Journalism: Foreign journalism: “We have to understand what’s going on”

The Weltreporter, the largest network of freelance, German-speaking foreign correspondents who report from more than 160 countries, is turning 20. You are currently the chairwoman and correspondent in Nairobi. The Internet already existed two decades ago, but digitalization in journalism was still in its infancy. How has your work changed since then?

One is communication. It has become much easier. I used to have to spend days arranging to meet people in Africa, but today it’s much quicker via digital messengers (short message services, ed.). Almost everyone in Africa today has a cell phone or even a smartphone, which is also useful for questions that come up while writing. Digital communication has made a lot of things easier and makes it possible for many more people to have their say than was previously the case. Digital communication is also very helpful when sending contributions to Germany. 20 years ago this was sometimes done by fax – and there were few fax machines. Everything is now done digitally and quickly. The other thing is that people in Africa are now much more aware of what is being reported internationally about their countries. This applies especially to the British BBC and the French Radio France International, but less so to German media because of the language barrier. Some interviewees ask themselves whether it is even worth giving interviews to German media if they cannot read them themselves and the reports do not have much impact in their countries. In any case, when it comes to texts that are published online, one must be aware of the increased responsibility when it comes to protecting sources for critical voices and photos. Because online texts potentially have a much greater reach than a text “just” printed in a newspaper.

Interview

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Bettina Rühl is chairwoman of Weltreporter.net, a network of foreign correspondents. She has been reporting from and about Africa for three decades and has lived in Kenya since 2011. On July 13th the network celebrates its 20th birthday in Berlin. Interested parties are welcome.
Here is the program:

https://weltreporter.net/was-interessiert-uns-die-welt-20-jahre-weltreporter/
And here is the registration link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/was-interessiert-uns-die-welt-20-jahre-weltreporter-tickets-858107762417

Digital communication makes journalistic work easier. But what about the declining budgets and declining circulation of newspapers? Are orders also falling?

In general, yes. I’ve been in the business for a while and certainly have an easier time dealing with long-term customers than newcomers. I’m lucky that I can still produce longer documentaries for broadcast. But there too, many broadcast slots have been canceled due to austerity measures. And when all the posts are online, you have more of a feeling of duplication. In the past, for example, Bayerischer Rundfunk was not particularly interested in whether the same topic was broadcast on Norddeutscher Rundfunk. Now everything is in the media library and more attention is paid to uniqueness. Also because the budgets are capped. It is often better for the employed correspondents to be commissioned with a topic than for us freelancers, because we cost additional money. In my experience, interest in topics is still there. But the willingness to cover the costs of travel, visas and so on is now only limited – if at all – due to shrinking budgets. Permanent correspondents now also have to justify their travel costs more. The overall result is that on-site reporting is becoming less common because it is cheaper and quicker to write a story at a desk. Another problem is publishing concentration. In the past, many journalists traveled with a bellyful of customers. The convenience store has become smaller because large publishers have now swallowed up many newspapers, meaning that out of a potentially large number of buyers, there is often only one publisher left as a buyer.

Which topics were relevant in Kenya 20 years ago and which are they today?

20 years ago there was a sense of optimism in many African countries with the transition to multi-party systems. In Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, who ran for a so-called rainbow coalition, succeeded long-term President Daniel arap Moi, who had been in office since 1978, in 2002. After Kibaki’s controversial re-election in 2007, civil war almost broke out along ethnic lines. The protests that have made international headlines in recent weeks are completely different. Now people took to the streets against President William Ruto’s tax increases. What’s interesting is that ethnicity doesn’t matter in 2024. This time, young, often well-educated people from all ethnic groups are taking to the streets together against the government. The fact that Kenya’s level of education has increased is certainly also a result of the free primary school education reintroduced by Kibaki. The government was forced to respond to the protests, accepted the tax increase and had to agree to discuss the economic situation in the country. Although the demonstrators are young, educated and tech-savvy, many of them are still poor because unemployment is very high among the younger age groups. I would imagine that in the shortness of the reports, many people cannot get an idea of ​​how the face of poverty in Kenya has changed in recent years. Many people probably associate “poverty in Africa” or Kenya with something other than a young, academic elite who are unemployed and therefore still poor. Such differentiations rarely find their way into reporting.

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Now that the protests have subsided, reporting on Kenya is back to almost zero.

Actually. I would hope that continuous foreign reporting would help ensure that the German audience is not so surprised by developments in African countries, but is prepared for them. Recently, the German public often seemed to me to be taken by surprise by what was happening. For example, the Malian government demanded the withdrawal of the UN and thus also the Bundeswehr from Mali. Or about the coup in Niger, the country was considered the last bastion of democracy. About the war in Sudan, the protests in Kenya. Because the media too often only shines a spotlight on the crises. Unfortunately, the pre- and post-reporting that would enable the audience to classify the crises and their origins is far too often missing.

What could and should be the role of foreign reporting – in a world in which there are more and more perspectives on world events and false reports are gaining influence?

From my point of view, foreign reporting is of immense importance right now. It can explain and help understand the perspectives of the “others” in a multipolar world. People would then be less surprised by developments and would not be so perplexed. Of course, the question of financing arises. Given the importance of foreign reporting for understanding global developments, it should be seen as a public good for which new financing models would have to be found. In my opinion, reporting from abroad that recognizes developments there early and brings them to the attention of the local audience is fundamentally important for our democracy. In a globalized world, we need to be able to understand what is going on in the world. The fact that more and more false reports are circulating doesn’t make this any easier. As journalists, we have the classic task and competence of checking claims for truth. This is becoming increasingly important, but we need to learn new tools for it. The current tendency to cut corners on foreign reporting is at the expense of education and therefore democracy.