Categories: OLD Media Moves

Quartz Africa looking for stories that appeal

Capital New York spoke with Yinka Adegoke, editor of Quartz Africa, about its launch and about how American media cover African business.

Here is an excerpt:

CAPITAL: How will Quartz’s coverage of Africa differ from your competitors, both globally and locally?

ADEGOKE: We’re bringing the Quartz unique style and approach to the continent’s news with a key focus on innovation in all its iterations. So, innovation in technology will be a lot of that, but also innovative thinking and solutions to many of the challenges many African countries face. We’ll also look at how success presents its own difficulties and opportunities. Therein will lie many of the best stories that will appeal to readers locally and globally who are looking for interesting stories to which they can find common ground. Traditionally, the coverage of business and economics news from Africa has focused on energy, commodities and national debt stories. Those will always be important but is not a space Quartz has typically covered.

CAPITAL: Do you think Africa is sufficiently, and accurately, covered by the U.S. media?

ADEGOKE: I think there has been some great coverage from the U.S. media on certain stories that local press in many African countries would struggle to cover, especially when it comes to reporting on their own governments. But on the other hand, there’s been a tendency to persist with an Africa-is-a-country philosophy which we can all be guilty of from time to time. If you only ever show up when there’s a coup, a war, a communicable disease and hardly ever tell stories about some of the other mainstream challenges and opportunities that people in individual countries face, then your coverage ends up being one-dimensional and without nuance.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

Is this the end of CoinDesk as we know it?

Former CoinDesk editorial staffer Michael McSweeney writes about the recent happenings at the cryptocurrency news site, where…

60 mins ago

LinkedIn finance editor Singh departs

Manas Pratap Singh, finance editor for LinkedIn News Europe, has left for a new opportunity…

1 day ago

Washington Post announces start of third newsroom

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following on Friday: Dear All, Over the last…

2 days ago

FT hires Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels

The Financial Times has hired Barbara Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels. She will start…

2 days ago

Deputy tech editor Haselton departs CNBC for The Verge

CNBC.com deputy technology editor Todd Haselton is leaving the news organization for a job at The Verge.…

2 days ago

“Power Lunch” co-anchor Tyler Mathisen is leaving CNBC

Note from CNBC Business News senior vice president Dan Colarusso: After more than 27 years…

2 days ago