Communiqué 39: Notes from my first year as Rest of World’s Africa Editor

Plus my thoughts about the future of Africa’s tech media.

It’s been a year since I last sent an edition of this newsletter. A year (and two months) since I joined Rest of World as the Africa Editor. I needed time to settle into my role, and I hope you can understand. I’m glad that I can write this newsletter again. So, today, I want to take some time to share a few lessons I’ve learned and trends I’ve noticed in the last year about Africa’s tech media and how it covers the ecosystem. 

I also want to share some thoughts about its evolution. I’ve observed events, had conversations with several people, and spent time thinking about all these. I’m eager to know what you think as well.

Let’s dig in.

1. There’s a clear hunger for focused African coverage within a global context

Rest of World was founded a little over three years ago with a simple premise: to cover stories about the impact of technology outside the Western bubble. For many years, regions like Africa have not received sufficient and proper tech coverage in international media. In some cases, the coverage has been primarily local and siloed—very rarely does anyone sit down to connect the dots between a tech story in Africa and its potential global relevance. In many ways, Rest of World’s coverage of the continent fills that gap.

Indigenous tech publications have, until now, done well to explore the nitty gritty of their ecosystems. However, very few approach this from a global perspective, and it is understandable. The market is still nascent in the grand scheme of things. But our work at Rest of World proves that there’s an opportunity for this type of global coverage.

In the last 12 months, for instance, we have published stories about China’s role in the development of Nigeria’s lithium, AI’s impact on Kenya’s essay-for-hire industry, Nigerian filmmakers skipping Netflix for YouTube, ride-hailing unions struggling for traction in eight African countries, Worldcoin’s chaotic launch in Kenya, Senegalese farmers using WhatsApp voice notes to break language barriers, and Sudanese startups building tech solutions to help citizens get through the war. We also interviewed OpenAI’s Sam Altman during his visit to Lagos, Nigeria.

All this has had a tremendous effect. Our Africa stories are consistently among the most-read stories every month. A significant segment of our audience lives outside the continent, while the other segment is spread across it. These are still early days, but there’s enough to indicate a hunger for focused and globally contextualized African tech coverage.

2. We need more talent and training in tech journalism

Two of the most important things I have to do in my role are to connect with already established journalists on the continent and find new talent, allowing them to display their ability to a global audience. So far, so good. But there’s still much more work to do, especially within the tech media.

Each industry has its peculiarities, but there are also several similarities. Tech, like energy, politics, and financial markets, requires journalists to be deeply knowledgeable in addition to their reporting skills. The African tech media industry, as we know it, is still nascent. It’s barely 12 years old, and many of its pioneers have long moved on to other ventures. Those who stay long enough to grow their expertise and skills often pivot into more financially rewarding roles outside of the media. Thus, talent turnover is high. This talent hemorrhage creates gaps that need to be filled better and faster, and it requires constantly finding and training new tech journalists. It also requires the tech media itself to be able to compete for talent with the industry it covers. (I’ve written about this a few times, here and here.)

Here are some ideas to solve this problem:

• Training programs and fellowships dedicated to tech journalism in Africa. I admire journalists who cover development, climate change, and other social issues. They don’t lack training resources and investment—whether this is from private enterprises, non-profit foundations, or non-governmental organizations. African tech journalism needs this more than it needs the invites to events and conferences. The MTN Group’s Media Innovation Programme, in partnership with Pan Atlantic University, is a good start. But there has to be more.

• Tech journalists also need to mingle and interface more often with colleagues from other more established industries like politics and finance. They need to do better to understand the intricacies of the ecosystem they cover. There’s a level of individual responsibility required here — the journalist has to recognize their shortcomings and make the effort to remedy them. But there should also be a deliberate industry-driven effort to ensure journalists have a deeper understanding of the people and companies they cover.

3. Africa’s tech journalism is evolving, but the ecosystem is struggling to adapt

Two years ago, the most significant criticism of African tech journalism was that it focused too much on startup fundraising stories. A few people went as far as calling the coverage dull and unimaginative. Two years later, the biggest criticism now is that coverage is too negative. Many believe that journalists are hunting for stories that paint founders in a bad light. But any objective observer will tell you that this is simply a sign of the times.

When the conversation about the quality of tech coverage began rising to the surface two years ago, I wrote in this newsletter:

“What we see with the nature of tech’s most prominent stories reflects the industry’s evolution and what people pay the most attention to (whether they admit it or not, data doesn’t lie).”

About a decade or so ago, tech journalism revolved around startup and founder profiles. A few years later (circa 2018), it became about the attention startups got from local and foreign investors. Now that there is a global tech downturn, the stories are reflecting that reality. This evolution is happening publicly, and many people do not know how to handle it. This is the reason for the seeming growing tension between the ecosystem and the publications that cover it.

But what we’re really witnessing is another chapter in a developing story, and it will pass. There are no bigger or deeper lessons to learn here. This is just history playing out and an industry growing up before our eyes.

4. We need more collaboration across countries and tech publications

Africa’s media market is small compared to other developing economies like LatAm and South Asia. I have seen stories in local publications that would have been better reported as part of a collaboration with media in other countries or journalists in other industries. I believe this should be the next stage of African tech media’s evolution.

Local tech publications need to start thinking more deeply about how they can collaborate and on what they can collaborate. Techpoint and TechCabal’s coverage of the 2.9 billion naira ($3.2 million) hack of customer accounts on Flutterwave’s network is a good example. Techpoint broke the story on March 5, 2023, before TechCabal published a follow-up report five days later. I understand the demands of a fast news cycle and how quickly things can become stale, so both publications were right to publish the stories as they did. But in hindsight, I can see how much more impactful a more detailed story, perhaps even a joint investigation, that is the product of combined newsroom efforts and resources could be. I believe this is the difference between stories that section of the internet talks about and stories that the whole country (or continent) pays attention to.

However, for these collaborations to happen, the publications have to see themselves more as partners and less as competitors. Is this possible? Can media organizations look beyond the present and think further into the future? Answering this question is where the bulk of the work is.

5. Tech media is more than journalism

Very often, when people talk about the media, what they’re really referring to is journalism. But they aren’t the same thing. The latter is a subset of the former, and I want to focus on that differentiation briefly.

When I think about Africa’s tech media, I think beyond journalistic publications. I think about all the creator-led platforms. I think about podcasts, newsletters, and YouTube channels.

My favorite tech podcast, The Open Africa Podcast, is hosted by three ecosystem operators with no journalistic ties, and they consistently produce great commentary. Andile Masuku’s African Tech Roundup made podcasting cool before most people even knew what it was. Peace Itimi’s documentary about Nigeria’s tech ecosystem is one of the most comprehensive historical overviews of the industry around. Fatu Ogwuche’s Backstories YouTube series has brought more flavor and style to tech interviews than several others have managed to. Justin Norman’s The Flip Africa podcast and newsletter have been as insightful for as long as I’ve known them. Fisayo Fosudo’s YouTube channel has blended tech with lifestyle in a way that no one else has. There’s an army of other examples—people who have no journalistic backgrounds or training but have significant audiences and are all a part of the tech media. They are fundamental building blocks of the industry.

Conclusion

I’ve spent 12 months thinking a lot about the state and future of Africa’s tech media – chief among my concerns is what we can do to improve the quality of our talent, coverage, and conversations, and create better outcomes.

What is lacking, and how can we change that? What does better look like, and how can we achieve it? What resources do we need? Who should we be talking to? Who and what should we be paying attention to?

These questions keep me up at night. Perhaps we need to talk about these things more openly and constructively (which probably eliminates Twitter [or X, meh!] as an option). Or maybe we need a series of symposiums. I’d love to hear your thoughts and read your comments.