means moving beyond simply diversifying byline or ownership. Instead, the reform targets foundational questions of who defines news, which knowledge counts, which languages and culture shape storytelling, and whether African publics are agents, not just audiences.
To operationalise this, Nyodi introduces the notion of a “Coafrwological deontology” of journalism (derived from his broader project of “Coafrwology”, a proposed pan-African epistemic science). The proposed deontology rests on four core pillars: Restoration, Justice, Order and Renaissance.
- Restoration calls on journalism to recover African memory, indigenous knowledge and historical dignity rather than perpetuate narratives of deficit or external dependency.
- Justice emphasises reporting that centres liberation, equality, Pan-African solidarity and media’s role in social transformation.
- Order refers to coherent, responsible media practices, rooted not in sensationalism or external market logics but in community accountability and collective well-being.
- Renaissance positions journalism as part of a broader African renewal — not just in infrastructure or technology, but in knowledge, culture, self-understanding and global positioning.
Key findings and critical analyses
Some of the key findings from Nyodi’s analysis include:
- African newsrooms frequently favour imported frames of significance: stories are told from global North vantage points, languages and styles, and African media continue to reference Western agencies as primary sources.
- The underlying epistemic model privileges Western knowledge systems, marginalising African ones — resulting in shallow, externally-imposed narratives about Africa rather than narratives grounded in local context, histories and voices.
- There is a significant mismatch between journalism’s potential — as a tool of public deliberation, agency and knowledge — and how it currently operates within African societies: too often it is reactive, externally-defined, and lacks local epistemic grounding.
- While neoliberal market pressures, digital disruption and global media conglomeration have complexified journalism globally, in Africa they often exacerbate the colonial legacy by importing models rather than fostering local innovation.
In the analysis, Nyodi is adept at linking these operational and epistemic issues: the structure of media ownership, the language of news, the sources used, and the public served — these are not incidental but foundational to whether journalism can be decolonial.
Recommendations for reform
Nyodi’s reform agenda offers several recommendations:
- Journalism education and training need to shift rather than simply teaching universal Western norms, curricula must engage African epistemologies, context-specific journalism ethics and decolonial media histories.
- Media organisations should embed African knowledge systems, languages, and cultural frameworks into journalism practices, storytelling, sourcing and sourcing networks.
- Newsrooms should cultivate autonomy from external dependency (foreign agencies, foreign donor agendas, global market logic) and instead prioritise local publics, local knowledge production and African‐centred news agendas.
- Media policy and governance frameworks must account for epistemic justice: who owns media, whose voices are amplified, whose knowledge counts.
- African journalism must reclaim agency: not just reporting on Africa but conceptualising Africa, narrating Africa, defining significance from within. In doing so, media can contribute to a broader “African renaissance” — knowledge, culture, self-representation and global repositioning.
Nyodi’s paper is both timely and ambitious in a media environment where Africa is often portrayed through deficit, dependency, crisis or spectacle. It offers a critical mirror to African journalism’s inherited trajectories and presents an alternative vision, one where journalism is not merely a tool of transmission but of transformation.
It reminds us that journalism is not just about the techniques of writing, editing, platforms, but about epistemology whose knowledge, whose lens, whose story is being told.
Importantly, the paper acknowledges the complexity that reform isn’t about rejecting all global interaction or standards, but about reframing the terms, elevating African epistemic agency, recalibrating news culture and shifting power.
For media scholars, practitioners and policymakers across Africa and beyond, these insights provide both challenge and opportunity.
Nyodi’s thoughts are a clarion call to re-think journalism at its roots to disrupt colonial epistemologies, and to envision a journalism that serves African publics, grounded in African knowledge, languages and futures.
Image by Safari Consoler via Pexels